Superheroes Anonymous by Lexie Dunne Page A

again?”
    â€œUnfortunately.”
    â€œAnd will I be able to shower?”
    â€œThe entire world would be grateful, so I’m tempted to say no. But as I’m the one that has to have to live with your ungodly stink, I will grant you a shower.”
    â€œHey!” I lifted my head to glare at him better. “You brought this on yourself.”
    â€œThere’s a chemical shower through there.” Mobius’s long fingers undid the shackle around my ankle. Though my skin crawled that he was touching any part of me, I had to sigh when the foot was released. Mobius’s eyes narrowed. “No funny business. The solution has the side effect of making you rather weak. So I recommend you don’t even bother.”
    I didn’t roll my eyes though I considered it. After two weeks on a table, I was going to be as useless as a newborn puppy. But I had to try something, so when Mobius released my wrist, I swung at him.
    Both of us watched my hand as my arm made it halfway into the air and flopped uselessly at my side. He raised his eyebrows at me. “Is that it?”
    â€œApparently,” I said, sighing. It took everything I had to gingerly ease over the edge of the table and lower my legs. My feet were so frozen that touching the cold concrete did absolutely nothing. I gritted my teeth and slowly transferred my weight to my unused legs. It took everything I had to keep upright.
    Mobius seemed to be one of those scientists who had never developed the necessary wells of patience. He grabbed my arm above the elbow and hauled, shoving me over to a door. Inside was a room no larger than a closet with a drain on the floor and a showerhead suspended from the ceiling. A pull chain appeared to be the only type of faucet the chemical shower had.
    I stumbled into the shower and braced my hands on the walls as I tried to get my breath back. I wasn’t precisely winded, but everything just felt weird, like my body had been disassembled and reassembled with different parts. Was that an effect of the radiation?
    â€œDon’t come out until you smell better.”
    â€œKind of not that possible without soap, Doc.”
    â€œFine, fine.” I heard his muttered grumbling as he puttered around the basement-­lair. A few seconds later, a bar of soap was tossed at my feet.
    I plucked at the shoulder of the soiled, rotten gown. “Am I just supposed to wear this?”
    He scowled again. “I’ll find you something and leave it outside the door. Hostages are a lot of work.”
    Even if I weren’t Hostage Girl, I could have told him that.

 
    Chapter Five
    C HEMICAL SHO WERS APPARENTLY aren’t very warm. Or at least this one wasn’t.
    The instant I pulled the cord, cold water sluiced over my head, making me gasp out loud. It was like an icy rain of death, but at least it seemed to shake most of the feebleness out of my limbs. Swearing viciously, I fumbled around in the dark until I found the soap. My hands shook as I yanked off the gown and scrubbed as fast as I could. Thanks to a complete lack of coordination and the danger of frostbite, I stumbled more than I cleaned. I grunted when I banged my shoulder into the wall.
    Honestly, would it have killed him to put in a light?
    I had to use the soap on my hair since there wasn’t any shampoo, but after two weeks, anything was better than nothing. I ducked my head fully under the spray, closed my eyes, and held my breath for ten seconds.
    When I eased open the door to find clothes waiting for me outside, I was shivering so hard that it was hard to pull on the ratty corduroy trousers. The white T-­shirt had seen better days, and the flannel shirt made me grimace. Now Mobius and I would both look like lumberjacks. The pants needed a belt and were far too long, so I rolled the waistline over and over until the extra cloth held the pants up on its own. Underwear seemed like too much to hope for, so I went without. The