Wearing The Cape: Villains Inc. Read Online Free Page A

earthquake deliberately triggered by a mentally unstable terrakinetic , the bill is tremendously popular with large parts of the American public. It is also loudly opposed by many superheroes, notably including Astra of the Chicago Sentinels. Critics of the bill argue that it detracts from the effort to secure the country against another attack by The Ring, the transnational super-terrorist group that attacked the President at Whittier Base in the wake of the California quake.
     
    The Chicago Times
     
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    For me Spring Quarter at the University of Chicago meant three classes and a lab. I maintained a true secret identity, which meant that unlike most superheroes I could still take off my mask and disappear into plain Hope Corrigan. No emergencies, no cameras or newsies , pure bliss. Getting out of class Wednesday evening, I dropped by the Bee’s rooms in Palevsky Commons. Julie and Megan were out, but Annabeth answered the door.
     
    “Hope, hi! Keep going, girls!”
     
    She dragged me past the other girls, putting together favors in the common room, as I laughed and juggled the box I carried. C losing the door behind us, she flopped on her bed.   As always, her bedroom looked like her wardrobe had exploded, and she’d completely changed the wall décor again , leaving only The Dane—the huge poster of Dane Dorweiler (her surprisingly long-lasting boyfriend, former captain of our high school soccer team and now UofC’s rising star). It was a good picture: Dane poised mid-kick, a look of dismay on his opponent’s face as he took the ball away from him.   The poster had been a gift from me and the other Bees.
     
    “So let’s see!”   She held out her hands.
     
    “Grabby, much?” I teased, but handed her the box.   She tore the lid off and gasped.
     
    “They’re beautiful!”   She pulled the top sheet out.   Two hundred near-parchment quality invitations, raised print protected by fine laminate. The Bees had pledged Phi Mu last fall, and were already helping organize sorority events. The invitations were for the Spring Social, to be sent out to two hundred high school seniors, the scholastic cream of the incoming crop who’d already won acceptance by College Admissions.   They wanted to have most of the sorority’s new sisters in hand long before next fall’s Pledge Week, and had trusted me with the invitation design.
     
    “The Foundation paid for the printing,” I said, laughing again when she leaped up and hugged me.   Annabeth was as generous with her emotions as she was with everything else, showering them freely on all around her.
     
    “They’re perfect!”   She looked at the one she still held, and her eyes went a bit misty.
     
    “Hey,” I said.   “I didn’t do that good a job.”
     
    “You did.” She sniffed.   “I was just wishing you’d pledged with us.”
     
    “I spend too much time in a mask.”
     
    That got a giggle and she smiled. We’d all intended to live together in Palevsky Commons and rule the school—or at least the sorority—but my breakthrough last fall had changed all my plans. I’d had to disappear till I learned to be safe with my super-strength, and hadn’t been able to start school with them. Now I lived off-campus so others wouldn’t notice how often I had to duck out. I looked over her shoulder at The Dane.
     
    Even Dane’s plans were changing; he’d gotten an offer to go pro already, and if he signed a contract and left Chicago that would be it for him and Annabeth .   She loved him like she breathed—every moment and without thought—but if he was her air, she could never hold her breath that long.
     
    I worried about what would happen then.
     
    “And stop that,” I said. Rising on my toes I kissed her cheek en passant .   “We’re texting and facebooking , doing kamikaze lunches at least three times a week, and Brennan, Bauman, and Brock will be on every Foundation guest list forever .”   I nudge her towards the