Page 4 of Villainous Intent

“The usual. Poor crowd control. Two civilians breached the containment barrier during the Surge and Wildfire clash.” I gestured vaguely to the dried blood stiffening the fabric of my skirt. “I tripped over them.”

He let out a harsh sound, dragging a hand down his face.

“You look like shit, Annie.”

I offered him a tight smile. “Thanks. That’s exactly what I want to hear after scraping civilian off my shoes.”

Havoc leaned back and motioned to one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Sit down, kid.”

I sank into one of the chairs opposite him, relishing the feel of being off my feet, and stared at the man across the desk.

The world saw a Trueborn Hero, a reformed Super Villain walking the straight and narrow. I saw the man who had pulled a terrified ten-year-old out of a dark closet twenty years ago.

My fingers found the cuff around my wrist. The metal was warm from my skin. I pressed my thumb against the seam anyway, checking. Always checking.

“After your District Four clash,” I started. “You have the PR debriefing at nineteen hundred hours, followed by⁠—”

“Stop.” Havoc held up a hand, cutting me off. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the desktop. “I meant what I said. You look terrible. It isn’t just the blood, Annie. You look dead on your feet.”

I offered a dry, humorless laugh. “Alert the media, there’s a tired Keeper on the loose. We should probably issue a press release.”

Havoc didn’t smile. His blue eyes remained locked on my face, and I knew he saw the dark circles under my eyes and the tremor in my fingers. “Take the rest of today off. Tomorrow, too. I’ll have Simmons pull one of the junior Keepers from the bullpen.”

“No, I don’t need time off. A junior Keeper won’t know how to handle the oversight reps when you inevitably breach the collateral damage cap and destroy half the street.”

“Annie—”

“And you have an appearance at the Dread and Obsidian match tomorrow,” I pushed on, my voice rising in a desperate bid to maintain control.

“You have that thing with Dawn tomorrow night,” Havoc countered. “I can manage one day without you.”

I deepened my scowl as I glared across the desk. “Do you even have a clue what your schedule looks like tomorrow, aside from showing up to brood at the Dread and Obsidian match?”

Havoc opened his mouth. “I have the⁠—”

“Don’t,” I snapped, cutting him off before he could invent a fake committee meeting. “And don’t try to use my pathetic social life as an excuse to bench me, either. My thing with Dawn isn’t until tomorrow evening.”

I gripped the edges of my cracked tablet, my knuckles turning white. “I certainly don’t need an entire twenty-four hours to prepare for a blind date.”

Yes, I did.

My roommate Dawn, bless her well-intentioned heart, had invited me out to meet her new boyfriend of the month. I’d lost count of how many times we’d played this game. Dawn finds a guy, falls madly in love for approximately two weeks, then decides he’s either “too clingy” or “not emotionally available enough” and moves on to the next victim.

She inevitably turned every meet-the-boyfriend dinner into a double date, pairing me with whatever unfortunate friend the new boyfriend dragged along in an effort to get me out.

“It’s just dinner. I’ll smile, nod at whatever mansplaining awaits me, then go home. No day off required,” I assured Havoc.

“When’s the last time you relaxed, Annie?” Havoc cocked his brow. “And reviewing Alliance match footage doesn’t count as relaxing.”

A piece of my soul shriveled and died right there. I swallowed, forcing my face to be blank. Yes, I watched footage. No, it was absolutely not the kind he thought. I would hurl my own body off the Tower’s observation deck before admitting how I actually spent my free time to Havoc.

It started innocently enough. Two months ago, I was doing legitimate research on the official Villain Watch database. It was a perfectly reasonable, mundane activity for an Alliance Keeper.

Then I hit a rogue sidebar link labeled BadGuysDoItBetter.

Turns out, a massive community existed to appreciate the League’s worst offenders. They didn’t give a single damn about respecting tactical abilities or analyzing match statistics either. They cared about slow-motion combat footage set to heavy, sultry bass lines. They obsessed over the flex of a bicep or the swagger of a Villain walking away from a burning building.

Before I registered the danger to myself, I fell headfirst down a digital rabbit hole. Suddenly, I was spending hours scrolling endlessly through the #MaskedTemptations tag on both Villain Watch and it’s corresponding app, ShadowSnap. I consumed hundreds of fan edits highlighting Villains looking particularly… Villainous.