Page 5 of Villainous Rise

The Villain. The Betrayer.

I closed my eyes, but all I saw was Annie’s face when she’d realized the truth. The moment she understood that my love for her hadn’t been enough to overcome what I was.

“Computer, resume surveillance.”

I stared at the screen, the hollow feeling in my chest expanding like a black hole. This separation, this fucking misery, was entirely my doing. My masterpiece of self-sabotage.

“Computer, display calendar.”

The holographic display materialized, and I immediately spotted it—the date of the Nemesis match.

“Fuck me.”

It was customary for the Hero to send a message to the Villain just before the match through their Keeper.

So I’d see Annie. In person. I’d have to. After three months of pathetic long-distance stalking through security feeds, of designing upgrades for her cuff that I’d never give her because it wasn’t fucking good enough. Three months of drafting messages I’d never send.

The prospect sent a cold spike of something uncomfortably like fear through me because of all the things Annie should feel toward me, hatred, betrayal, she wouldn’t act on any of those things when we saw each other. She’d be worse. She’d be professional. Polite. She’d look at me like I was just another League member in the rotation. Like I hadn’t had my tongue inside her perfect cunt not so long ago.

She’d look at me like I hadn’t died in her arms.

“Computer, what’s the protocol for faking your own death? Asking for a friend.”

The system ignored my sarcasm and helpfully displayed several contingency plans I’d created for exactly that scenario, which might say something deeply concerning about my life choices.

I dismissed them with a wave.

I glanced at the prototype cuff schematics still rotating in the air. Maybe I could⁠—

No. Bringing her a gift would be pathetic. “Here’s an upgraded power dampener to contain the mind-control abilities you absorbed from the Super who murdered your family. Sorry I betrayed you. We good?”

I flopped back onto my bed, throwing an arm over my eyes. The correct response would be to swagger in, act like nothing had happened, and treat her with the same indifference she’d show me.

The thought made me want to punch something. Preferably myself.

I glanced back at the surveillance screen but Annie wasn’t in her room anymore. It took only seconds to find that she had moved to her kitchen, mechanically preparing tea. Her movements were precise but lifeless. The Annie I knew burned bright with passion, whether it was fury or desire. This hollow version was my creation.

I’d done that to her. And I would undo it.

“Two weeks,” I muttered to the empty room.

Two weeks to prepare for seeing her again. To determine exactly which buttons to press, which vulnerabilities to exploit. To begin the delicate process of pulling her back into my orbit where she belonged.

And people thought being a Super Villain was all death rays and monologuing. If they could see me now, reduced to monitoring my ex’s tea-making routine and having an existential crisis at three in the fucking morning.

I rolled over and slammed my fist into the mattress. My brain, ever the helpful fucking companion, chose that moment to remind me she wasn’t my ex. We hadn’t dated because I didn’t date. “It’s just fucking,” I’d told her repeatedly, like the emotionally stunted asshole I was.

My rules. My terms. My brilliant fucking strategy to keep her at arm’s length while still getting to taste her.

But it had never been just fucking, had it?

The truth was lodged in my chest like shrapnel. I was addicted to her. I needed her reluctant laugh like oxygen. I pushed her buttons because demanding her absolute attention was the only thing that settled the static in my brain. I wanted to possess her fury and her joy just as completely as I possessed her in my bed.

“Fuck,” I whispered to the ceiling. Because that was the extent of my emotional vocabulary when it came to Annie Bishop. A single expletive that couldn’t begin to encompass the clusterfuck of feelings she inspired.

Five hours later, I was hunched over my workbench, making microscopic adjustments to the power relay in Annie’s cuff prototype. Every circuit I tweaked, every line of code I wrote, was another way to bind her to me.

The delicate work required complete concentration, which made Dawn’s laughter from the kitchen all the more intrusive. Each bright peal of it was like a fucking ice pick to my eardrums.