All I had wanted out of this evening was dinner that didn't taste like purple Froot Loops.

I should have shut my mouth, stayed home, and ate the Froot Loops.

The blast—could I even call it a blast? It felt more like the onset of the apocalypse— knocked my feet out from under me. Which way was up? Down? Both directions suddenly appeared the same and also completely irrelevant as I soared backward across the store. Maybe it was a good thing I was dressed like a human marshmallow to ward off the cold. Layers of padding were the only way to survive what was sure to be a very ungraceful landing.

The beverage cooler on the back wall was kind enough to put a halt to my momentum, and as it did I had the fleeting thought of: Well, at least it wasn't the hot dog cart. The glass door shattered. Bottles fell from shelves, staining the tile floor with rivers of Orange Crush and Coca-Cola. A searing pain formed in the center of my palm, and I yanked a shard of glass from my skin. Somewhere beside me, I heard Connor shouting.

A bell trilled, unceasing in my head. The room went black. Oh, God. Please don't let me be dead. Rylan will kill me if I'm dead.

The floor rumbled; the ceiling shook. I scrambled blindly across the tile, cans raining down, pelting my shoulders and my back. Something squealed, the nails on a chalkboard screech of metal tearing like paper, and my breath was stolen as the weight of ten elephants pinned me to the ground.

Maybe the hot dog cart got its revenge after all.

Warm, sticky liquid clung to my cheek. If it wasn't Ketchup, then it was certainly blood. Neither were good options.

The building's shaking finally stopped, but the ringing in my ears wouldn't. A piercing buzz, like a nest of hornets in my brain. Suddenly the sound shifted, lowered and warped, like voices speaking underwater. Every noise, each of my breaths echoed, reverberating through my skull. The world's most unpleasant symphony.

"Help! Connor!" I braced myself, attempting to wriggle out of the wreckage. A metal shelf hung over me like a cage, and a can of baked beans rolled in front of my nose. "Help!" I tried not to panic, but of course, when you try not to do something, you exponentially increase your desire to do it. And so I panicked.

"Okay, Abby, you can do it. You can do it," I coaxed myself, scooting forward to free my shoulders from the shelf's clutches. "Connor? Are you there?"

"Mmph," a voice answered from somewhere to my right.

"Are you okay?"

"Well, I think I have some blood in my eye, but other than that, I'm fantastic. Oh, yep. Yeah, that's definitely blood."

My eyes finally adjusted enough to see some of the damage. Shelves had fallen. The slushie machine had exploded, soaking the wall above it in red and blue ice. A dusty light bulb swung from the ceiling, flickering. I couldn't see the cashier. The store was empty except for—

Crunch!

My head twisted to the side. My stomach leapt. We weren't alone after all.

"Hey! Hey, over here!"

"Abby, be quiet," Connor snapped.

"Why?"

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

"That's why."

Broken glass skidded across the tile just before a pair of boots stopped inches from my nose. I craned my neck, shifting the shelf another inch to look up, taking in everything from the newcomer's black boots, to his black pants, his gloves, his sleek black mask.

"Oh. Hey, stranger," I greeted Rylan. "Nice tights."

"Thanks." His mouth hung open a little while he took in our precarious position. "I've been told black is slimming."

"You guys are gross," Connor grumbled.

Rylan's lips pursed as he nodded to the shelf across my back. "That doesn't look comfortable."

"You think?"

Rylan wrenched away the shelf with ease and pulled me to my feet before moving to help Connor. He pointed at my brother's face. "You're bleeding, you know."

"Thank you, Captain Clarity." He dodged Rylan's attempt to touch him. "Heal me and you die. I don't trust you. You might accidentally blow up my face instead."

"If I had that power, don't you think I would've used it already?"

Connor ignored him, examining my face instead. I had a gash on my cheekbone, a few cuts in my hands, and my spine felt like someone was trying to saw it in half, but other than that I was in one piece.

"Scale of one to ten?" Rylan asked, smearing the blood on my cheek with his rough gloves.

"You tell me." I hated when he took my pain as his own, but it didn't appear like we were in imminent danger... anymore. One look in his eyes was enough to tell me he had the strength.

"Solid seven-point-five." He wobbled against one of the few shelves that were left standing to wait out his healing hangover. I leaned against him, brushing tiny pieces of glittering glass from my jeans.

Connor made a beeline for the register, studying a giant crater where the cashier last stood. Oh no. If he was dead—

But he wasn't. The man lay unconscious, sporting a nifty gash across his forehead, but still breathing.

"What happened?" Rylan managed to steady himself and hopped over the crumbled counter. He pressed two fingers against the cashier's neck.

"Shouldn't you know?" Connor eyed Rylan's Iron Phantom suit. I couldn't tell if his lip was curling because he was in pain from the explosion, or if he was just trying not to gag. "You're the superhero. Speaking of that, please work on your timing. You were dreadfully late."

"Dreadfully," Rylan repeated, not glancing up. "Word of the day?"

"Shut it."

As Rylan checked the cashier for serious injuries, I examined the "security" camera hanging by a single wire in the corner. It wasn't high tech by any means. It looked like someone had mounted an ancient video camera onto the wall with some tape and a coat hanger and called it a day. Smoke spiraled out of a hole where the lens used to be—completely fried.

I let the camera fall from my fingers, puzzled. With the footage destroyed, there would be no evidence of the explosion. Nothing for the police or supers to examine. No clue as to what—or who—might have caused it.

Rylan came up beside me, pulling on the back of his mask. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"This seems awfully convenient."

"Exactly. What happened before the explosion? Anything weird?"

Connor cleared his throat. He was picking through packs of chewing gum in a heap on the floor by the register. He pocketed half a dozen of them, grinning in triumph, then tossed some money into the hole where the register had been before it blew up.

"There was one guy in here," he said. "One guy who bought cigarettes and magazines and did not, unfortunately, rob the store at gunpoint."

Rylan looked at me quizzically. I shook my head.

"Do you think it was him?" I asked my brother.

Connor ripped open a pack of gum and popped two sticks in his mouth. "I don't know how he would have managed it. If he planted a bomb and it detonated at such close range, we would be swimming with the fishes. Which isn't a Fish Boy pun, just a fact."

I traced the outline of a crack in the floor with my shoe. Electrical malfunction, then? Earthquake?

"A window shattered," I remembered finally. "Like the attack came from outside."

"That guy was long gone by then."

"Not if he was hiding somewhere and waiting," Rylan said. "Do either of you remember what he looked like?"

"Big." Connor scrunched up his face, trying to picture him. "Tall, no neck, football-shaped head."

I snorted. "He wasn't a cartoon character, Connor."

"I'm being honest! That's what he looked like!"

The three of us froze as sirens started ringing out somewhere across the city.

"Well, as fun as this has been, we can debate it all later," Rylan said, heaving the cashier's body over his shoulder. The man moaned but stayed still. "I'm taking this guy to a hospital. Give me two minutes."

Rylan reappeared exactly three minutes later, as Connor was kind enough to point out. I was still looking at the broken video camera when he approached me, but I wasn't any closer to figuring out what happened now than I was before. I took out my phone—the screen was cracked in a jagged line, but it still worked—and took a few photos, just in case we could use them somewhere down the line.

The sirens grew steadily louder.

"Ready?" Rylan held out his hand.

"Sure. Connor?"

Connor glanced at Rylan's left hand that was tangled with mine, then at Rylan's right hand, which was extended toward him. "Nope."

"Connor. Seriously?"

"I don't want to touch him."

"For the love of everything that's super." With a vicious tug on his arm, Rylan forced Connor toward us. The sirens sounded like they were right outside the door. "I need to teleport you back to your house, genius. Or did you spontaneously grow wings and learn to fly again?"

"Shut up." Narrowing his eyes, Connor grabbed Rylan's hand, taking care to violently squeeze his fingers. Much to my brother's annoyance, Rylan didn't make any indication that Connor had hurt him. "I never had freaking wings."

*******

As soon as we made it home, Connor wrenched his hand out of Rylan's grip and flopped down on the couch, channel surfing with little interest. I stripped off my snow-soaked jacket and gloves, leaving them in a heap by the front door, and dug a thick wool blanket out of the closet before cocooning myself in it. I could feel the anger radiating off my brother, smothering all of us, though I wasn't exactly sure what he was mad about. He had a decent amount of options to choose from. Rylan removed his mask and sat on the arm of the chair beside me, his eyebrows pulled together in thought.

The grandfather clock in the hall ticked loudly. It reached the top of the hour and just started to chime when Connor muted the nature program he was watching and turned to Rylan. My brother's blue eyes were colder than the ice covering the streets outside.

"If you're going to keep pretending to do this 'hero' thing, then you need to step up your game."

"I'm doing fine," Rylan said indignantly.

"Fine isn't good enough. You realize Abby and I could have died, right?" Connor scoffed when Rylan's eyes widened. "Yeah. This isn't you and Abby playing detective anymore in the dead of night, creeping around warehouses or whatever you guys used to do. This is real life. Act like it. In my day, I would have got to that convenience store way faster and—"

"In your day?" I interrupted, feeling incredibly defensive on Rylan's behalf. "In your day, you held multiple meet and greets a week. In your day, Connor, you failed too."

Rylan cleared his throat. "I would like to point out that I didn't fail, necessarily. I just didn't arrive in a timely manner."

Connor pulled out a newspaper from a stack on the table and shoved it in Rylan's face. "Were you busy sleeping during a press conference again? Quit being lazy."

"Lazy? That's a bit hypocritical, don't you think? When was the last time you left the house except to stuff your face?"

Connor bared his teeth, turning the volume on the TV way up. "I can do whatever I want. Dad left me in charge of this house. Not sure what you're doing here all the time when you have a fancy butler over at yours who wipes your snotty nose for you."

"Are you seriously going there? What are we, five?" Rylan's face turned red. This was not where I expected this conversation to go. I thought we would maybe, I don't know, try to determine who blew up the store. Not trade insults over who was the speedier super.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and examined the photos I'd taken in the aftermath of the explosion. I shouldn't have been surprised. Behaving like a kindergartner was a time-honored Connor-Rylan tradition.

Connor muted the television again. Smirking at Rylan, he sang, "I know you are, but what am I?"

Rylan launched himself out of his seat. I latched onto his wrist, forcing him to stay still, even as his eyes narrowed at me. The green contact lenses he wore when he was Iron Phantom flashed dangerously in the light spilling from the television screen, making his gaze look almost poisonous.

Come on, Abigail, Rylan's voice filled my head. Let me hit him. Just once. If anything, it might deflate his big head a little.

I choked back a laugh for Connor's benefit. He would be even more furious if he knew Rylan was talking about him where he couldn't hear it. Telepathy freaked Connor out. Actually, all of Rylan's powers freaked Connor out, and I often wondered if he didn't like them solely because Rylan was the one who was using them.

I glanced at my brother. He was looking between me and Rylan, like he knew exactly what was going on. "Whatever you're saying, you can say it out loud," Connor grumbled. "I'm a big boy; I can handle it."

Rylan rolled his eyes, a clear indicator that Connor could not handle it at all.

He was probably right. Connor was a pro at putting on a smile for the public, hiding behind insults and innuendoes, while his feelings chewed him up and spit him out. I'd been trying to help him cope without his abilities, and maybe in some areas I was making progress, but it wasn't good enough. I had no clue what life must have been like for him, to have so much power and then lose it so suddenly.

Connor dropped the television remote into my lap, hanging his head. "I'm going to go to bed. Feel free to suck each other's faces off in my absence."

"Connor, come on," Rylan offered. "You can stay. We can all watch a movie... or something?"

Connor took a deep breath, his anger flaring.

"Or not?" Rylan looked at his boots.

"Thank you, but I would rather ingest a hacksaw."

He slunk from the room. His door slammed upstairs.

"What delightful guy." Rylan looked at the melted snow Connor had left behind on the couch. "I never understood why Red Comet was so popular, but golly gee, now I finally see it." He pocketed his gloves and mask, frowning like a kid that just got scolded. "Abigail, are you angry that I didn't get to you guys in time?"

"What? Of course not. Since when can you out-teleport an explosion? If anything, I'm mad there's no evidence of what caused it." I squeezed Rylan's hand, looking up the staircase to the second floor. I didn't want to go up there. I would have much rather stayed on the couch, wrapped up in Rylan and my blanket. It would have been twice as comfortable and involved an estimated ninety percent less whining. Ugh. But I knew what I had to do.

"I'll be right back," I told Rylan as I headed for the stairs. Connor's bedroom door was shut when I reached it, but it wasn't locked. I peered inside. The room was dim except for a small halo of light emanating from his desk lamp. Connor was lying on his back on the floor, feet propped up against the wall. A lump of familiar red spandex was balled up under his head like a pillow.

I cleared my throat from the doorway. Connor didn't acknowledge me.

"Hello?" I pulled off one of my socks, hurling it at his head. Connor swiped it away, adjusted his glasses, and continued staring at the ceiling. "Connor, quit being a man-child."

"What's a man-child?"

"I don't know, a... a man-child. A child that's a man that's a... child, and..." I removed my other sock and threw that one at him too. "Just stop sulking. Rylan's trying, I'm trying, we're all trying here, and you're just being—"

"A manly child?"

"A man-child," I corrected.

Connor snorted. "Who says I'm not trying?" he asked evenly. He sat up, crossing his legs in front of him. "I'm trying really hard to deal with this, but I miss it, okay? I miss the wind stinging my face when I'm one thousand feet in the clouds. Have you ever watched the sun rise from that high up? I have. I miss that too. I miss feeling like I have some kind of purpose. I don't like being pinned to the floor in a shitty convenience store, unable to move—"

"No one likes that."

"That's not the point. I used to be able to prevent that kind of stuff, and now I can't. I can't protect you, and I'm powerless to protect myself. I'm completely at everyone else's mercy, and I hate it, Abby. I hate it." He fell back on the floor again. "Rylan should have gotten there sooner."

"But he didn't, Connor. You can cut him some slack. You don't have to hate him all the time."

"I don't hate him," Connor mumbled. He stood and started meticulously arranging his school books on his desk, stacking them in a small pyramid. In addition to all the other habits he'd developed with no superpowers keeping him busy, he had started to become somewhat of a neat freak.

"It sure seems like you do," I said.

"Well, I don't. He's too nice to you for me to hate him. What I hate is that he's a representation—word of the day—of everything I don't have anymore. Even if I had my powers, he would still be better at this than me. You know it, I know it, the whole city knows it. And now Mom's gone, Dad's gone, my powers are gone, and you and Rylan..." He shook his head. "It just seems like everything keeps disappearing, and it sucks." He let out one sharp, bitter laugh. "But such is the life of the great Red Comet. Not much to write home about, I guess."

I dragged my fingers through my hair, sighing. Okay, so Connor was lonely. But I couldn't spend every second coddling him. I had school and Rylan, and Connor was perfectly self-sufficient.

I winced, remembering the flames shooting out of the oven. Well, Connor was trying to be self-sufficient.

"I get what you mean, but don't you think you're being just a little bit dramatic?"

"Dramatic? You want to see dramatic?" Connor snatched his super suit off the floor. He shook the red spandex out so I could see the shiny gold swoosh, the symbol that once graced Red Comet's chest. "Here. This is dramatic." Then he picked up a pocket knife off his desk, flipped open the blade, and while he was still holding the suit in his fist, he stabbed it straight through the heart.

I flinched at the sound of tearing fabric. Connor shrieked, and the knife tumbled to the floor. "Ow! Shit! I think I sliced my finger!"

I rushed forward in alarm. "You think you did or you really did?"

"Who can tell?" His suit was balled up around his left hand. "My blood is red. This stupid suit is red."

"Okay." As gently as I could, I pried the suit from his fingers. "That's definitely blood. I'm getting Rylan."

"No, no, no! My dramatic exit did not go as planned, and I do not need him seeing the results, Abby, no."

I stopped at the door. "No?"

Connor hopped up and down, shaking his hand around his head, as if that would help the pain. Drops of blood splattered the walls like a crime scene. "Never mind. Yes. Get him, get him. This is the worst day ever."

I hurried downstairs. By the time I grabbed Rylan and we returned to Connor's room, he had managed to rip all the sheets off his bed and had them wrapped around his fist like a giant bandage. A large red spot was growing bigger, soaking the sheets and leaving a trail of blood on the carpet.

Connor took one look at Rylan, standing there in his super suit, and visibly deflated.

He held out his injured hand for Rylan to heal. "This moment is going to haunt me forever."

*******

"Give me some profound advice. I certainly need it," I told Rylan when we teleported into his kitchen. I looked around, taking in his microscopes and books scattered across countertops and stacked in corners. Even though Rylan had his grandfather's entire mansion at his disposal, he still insisted on living in the guest house.

"I'm not sure I have any advice reserved for this specific situation. But we can always build a time machine and travel back two months and somehow stop Connor from getting injected with nanobots," Rylan suggested. He grabbed a pile of fresh clothes and walked into the bathroom to change out of Iron Phantom's suit.

"Hold up. You can build a time machine?"

Rylan laughed from the other side of the bathroom door. "Not a chance. Sorry."

"Way to get a girl's hopes up." I sat in a chair in the corner of his bedroom, reviewing the photos I took at the convenience store. There wasn't much to see except a wide crack in the security camera's lens and a bunch of melted plastic. I gave up pretty quickly and put my phone away, leafing through a pile of papers on the floor instead. News articles about Iron Phantom were mixed in with scrap paper covered in Rylan's chicken scratch handwriting—speeches he'd drafted just to play along with Morriston's expectations of Iron Phantom before passing the job on to Fish Boy. Rylan would rather be caught dead than forced to make a speech, but he wasn't always so fortunate. When Wallace was named responsible for the nanobots and the chaos of the past months, Iron Phantom's name was automatically cleared. And when Red Comet vanished, the citizens of Morriston needed someone to rally around. Rylan was the obvious choice.

He hated his newfound fame. Rylan never wanted powers; he just wanted to be normal. But now Iron Phantom created a stir everywhere he went. He had fangirls and fanboys and fan fiction. Undergarments were chucked in his general direction daily. People who wanted Iron Phantom imprisoned two months ago suddenly had the nerve to forget their animosity and pretend they idolized him from the get-go. Rylan found the whole thing bizarre.

He could have easily given it up. Disappearances were Iron Phantom's specialty. But as Rylan often told me, he had his powers for a reason. People needed him; he couldn't let them down.

"Imagine what we could do with a time machine though." I scanned through a stack of Iron Phantom fan art that was drawn in black crayon and covered in little kids' stick figures.

"I don't really want to. It's a little too tempting, if you know what I mean." Rylan exited the bathroom, nodding at a photo on his desk of his parents. He led me back into the main room of the guest house, shutting his bedroom door with a soft click. "Have you talked to your dad about Connor at all?"

I cringed. Dad and I talked on the phone a couple times a week (most of those "talks" involved awkward silences), but I'd only visited him once. It was just so hard to make myself do it. I never knew how to act or what to say.

"Are you kidding? Dad knowing that Connor is hurting because of something he did would only stress him out more." I rooted through Rylan's kitchen for something to eat just to take my mind off it all. Oh! Snack cabinet above the sink. Bingo.

"We need to do something," I said, popping open a bag of potato chips.

"Looks like you are doing something."

"I'm stress eating. That convenience store hot dog was crap." I shoved a handful of chips in my mouth, then wiped the grease on a dish towel.

"Well, I'm stressed too. Do I get any?"

I paused with my hand halfway into the bag. "Fine." I slid the chips across the counter before grabbing a banana from a bowl and peeling it. As we slumped into two bar stools at the kitchen island, Rylan leaned over and stole half of my banana in one clean bite. He grinned, his cheeks full to bursting, and pushed a few strands of thick, dark hair out of his eyes. I reciprocated by stealing back the chip bag, and I held it hostage while I finished my banana. My stomach sank when I realized it was exactly the strange kind of food pairing that Connor would have enjoyed.

After a minute, Rylan wrestled the chips away from me and pulled a container of dip from the fridge. "So what's the plan? Other than emptying my house of food?"

"Honestly, I'm quite content with the food plan at the moment." I scooped a mound of dip onto a particularly large chip and crunched down hard, but Rylan had fallen silent. My eyes slid over to him just in time to see him pick at the ten-year-old scar on the back of his head, a memory of the brain tumor he'd had when he was a kid.

"Abigail, you know I'd give my powers to him if I could, right?"

Like Connor would ever accept them. But it was the thought that mattered. "I know. Believe me, I know. I'll just have to figure something out, I guess." I pushed the chips away before I could eat any more. "I'm sorry I'm dragging you into this."

"You can drag me anywhere." Then he frowned. "Sorry. Too cheesy?"

"A bit. But I'm rather fond of you, so I'll let it slide."

"Thank God." He pretended to wipe a line of sweat from his forehead before grabbing my hand and tugging me from my seat.

"Wait, whoa, what are you doing?" We retreated to the fireplace, laughing.

"Come here."

"Why?"

He started messing around with some buttons on the stereo system. "I don't have any nuggets of wisdom to share with you to make you feel better, but I do have an overwhelming need to dance. And for that, I require a partner."

"But you can't dance." And neither could I. Not unless it was choreographed, and even then, my talents were spotty at best. I was a much better singer and actor. Memories of last semester's Hall of Horrors rehearsals flashed through my mind. I was front and center in all the scenes. Rylan hid behind the curtain for as long as possible.

"An inability to dance is sort of one of the key aspects of my evil genius plan." And at that moment, a screeching rendition of the worst song of all time, the "Hokey Pokey," blared through the speakers.

"Oh! No, no, that's a mistake, sorry!" He smacked his palm on the stereo. The music cut off with a squeal, and I burst out laughing.

"I guess there isn't a stressful day in the world that a little bit of bad music and dancing can't cure."

"Precisely." After a few seconds of pressing buttons, he righted his mistake and a tinkling piano tune started to play. "I'm so glad we're on equal footing with this."

"Was that supposed to be a dance joke?"

"Maybe. If you want my best dance joke, then you should watch me do the Macarena sometime."

Holding back another laugh, I took Rylan's hands and pressed the length of my body against his as the music filled every corner of the guest house. It started slow, nothing more than a few piano keys and a harp. Rylan's hand pressed into the small of my back. As we began to sway, I leaned closer, looping my arm around his neck, feeling the warmth of his breath tickling my ear.

Get ready, Abigail. The Chicken Dance is the next track on the list.

The sound of his voice filling my head jolted me to attention. "You wouldn't dare."

Try me.

"Stop it." I smacked his chest, but he only pulled me closer—and stepped on my toes in the process.

"Crap. Sorry, I told you I wasn't good. Are your feet okay? I can heal them for you if you want."

"I'm fine." The song picked up, a full orchestra joining the delicate piano trill. Rylan tried to speed up our dancing and dip me. The music swelled, and the moment would have been romantic if he didn't lose his footing. One heart-stopping second later, his eyes widened, and with a screech, we tumbled to the floor in front of the fireplace.

"Sorry! I'm—so—sorry," he gasped, laughter making his body shudder. He lay on top of me, crushing my back into the carpet. Every time he tried pushing himself up, his arms trembled and he collapsed on my chest, which made us both laugh even harder. If I didn't know any better, I would have assumed he'd orchestrated the whole dancing charade with the sole intention of pinning me to the floor. But this was Rylan, and Rylan was nothing if not unfailingly polite.

"Oh no, Abigail, your head." My breathing had finally returned to normal—except for a few needle-like pinches in my ribs and the occasional hiccup cough—but I couldn't keep Rylan's fingers from curling around me, healing the angry red bump that was starting to form after knocking my forehead against the coffee table on our way down.

The bump grew hot, then cold as Rylan pulled the pain away. He shook out his hand when he finished, flexing his fingers.

"You know, for someone who doesn't like having powers, you sure do use them a lot," I said.

"Occupational hazard," Rylan breathed, settling his legs around my waist. He lowered his head until our noses touched—and then our lips.

The first time he had kissed me, so many months ago, it had felt like teleporting—traveling to some unknown planet. But tonight, it didn't feel like that at all.

It felt like coming home.

*******

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Also, here's a friendly reminder that hardcover, paperback, and ebook copies of the first book in this series, The Supervillain and Me, are available for purchase through the links on my profile. If you're not financially able to buy the book (totally understandable!) remember that you can always request a copy for free at your local library. Additionally, copies of my BRAND NEW BOOK, The Good for Nothings, are also available for purchase and library requests. The Good for Nothings is full of space heists, snark (basically Guardians of the Galaxy meets Pirates of the Caribbean), grumpy aliens, and baking robots, and I hope you love it as much as I do. Visit the links in my profile to learn more!