Not Your Villain (Sidekick Squad #2)(69)

The desert landscape looks completely different; it rains so rarely he’d almost forgotten what a storm looks like, how the skies go dark and let loose an endless torrent of water. Thick with loose red soil and other debris, rivulets rush through the canyon to form a vicious river that gathers speed as it races ahead. The land is so parched that the rain barely touches the surface before it slimes into a slick pathway.

Bells is exhausted, but he has to keep running.

His feet hit the ground with muddy splashes, and he nearly slips. It’s hard going, especially as the gray skies turn an ominous, roiling dark.

The sun is setting. He’s running out of time.

Squinting through the darkness, Bells can barely make out the cluster of buildings ahead that marks the outskirts of Andover. He glances back, and that is a mistake because he can see, steadily advancing on him, the chunky steel bodies of the robots with their gleaming mirrored panels.

“Surrender now,” commands the closest one, its cold electronic voice muffled by the falling rain, as it hovers toward him. It’s barely visible in the dark—just an ominous square shadow lit by a few blinking lights on its panels.

Bells laughs, thankful that the new robots have hovertech and are much slower than the wheeled models. It’s a small comfort, though. He can’t run forever.

Through the rain and thick gray clouds, he can barely see the glimmering lights of the only building that has full power in the storm: Andover Memorial Hospital.

The robots are too close; they’ll catch up to him before he can get to safety. They must be tracking his body heat; there’s no one else out in the storm.

Bells ducks into a niche in the canyon wall. It’s out of the rain just enough to give him relief from the storm.

Thunder cracks, followed by a flash of lighting, but it doesn’t seem to come from the sky.

Another roar of thunder and more lightning… Bells shakes his head.

Nothing at all natural about this storm.

Though he’s exhausted from running, he hasn’t shifted much today and he’s got plenty of power left. The expanse of power burns bright within him, but it’s no use. No disguise in the world could fool a robot programmed to detect body heat.

Body heat.

Bells eyes the rising water in the gully and looks up at the gleam of the robots close on his heels.

Cold, cold, cold, it’s going to be cold. Bells jumps in anyway. Mud squelches beneath his feet, and something pokes him in the thigh. In a never-ending swirl of movement, ripples spread, each one barely having time to form a circle before it’s pelted by more rain.

The water is moving too quickly and some gets in his mouth. He’s dizzy. His head aches with a throbbing pain, and it’s all he can do to stay upright.

He inhales sharply through his nose and ducks his head under the water.

Bells loses his balance; the world tilts in a chaos of water and noise. The drumming of the raindrops intensifies.

He grabs handfuls of mud and coats his body with it. Will it be enough? Will it work? It’s too dark to make out anything above the water, to see if the robots have passed. The current pulls him along until he hits something hard: a pile of rocks trapping mud and sticks and debris, and now one very muddy and miserable Bells Broussard, who can’t hold his breath much longer.

Bells bursts out of the muddy stream, gasping for air. The rain pelts him mercilessly as he struggles, swaying in the current, trying to keep from washing away. He’s still covered in mud, but it must not mask his body heat, because the robots are still coming.

The closest one advances upon him; its square body hovers near. It whirs, intoning, “Surrender now, Chameleon. You must answer to the League for your crimes.” Wicked-looking arms with crackles of electricity sparking at their ends emerge from the robot’s torso.

Bells shudders.

The mud isn’t hiding him. His heart is still beating; blood and panic course through his veins. All he can do is shift. But what good is the power of a shapeshifter if he’s going to be caught in any disguise, by his own body heat, since he can only change himself?

Myself and everything I touch, Bells thinks. The mud is too flimsy, but it doesn’t have to stay mud.

He thinks about cold and hard and unforgiving steel, strong and protective, like armor, and the mud surrounding him slowly gives way to something new. Come on; you’ve got this potential, Bells coaxes. He feels the metals in the earth, the smatterings of iron, and calls them to become more. He uses every ounce of strength he has left.

The water rushes past him; he’s solid, anchored to the ground with a pillar of iron wrapped around him.

The robot stops, whirs; its panel blinks as it processes what’s happening.

Bells holds his breath.

The robot flies away. It continues down through the canyon, and the others follow suit. Every minute or so one of them commands, “Surrender now, Chameleon,” but the order fades into faint echoes as the robots go farther and farther into the Unmaintained lands surrounding Andover.

Bells lets out a sigh of relief. He holds on to the shift. Maybe the robots can detect a heat signature from miles away.

“And so the amazing Chameleon stands steadfast in his armor, awaiting the right moment to plan his escape,” Bells announces in an overly bright voice. His laugh is cold and bitter.

Bells groans. His nose itches, and he can’t move to scratch it. His hair is ruined, gone frizzy from the rain, and his clothes and shoes are a mess. In addition to the constant rhythm of the rain, he can hear creatures scuttering around deep in their burrows.