Page 10 of Villainous Rise

My finger hovered over the ShadowSnap icon on my phone. What would I find if I checked his tags now? New fan theories? More steamy fiction that would remind me of nights I was desperately trying to forget?

I closed the app drawer. I’d rather throw myself from the top of the Tower than crawl back to that particular obsession. Some fantasies should stay buried. Especially when they’d already blown up in my face once.

“Excuse me, Ms. Bishop?”

I jumped, nearly dropping my phone.

A young woman in a green apron stood in front of me, holding a to-go cup from the Tower food court coffee shop. Her eyebrows had climbed halfway up her forehead at my reaction.

“Sorry, yes. Can I help you?”

She thrust the cup toward me. “Coffee delivery.”

I just stared at it. “I didn’t order any coffee.”

The woman shrugged. “Order came through. Said to deliver to ‘Ms. Bishop’ in the east hallway outside the press room.”

She glanced at her watch. “Look, do you want it or not? I’ve got three more deliveries.”

“Sure, thanks.” I accepted the cup, which was still wonderfully hot against my palm.

She disappeared back down the hallway and I examined the cup. No name on it beyond “Ms. Bishop” scrawled in black marker. I popped the lid and inhaled the heavenly aroma of dark roast with vanilla. Taking a cautious sip, I found it to be just a normal, heavenly-tasting coffee with vanilla creamer.

In my paranoia, I briefly wondered if this was some elaborate assassination attempt, but honestly, if someone wanted to kill me, poisoning my coffee would be disappointingly mundane compared to the usual Super theatrics.

More likely, Simmons had been monitoring the security feeds. That man had an uncanny sixth sense for when people in his orbit needed rescue, even the caffeinated kind.

I smiled. Bless Simmons and his butler superpowers. In a world of Heroes who could bend reality, sometimes the most heroic act was just noticing when someone needed a cup of coffee and a moment to breathe.

I took another sip of the perfectly prepared coffee, letting the warmth seep through me. This wasn’t the first time mysterious sustenance had appeared exactly when I needed it. Coffee would materialize when I was drowning in paperwork. Sandwiches would appear when I’d forgotten lunch existed as a concept. Once, after a particularly brutal day, I’d found a slice of chocolate cake waiting. The expensive kind from the bakery downtown that always had a line around the block.

Havoc and Simmons had been giving me space since the whole Cipher disaster. No interrogations about my feelings. No awkward pep talks about moving on. Just quiet support in the form of caffeine and calories.

It was their way of saying “we’re here” without crowding me. Though I suspected Simmons was the mastermind. Havoc’s idea of comfort food would probably be protein bars that tasted like chalk and were denser than a brick.

Whatever was going to happen with Cipher, at least I had this strange little family looking out for me. Even if their idea of emotional support was stealth coffee delivery.

A burst of applause jolted me from my coffee-induced moment of peace. The noise from the press room had escalated from polite murmurs to the distinctive chaos of post-conference scrambling.

Shit. I didn’t know how long I’d been gone. Time becomes weirdly elastic when you’re having an existential crisis on a hallway bench.

I downed the remaining coffee and hurried back toward the door. The press conference had clearly ended, and now the vultures were circling their separate prey.

Havoc could handle himself. Helios was probably making everyone feel warm and fuzzy with his welcoming personality.

But Valor? I’d known the man for exactly one day, and already knew his ego had its own gravitational pull.

I slipped back into the room just in time to hear him telling a reporter, “—naturally, Havoc sees me as his successor. The torch must pass eventually.”

My soul left my body for a brief vacation. One day. I’d been assigned to him for ONE DAY and he was already planning Havoc’s retirement party.

I pushed through the crowd. Bodies pressed against me from all sides as reporters jockeyed for position around Valor.

“Excuse me,” I said, trying to squeeze between two broadcast journalists with hair that defied both gravity and taste. They didn’t budge. Of course not. I was just a Keeper, the human equivalent of furniture in a room full of people hunting quotes from actual Supers.

I was still ten feet from Valor when I saw her approach him. Martha Sands from Hero Analysis Quarterly. The publication that influenced Alliance funding decisions and not the glossy entertainment magazines that cared about Valor’s skincare routine.

Martha looked exactly like what she was: a brilliant analyst who cared about substance over style, dressed in wrinkled khakis and a cardigan that had probably witnessed the rise and fall of several Super Hero dynasties.