One problem solved, at least for now.
For a second, no one moves. Then Draven turns to stare at me, his eyes wide and incredulous. Nitro takes a little longer to recover—probably because he has to take time to spit potassium bicarbonate out of his mouth. Then he lets out a roar that shakes everything that’s not nailed down and fires a small and lethal-looking fireball straight at me.
“No! Don’t!” Draven yells, diving in front of me and knocking me to the ground again. Only this time I feel him tense against me as the fireball rips along his back, setting his black T-shirt on fire and burning the skin beneath it.
To his credit, he doesn’t make a sound. But his eyes clench shut and it’s clear he’s in a lot of pain.
Since Draven’s in no position to argue, I wiggle my way out from under him and give him a good blast with the fire extinguisher as well. The fire dies out immediately, but blisters are already rising on his back and arm.
Guilt tears through me. I try to tell myself that it’s all his fault. He’s a villain, after all. But I know the truth. Draven might be ill-equipped to play hero, but he did his best to save me. The thought boggles my mind—a villain trying to save anyone but himself?—though I have no time to worry about it. Not with Nitro and Dante screaming at each other like crazy people.
“Shit!” Dante yells. “Now you’re setting Draven on fire?”
“I’m sorry! I can barely see. She got that crap all over me.” Nitro lets out another yell, and a second fireball comes whizzing past us. “Shite, watch out!”
“Get down!” Draven snaps, uses his uninjured arm to tug me back to the floor.
But I’m done hiding.
“Hey, dragon breath!” I shout as I shake off Draven’s grip. Leaping to my feet, I shoot another blast of potassium bicarbonate straight at Nitro’s face. This time I keep my finger on the lever, covering his eyes, nose, and mouth with the nasty stuff. Then, while he’s trying to wipe it away, I chuck the fire extinguisher at his head as hard as I can.
I’ve got great aim—it’s the closest thing I can claim to a superpower—and I hit him square in the forehead with the butt of the red canister. He stumbles for a second, banging into lab tables, then lands flat on his face. If he weren’t a villain, he’d be out cold. Even so, I can practically see the little birdies circling his head.
Dante’s laughing his ass off at this point, which is totally not what I’d expect from a guy like him. Plus there’s something that looks an awful lot like respect in his eyes as he looks back and forth between Nitro and me. The same can’t be said of Draven, who’s back on his feet despite his injury.
“Do you ever listen?” he demands.
“Only if a person actually has something useful to say.”
Draven shakes his head but doesn’t reply as he crouches next to Nitro. I get my first good look at his back and I wince. Whatever Nitro fired at him must have burned like hell. His skin is a mess.
I’m still stunned that he intercepted the fireball that was meant for me. No one’s ever done anything like that for me before. I’m grateful, even if it’s just part of some weird villain plot to get me to trust him. As if that’s even a possibility.
Draven wipes the potassium bicarbonate off Nitro’s face, then slaps at his cheeks. Nitro’s out cold; Draven’s distracted; and Dante’s laughing too hard to put up much of a fight. I make a beeline for the phone. One call, and every hero in the vicinity will descend on the lab in a flash.
For once, I can save the day.
Dante plants himself in my path. “Don’t get any ideas.”
I pretend not to know what he’s talking about as I change course and circle the table to stand next to Draven, as if that was my intention all along.
“You need a doctor,” I say, crouching to get a better look at Draven’s back. Not that I would normally care about a villain one way or another, but he did save my life tonight. Twice.
“Do you have a death wish?” Draven demands, his intense gaze seeming to look right through me. “When he wakes up, he’s not going to be in control.”
I blink, breaking the connection between us. Gorgeous or not, protector or not, I have to remember that those bright, arctic blue eyes belong to a villain.
“Like he was before?” I ask with a snort.
“She’s got you there,” Dante says, but he isn’t paying much attention to us. Instead, he’s examining the watch in his hand. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the sheen in his eyes was from tears, not the strobe lights of the lab’s alarm system. I close my eyes, shake my head. Who are these guys? They seem more helpless than heartless, more Three Stooges than criminal masterminds.
But villains killed my dad.
Villains hurt me.