Super Villain Grandpa (Cape High Series Book 15) (3 page)

“You don’t know anything,” he says. “When I say things were different, I mean they were different!”

“Nico has kids,” I say, moving in front of him so I can glare properly. “His girlfriend had twins when he was in there! All of you Cape Cell villains are stupid! Have you ever thought about the family you left behind because you just HAD to be a—”

Oh wow, I sound like such a hypocrite right now, don’t I? I shut up and move away, looking around. “Where are we going?” I ask when I see nothing on the horizon.

“We’re going as far as we can,” he says. “Technico is going to come after you, isn’t he?”

“Are you scared of him?” I ask.

“Only a moron wouldn’t be,” he says. “Deathblow is at the top of the most wanted list,” he adds more to himself. “If you hadn’t contacted him, we would have more time.”

“More time for what?” I ask.

He looks over, a bitter smile on his face. “To be free.”

I look away, staring at the water instead of replying to that. I feel so torn right now that it’s unbelievable.

He curses, abruptly, and I look over. “Motion detected over Alpha Island, heading this way,” he says, looking at a beeping map. “He should come into sight at that speed in--” He punches the dashboard, and then slams a fist through the bottom of the boat before grabbing me and diving into the water. I barely have time to take a deep breath before he’s pulling me AND the ship under.

***

“Where is she?”

The question makes Angela look up from her search of the island. There, floating over her head— “Superior?” she asks, shielding her eyes. “I thought—”

“Not Superior,” the man says, landing in front of her, “Technico. Your granddaughter called me a few hours ago and then the connection was destroyed. So where is she?”

Angela stares at him, shaking her head slightly after a moment. “You look so much like your father,” she says after a moment. “You’ve grown up handsome. But Keliah should be fine,” I hope, she adds silently. “You might not have noticed, but we’re pretty secluded out here—and she IS a super, even if she’s only just coming into her powers.”

“I know that,” he says, looking around curiously, and then going still as he stares at the ground. “So… you’re into building your own secret base islands?” he asks almost casually.

“Wh—” She stops abruptly as things click. “Of course I am,” she lies, waving a hand. “Anyone would, don’t you think? You have a lot of time after retirement, you need to work out somehow or you go to flab.”

He looks at her for a long moment. “Mind if I see it?” he asks. “I’ve often thought of setting up an island like this one.”

“I would, but I’m a bit busy right now. And Keliah will be fine—don’t you have more important things to worry about than a girl who’s not even in your school at the moment?” she says. “I heard the Cape Cells had a little breakout.”

“Little isn’t the word I would use,” he says, still staring at the ground. She has to distract him, she thinks. “Did you destroy her phone?” he asks, looking at her.

“I—” she blinks, almost showing her surprise, “She needs to do this training without a crutch,” she says. “This is a family thing, Nicolas, and even if I didn't change your diapers back in the day, I still expect you to respect that.”

“I will, but I’d still like to see her before I go,” he says.

“I’m afraid you can’t do that—she’s in the middle of extremely important focus training,” Angela lies with a slight smile. “We can’t interrupt it or she’ll have to start over again.”

“I see,” he says, looking at her curiously. “Then I’ll just be going. I expect to hear from her soon, though. She might be on suspension, but she’s still one of my kids.”

“One that you would fly halfway across the world to check on?” Angela asks, stunned.

“Like someone mentioned earlier, her grandmother used to change my diapers,” he says with a little smile. “In case there are any problems,” he goes on, pulling a small phone out of his pocket, “call me. I’ll either send someone or come myself.”

She takes the phone, looking at it for a moment. “You used to destroy whatever phone I got,” she says.

“Then I owe you one,” he says. “It’s good to see you again, Falconess.” He takes to the air, looking at the island again with a hint of fascination. “You don’t rent this place out, do you? For family holidays? Because Summer and Sunny would LOVE it, and Zoe and I could have a lot of fun with that secret base.”

“I’ll consider it,” she says. “Now get going, you’ve got a world to save, right?”

“How do you know I’ll be the one saving it?” he asks with a hint of amusement.

“You are your father’s son, when it comes down to it,” she says.

“I just do it to keep him in retirement.” And then he’s gone, leaving her to let out a sigh of relief—and then tense again.

“What have you done this time, Austin?” she whispers, her hands clenching at her sides. There’s a tiny, colorful firework tattooed on her left hand ring finger, one that she’s thought about getting removed a million times before.

CHAPTER TWO

I can’t breathe. I’m going to drown. I try to jerk free of Grandpa. He looks at me and I see him realize the problem. We race to the surface and I take a deep, gasping breath, trying to refill my lungs.

“Sorry,” he says, holding me close. “Just breathe. You can do it.” I start coughing and he pats my back, like I’m a baby. “You’re okay,” he says.

“I almost… drowned,” I say between breaths.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, “but Technico was coming.”

“We don’t have a boat,” I say, trying to get the hair clinging to my face off. “We’re out here with nowhere to go and no boat and—and you almost DROWNED ME!”

“I know, I know,” he says, looking at the sky instead of me. “He’s left,” he says, sounding stunned. “Come on, let’s find some dry land,” he tells me, taking to the air. I grab on, not used to this method of flying. Mom flies like a bird, her legs behind her, her wings catching the air. This is the sort of flying that the other capes use. It’s a hovering sort of weightless feeling that has me glancing down apprehensively.

“Why did he leave?” I ask, feeling abandoned.

“I don’t know,” he says, “I don’t care to find out. Maybe someone did something worse than kidnapping their own grandkid.”

“There’s nothing worse than that!” I say.

He actually laughs at that. “There are millions of things worse than that—at least in our case,” he says. “I’m going to get you closer to flying.”

“What?”

“You came out here for some reason, didn’t you? Your grandmother was going to train you, I bet.”

I find myself nodding.

“Then I’ll do it,” he says. “I’ve only got a short amount of time before they find me and toss me back into the Cape Cells.”

“If you knew that, why did you break out?” I demand. “You could have just stayed in there—”

I let out a little yelp as he wraps his arms tightly around me, burying his face in my neck. “This is the first hug I’ve had in almost forty years,” he says roughly. “You’re the first person I’ve talked to other than a handful of vicious criminals. We had five minute meetings once a year, if we were lucky. If it was Mimic I got stuck with, I didn’t even get a decent conversation half the time. Mimic is moody. With Deathblow it was all about how many of our kind he’d killed—”

“What—what did Nico talk about?” I ask, drawn into his story.

He lets out a rough laugh. “Technico told me about whatever machine he was designing at the time. He’s a genius—I tinkered, sure, car parts, old-fashioned bombs, but Technico—” he pulls back, grinning, “he could do anything he wanted with machines, even when he was in a power-blocking suit. You could hear music and television playing from his room, even if he didn’t have an actual radio or television. I had no idea how, but I wanted music so badly. It helped me think when I was trying to design things,” he says, his smile softening. “I mentioned it once, so he hijacked one of my robot guards when people weren’t watching.”

“You were friends?” I ask, stunned.

“Up until he set the thing to play Mr. Boombastic on repeat for an entire week,” he says dryly. “Then I was irritated with him for an entire year.”

“Mr. what?” I say blankly.

“It was before you were born,” he says, “thank God for that,” he adds dryly. “The rest of the Cells have called me Boombastic ever since.”

“Isn’t that your name?” I ask.

“Bombastic and Boombastic are different,” he says. “Don’t you go calling me it, too.”

“Grandpa Boombastic sounds kind of okay,” I say, trying not to laugh.

He groans and takes off, heading through the sky at top speeds. A smaller island soon appears on the horizon and I let out a sigh of relief. Land—we’re going to be on land again! He lands on the beach and looks around, heading for one of the trees to the right and pressing his hand to it. A panel flips open under his touch and he pushes a button. The ground slides open and he heads down. I hesitate, walking closer and peeking into the hole.

“Grandpa?” I ask.

“Just checking the backup supplies,” he says.

“Did you tell Technico about you and Grandma?” I ask, sitting down next to the hole. “Also, do you have water down there?”

“There’s a freshwater stream further inland,” he says, “along with several fruit trees. We won’t starve or die of dehydration.” He comes out, carrying some tins. “Most of this is too old, but a few things survived,” he announces. “The Twinkies might still be good!”

“Twinkies,” I repeat. “You’re joking, right?”

“Want to find out?”

“No thanks.”

He tosses a box over his shoulder. “Maybe later, I could seriously go for a cheeseburger right now,” he adds under his breath.

“Me too,” I say. “Um… should we tell Grandma that we’re here?” I ask. “She’s going to be looking for me—”

“I can’t,” he says.

“What?”

“Your grandma would throw me back in the Cape Cells as soon as she saw me—what’s your name?” he asks abruptly.

“Keliah,” I say.

“Okay, Keliah, here’s how this is going to go. We’re going to hide from the family for the next two days. All I want is two days,” he says. “After those two days we’ll go find your Grandma… and I’ll go back to the cells.”

“What did you do that got you put there?” I ask.

“I blew up a building… or four,” he says, looking at his hands.

“What? Were people in them?” I demand.

“Yeah,” he says, “there was. At least in one of them there was.”

“How?” I ask, not sure I want to know.

He holds up a hand and I watch in horror as it turns black with orange glowing cracks. He touches the tree nearest us and I watch as the black spreads over the plant. It explodes a second later. “Did you—did you know?” I ask in a tiny little voice.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “They’re dead and I’m the cause.” There’s a rawness in his expression that hurts my heart.

“But it’s NOT FAIR!” I say. “You didn’t know, did you? You thought they were empty—” I have to believe he thought they were empty--I HAVE to. If they weren’t empty and he knew they weren’t, he would be—he would be a murderer.

“It was Manslaughter, which means I didn't know they were there, but I still killed them,” he says. “It was the middle of the night. I was casing the joint when Superior caught me getting a bit too close. I should have run, but there was only one of him. If I came back later, I was sure I'd be facing the entire Hall. I thought I had a chance, even if he was Superior. I was wrong.”

“Why were you fighting with Superior?” I ask. “Weren’t you Grandma’s nemesis?”

“Sure, your grandma and I fought a lot, but this wasn't a typical job--I was planning on breaking into a government building,” he admits with a shake of his head. “Superior had ties with the government back in the day and even if he hadn’t… I was the first person tossed into the Cape Cells.” He shrugs and runs a hand over his face. “Now isn’t the time to dredge up old problems, Keliah,” he says, looking at me.

“Now is the only time we’ll have!” I say, my hands fisting. How has it gotten to this point? I’ve started to care for him in—in like an hour! I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been for Grandma to lose him! “Did you love Grandma?” I demand. “I want to know—was it like Mom and Vertigo, or was it—was it like America’s Son and Star Spangled?”

“America’s Son and Star Spangled?” he asks.

“They—they’re married and have two sons,” I say, wiping at a tear that’s threatening to fall.

“I could lie to you really easily right now,” he points out.

“You won’t,” I say.

“What do you want to hear?”

“The truth, duh!”

“The truth is that I have a tiny window of time before they capture Deathblow and go for the next most powerful cape,” he says. “That’s me, at least it is unless Mimic finds a powerful one early,” he admits. “Honestly, power-wise I might be number one, but D.B. has no self control. If I keep my head down there's a chance I'll be ignored for a bit, but I can’t swear to it. There were only seven of us in the cells, and the girl stayed behind.”

“The girl?”

“The new one—I never met her face to face before the escape, but you’d be surprised how robots gossip,” he says. “I think all those years with Technico in the building had something to do with it. Enough talking,” he says, turning and looking around. “Let’s get started with your training.” He never answered my question. Instead he holds out one hand, offering it to me. I stare at the hand—the same hand that blew up a tree. He watches me, and I realize that this is a test. If I don’t take the hand offered, what will he do?

I look at the tree chunks scattering the ground. He could easily kill me, and we both know it. I might have broken Jennifer’s nose, but I’m nowhere near this man’s league—he survived a fight with SUPERIOR. That’s got to place him in the A-class range, at least! And he kidnapped me!

“Afraid?” he asks.

“Absolutely not!” I say, grabbing the hand. For a second it feels too warm to hold onto, but I wave it off as my imagination. “What are we going to do?” I ask him.

“We’re going to get you closer to the sky,” he says with a grin. With a flick of his wrist he tosses me into the air, catching one foot in his hand. “You ready?” he asks as I wobble and try to catch my balance.