Super Bad (a Superlovin' novella) Read Free Page B

the pity was back in her eyes in full force. “I just don’t want to
be with you right now. I need to be my own person, really find my own identity,
as something more than Captain Justice’s girlfriend.”
    “I’m not saying this as
Captain Justice.”
    “I know. You’re saying
it because I’m leaving. Because you’re pathologically incapable of letting
anything go wrong without trying to make it right. But this is the right
thing, Julian. I’ve barely seen you the last few weeks. Lately, it’s like our
relationship exists more in the papers than it does in person.”
    That couldn’t be true. So
why did it sound like truth coming out of her mouth?
    Kim sighed. “I’m sorry,
okay? Maybe we can grab lunch before I move to the capital. We’re still
friends, right?”
    “Lunch. Sure.” God, he
was such a pussy. If the supervillains saw him now, his reputation as a hero
badass would be shot to shit. He couldn’t even get mad at her. He just felt
defeated. Useless. Which didn’t sit well with him as a man or a super.
    What else was he
supposed to do? He was always there for her. Always. He’d kept her in one piece—and
in the headlines. She’d been using him as her personal hero all this time,
advancing her career with their connection. So why couldn’t he get angry? Why
was he numbly helping her on with her coat, nodding dumbly in response to her chatter
about how busy she would be tying up loose ends at The Sentinel before
the move? Where the hell was his fucking spine?
    The door closed behind
Kim before he could wrap his brain around what the fuck just happened.
    Kim had dumped him. Just
dropped his ass. His ears were ringing, the real world receding. Julian shook
his head to clear it, but the buzzing in his brain only grew louder—like when
he’d gone through puberty and his super-senses would go out of whack,
fluctuating wildly between loud and soft. He took a deep, steadying breath, and
the buzzing stopped—then immediately started up again.
    Idiot .
That wasn’t the sound of his brain imploding. That was his fucking phone,
vibrating somewhere in the apartment. He found it wedged behind a couch cushion
and tapped the screen to connect the call before it could go to voicemail a
second time.
    “Justice,” he barked,
hoping like hell the call was someone in need of their ass kicked and not a
non-violent interrogation assist.
    “Julian? Hey, it’s
Darla. How’re you doing?”
    He tried not to flinch
at the cheerful bounce in DynaGirl’s voice. His shellshock must have shown if
Kim was having her girlfriends call to check up on him. “I’m great,” he ground
out between clenched teeth. Never fucking better .
    “Great! That’s awesome.
Look, I’m calling because—”
    The woman who just
ripped your still-beating heart out of your chest and ground it under her
stiletto feels guilty , he mentally filled in the rest of the
sentence, stalking toward the kitchen to see if he had any hard liquor on hand.
“Darla, I’m kind of busy—” He had an urgent date with a fifth of whiskey.
    “—I need a huge favor.”
    He stopped in his
tracks, abruptly regrouping. That didn’t sound like a pity call. Maybe there
was some ass in need of kicking after all. “What kind of favor?”
     
    * * * * * * * * * *
    Julian didn’t quite
know how he’d ended up at Trident Labs being briefed by DynaGirl, her boyfriend—the
supposedly former villain DemonSpawn Wroth—and Dr. Eisenmann, one of Trident’s
resident geniuses whom he’d met over the years helping test super products. All
he knew was that he needed a distraction and having DynaGirl owe him a favor had
seemed like a good idea at the time.
    As Eisenmann reached
over and tapped a button to bring up a closed-circuit feed on the computer monitor,
he wasn’t so sure. The cell that popped up on the screen was small and Spartan,
but Julian barely noticed the stark environment as his eyes locked on the
room’s single occupant. She was tiny, slight of