Not Your Villain (Sidekick Squad #2)(49)

Christine shrugs. “I mean, my parents bribed the NAC to get me into training. The League only put up with me because of the ‘donations,’ you know? I’m hardly useful.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a good friend. I’m glad I met you.”

“Me too,” Christine says.

She drops the sock, and it lands on the floor in a soft thump. She glances up at Bells, gives him a tentative smile, and moves closer.

Bells’ thoughts are already racing ahead. He likes her well enough, and she likes hanging out with him, and—

Christine tilts forward. The kiss is a simple press of lips, but Bells’ mind races. Why do my curtains hang at such a weird angle? Is Sean coming back this weekend or is it just me and Simon? Ugh, there’s so much to do with Ma and Dad gone. Have they rescued all the meta-humans on Orion’s list? Have they run into Orion herself? His stomach rumbles. What should we eat for dinner? He could make something and he wonders if Christine wants to stay. She hasn’t been to the restaurant; we could do that.

Christine pulls back from the kiss, looking anywhere but at Bells. “Um—”

Bells blinks, searching for something to say. “That was—” he starts, trying to think of a diplomatic way of saying this isn’t going to work. He’s kissed and been kissed, and this kiss is hardly the worst. That distinction went to Benjamin from art camp the summer after seventh grade. Benjamin had braces and accidentally scratched Bells’ lip and then stole Bells’ still life idea for his own project.

It’s not the best kiss, either. It’s not really… anything.

“Sorry.” Bells offers her a sheepish smile.

“I like you, Bells, honest. I just—that was terrible. We really don’t have any chemistry.”

Bells snorts. “All right, maybe you don’t, but I have plenty.”

“Please. I’m incredibly cute here. I don’t know what’s wrong with you.”

They look at each other and dissolve into peals of laughter.

“Okay, let’s not do that again. Friends?”

“Friends,” Bells says.

Whooping, Brendan tosses a stack of papers onto the table.

Jess groans. “You broke my concentration, Bren! I was this close to finding out where Abby’s dad is!” They’ve been trying to increase the extent of her power so she could locate Master Mischief with her direction abilities, but they keep running into a block that Jess can’t explain. They’ve tried locating landmarks, various people, even Captain Orion, who is somewhere north of them, but he seems to be the one person she can’t get a read on.

“Maybe they have him exposed to tantalum, like when they were keeping my mom,” Abby muses.

“But how would that affect Jess’ powers? She’s not anywhere near the stuff; she should still be able to find him.”

“If there were enough of it, it could affect Jess,” Bells says thoughtfully. “Like it’s blocking her from reaching him? There was a small amount of it at the training center; they didn’t use it in any of our classes, but I knew it was there because I couldn’t hold a shift anywhere near that room or the walkways around it.” He’d been lucky; the first time he’d realized he wasn’t Barry anymore, he was alone. Bells made sure to give that area a wide berth.

He’s pretty sure it did block powers related to physical space. Sasha once mentioned she couldn’t transport anything to that area.

“Hey,” Brendan says, gesturing at the paperwork. “Come on, you totally ruined my moment. I’m gonna do this again.” He lifts up his stack of papers and sets it down with a definite clunk. “I give you—” He pauses. “—the Resistance!”

“Oh, you found them!”

“What? Why didn’t you say so?”

“Because you interrupted me!”

“How do we get in?”

Bells pokes the paperwork; his eyebrows shoot up. “This is just a bunch of characters. I thought you decoded everything?”

Abby scans it. “Oh, cool.” She pauses. “This could be anything; this could be nothing. We weren’t sure what it means, just that this user has been in a lot of our circles of interest.”

“Yeah,” Brendan says. “So I’ve been tracking user T1-2904 across multiple servers. This is an encrypted conversation between them and another person whom they’ve been talking to for a while. I believe we’ll soon see details for a meetup.”

“How long will that take?” Emma frowns. “That could be days or weeks or months. And we’ve already been looking for days, weeks and months! We should contact this person and try to get an invitation ourselves instead of waiting for it to happen.”

“You think I haven’t tried?” Brendan asks.

“You’re not exactly a people person,” Jess says. “What if we just asked —”

Brendan throws up his hands. “You can’t just pop up and lead with that! Do you know how long it took for T1-2903 to open up and trust —”

“How do you know this is actually the Resistance and not just two people flirting with each other?”

“Oh.” Brendan’s face falls. “But I was so sure—” He grabs the paperwork, mutters to himself, and runs out of the room. “No wait, I got it, I got it, if I tweak this…” his voice trails off as he disappears down the hall.