Not Your Villain (Sidekick Squad #2)(14)
Bells flops onto the couch in the living room to wait. It’s hot, and the air is heavy. He would turn on the air conditioning, but right now, all of their spare energy is redirected to Clairborne to power the irrigation system.
The sound of the home security system pinging an alert gets Bells to his feet, and he flicks on the feed, confused. Both of Emma’s moms’ cars are in the system, but this isn’t someone the system recognizes coming down the street.
The Broussard household is off the grid; it isn’t on any public registry. It’s shielded from view with holotech. Anyone looking for the house would see a clump of granite boulders at the very end of a deserted street and succulents growing everywhere. Maybe even too many succulents; his dad does like tending to them.
From a hidden porch tucked between two alcoves in the rocks, Bells walks out onto the street. Maybe Emma is being dropped off by a cousin or her moms got a new car; it can’t really be anyone else.
He turns around a boulder and stops short.
Emma is stepping out of the driver’s seat of a shiny new car. She’s a bit taller, or is wearing her hair differently, or maybe just carrying herself in a new way. Emma pushes her heart-shaped sunglasses to the top of her head and smiles brighter than the summer sun.
Feeling the flush in his cheeks, Bells dashes down the steps. Emma. What if?
“Oh, gosh, you did get really tall!!” Emma exclaims.
Bells picks her up and spins her around. “It’s so good to see you!”
Emma laughs delightedly, then squeezes his biceps. “Whoa, whoa, you’ve been working out! Since when?”
Bells sets her down and fights back a grin. “Uh, there was a lot of downtime at the art program and there was a gym, so. Wasn’t much else to do without leaving the facility.”
“You look great.” She smiles, that easy grin that is just for him. A pleased warmth courses through him, and he relaxes as Emma pats his shoulders.
“I, ah, thanks. You do too.” He doesn’t know how to express how much her presence has changed his day—his summer—his life.
Emma jerks her head at the car. “What do you think?”
The vehicle is a top-of-the-line model with a vintage, twenty-second century look. Emma is babbling about the brand, the color, how quick it is to charge, and, of course, the manual driving feature. It’s a huge hassle to manually operate a vehicle, what with the extra expense of installing a steering wheel and a manually operated engine and everything—and all the paperwork. Most people, like Bells, find it convenient to let the car programming take them where they need to go.
Still, Emma’s smile makes it obvious how much she loves the thing, so he smiles too.
“Wanna go for a drive?”
Bells laughs. “How long have you had your license? What, a day?”
She hip-checks him. “Shut up. A month. And I passed all my tests with flying colors. Come on, we can go all the way to Devonport and back with this charge.”
*
In the last week before school starts, the listless edge of summer drags on; the hot days stretch out endlessly. Even though it’s only been two weeks, it seems forever ago that Bells was in the trees among gray mists and soft green leaves.
The secret weighs on him, but on Tuesday afternoon he excuses himself from hanging out with Jess and Emma and takes the bus to Vegas for his appointment with his League rep and his design team and to pick up his gear.
Bells’ bus gets there late, and he rushes to find the correct address. A block away from the discreet office building that houses the center, Bells shifts into his Barry disguise…
He strides in, and the perky receptionist looks up. “Barry Carmichael! You’re late; you need to get to the design lab right away!”
“Sure thing,” Bells says. He salutes him and then listens to his directions to the lab.
The elevator takes him down two floors. He exits and in the hallway he recognizes—“Christine! It’s good to see you!”
“Crinoline,” she corrects.
“So it got approved? Your hero name? You got accepted into the League, that’s great!”
Christine sighs. “No, not really. I’m still a D-class nobody, apparently. And apparently, I should be grateful that I get to ‘work’ for the League. I ‘volunteered’ to do extra work here in the design lab—making suits, mostly.” She stands up tall and takes on a lofty, affected voice. “‘Someone with your powers and class should be lucky they were even considered for training.’” She grimaces. “They don’t want me doing hero work. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with making the suits, since that’s what I wanted to do in the first place, but, they won’t even entertain the notion that I can be useful as a hero.”
“They’re not worth it,” Bells says.
“Hey, I know you don’t live around here, but we should hang out. You planning on coming to Vegas any time soon?”
“Maybe.” It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get to know the other meta-humans and other people at Christine’s parties.
Bells says goodbye and continues on to the lab. He’s nervous when he finally shakes hands with his League rep—Harris, who doesn’t look too happy.
During Harris’ very long spiel, Bells sits awkwardly, murmuring, “Yes, sir,” and “Of course, sir.” He nods as Harris talks about how the League isn’t just about fame and comic books and cheering crowds, it’s about respect and image and upholding the integrity of the Heroes’ League of Heroes. Bells knows all this. It’s why he wanted to be a hero; he wanted to help people, save the day, go head-to-head against major villains like Coldfront or Dynamite.