Superheroes Anonymous by Lexie Dunne

important. From what I can gather from your little outbursts, you’ve been reliving important moments in your life.”
    â€œI was hallucinating.” I began to search the room for the source of the smell. Surely something that stank that badly would make itself obvious.
    Dr. Mobius tapped one finger against a wart on his chin while he studied the clipboard in the flickering light. “You mentioned a Jeremy Collins—­Blaze, understandably. Angus Vanderfeld is a noted entry, and never with happy emotions attached. And Blaze himself, as his superhero identity. Of course.” He looked up from the clipboard and down at me, and I quite suddenly wished he’d go back to the clipboard. His eyes, too large and too bulbous for his sockets, bugged out at me. “I find it curious that you deny even in your subconscious that Jeremy Collins is Blaze.”
    â€œBlaze isn’t Jeremy Collins.”
    Mobius twitched a shoulder.
    And I realized where the smell was coming from: me. I stank. I reeked badly enough that I was causing myself to gag. No wonder I’d been shaking so badly. I’d probably been trying to break the restraints and run away from myself.
    â€œEvidently, I could use a shower.” I breathed shallowly through my mouth. “How long was I out?”
    â€œEight hours. I felt it best to sedate you during your seizure so that you didn’t try to swallow your own tongue and suffocate. Death is such a messy, pointless thing. You’re of much more use to me alive.” Mobius put the clipboard away.
    Since I’d been kidnapped by villains who hadn’t shared that philosophy and hadn’t cared whether I lived or died, the sentiment was actually a bit touching. The seizures were worrying, though.
    Mobius, of course, ruined the effect. “Granted, if Blaze doesn’t show soon, I may have to revise my policy. Every minute you’re here is one where we might be discovered. As spry as I am—­I’m quite spry; that’s how I was able to escape the guards at Detmer—­I’d rather not have to live with the messiness of a civilian rescue.”
    Detmer, where they kept the most dangerous, deranged supervillains. I swallowed hard.
    â€œThey had me in solitary, you know.” Mobius’s voice took on that distant quality that only supervillains could get while they lectured about their evil plans: smug and with a hint of wistfulness. “It took me nearly two years to come up with the perfect escape plan. I shan’t tell you what it was—­it’s the most forgotten rule in the Villain Handbook that to give away the intricate details of one’s plan or escape is to concede defeat on the spot. And, Girl, I will not be defeated.”
    Why did it not surprise me that the villains had a handbook? I probably had my own chapter and designation, and they likely included the words “handy to kidnap in a pinch.”
    â€œWhere was I?” Dr. Mobius pushed his scaly index finger up the side of his face, thinking. “Oh, right. You’re troublesome. I’ve had you here thirteen days, and frankly, I’m tiring of cleaning up your messes, of feeding you, and of your lack of gratitude. I mean, even if you weren’t forgetting every day left and right, you really are a most ungrateful creature.”
    â€œSorry I’m not grateful that you strapped me to a table.”
    â€œThat’s precisely what I mean.” Dr. Mobius stalked to the other side of the laboratory and back, a short trip. His scowl turned into a mutinous frown, and he let out a gusty sigh. “Every day that passes increases the likelihood of you escaping that table, and there are several caustic chemicals around that could hurt me.”
    â€œYou think?” I asked, eyeing the bubbling green beaker.
    He flicked his fingers at me. “I think it’s time for a new location.”
    â€œWhere? Will I be able to move around