Supervillainess (Part One) Read Online Free PDF Page B

hospital, I read online.”
    “Yeah.” Kimber glanced at his father,
wishing he could trade places with him for once.
    Suzanne sat beside Julian on the couch, and
both women gazed at him expectantly.
    I’d rather be covered in
blood in the ER, Kimber thought.
     

Three: Every villain has a superpower
     
    Keladry “Reader” Savage was hurting more
than she ever had before. Her brother had been serious about trying
to kill her this time. It was supposed to be a game, a competition,
a way for them to push one another to grow.
    Was this new, strange pain why she hadn’t
escaped when she had the chance? Because, for a captor, Kimber
Wellington didn’t know shit about how to keep someone imprisoned.
He hadn’t even locked the front door last night, and his horrible
little apartment didn’t exactly have a security system.
    She could’ve walked out at any time.
    She didn’t. The part of her that hurt the
most wasn’t her body for once, and she didn’t know how to handle
emotional pain. To make matters worse, she was healing slowly,
probably from the extent of the damage sustained. Normally
energized when night fell, she was sluggish instead this night, her
body barely responsive.
    Lying in the dark room, Reader couldn’t
recall the last time she had wanted to hide and nurse her wounds
instead of charging straight into her brother’s house and
challenging him to another round in their ongoing battle to win
their father’s favor.
    The door cracked open, and light from the
hallway spilled into the storage/guest room. She snapped her eyes
closed and listened carefully. Voices from elsewhere in the
apartment, muffled by the walls, had been talking most of the day.
Tensing, in case her brother’s men had found her, Reader
waited.
    “Sorry about this. Ignore my other guest,”
Kimber whispered to someone. “This is temporary while we rearrange
the house so you can all sleep here tonight.”
    He walked past her, and she peered at him
through her eyelashes. He was pushing a slumped man in a wheelchair
to the window.
    Kimber opened the blinds and positioned the
man before the window. “Keladry, are you awake?” he called
quietly.
    My name is Reader, she corrected him silently.
    Kimber hesitated, as if uncertain he wanted
to leave the other man in the same room as her, before he left and
closed the door.
    Reader opened her eyes and turned her head
towards the window. She sat with difficulty, ignoring the pain
floating through her. Instead, she focused on the man in the
wheelchair and tilted her head, listening.
    At least this one faces
the park, the man was thinking.
    She released a controlled sigh, relieved the
effects of the mind-altering meds were gone. Her superpower was
returning. Her mask started to slip, and she tightened it.
    “Are you another of the doctor’s projects?”
she whispered.
    No one can fix me.
    “Why not?”
    Silence.
    “Yes, I can hear you,” she said, accustomed
to the initial incredulity experienced by someone exposed to her
power for the first time.
    You’re one of them . Which
side?
    “Does it matter, old man? You’re stuck in a
chair either way.”
    It wasn’t always this way. I played the
great game once.
    Reader’s eyebrows shot up. “Did you now?”
she asked. “What team?”
    The good one.
    “Then we are at odds, I’m afraid,” she said.
“The doctor isn’t quite as innocent as he seems, if he’s collecting
us.”
    My son doesn’t know.
    “Interesting.” She gripped her midsection
and rose, teetered, and then deliberately crossed to the man in the
wheelchair. Reader gazed down at his bent, hunched form. “Not so
spry anymore.”
    Neither are you at the moment.
    She grimaced. “Yeah. True.” She studied him.
“What happened? Were you in some great battle with your
arch-nemesis?”
    Unfortunately no. It’s a long, boring
story.
    His mind fell silent.
    “Okay,” she said, taking the hint. “Does
your son know you aren’t as crippled as you pretend to be?”
    You