Triple Threat (Lois Lane) Read online

  There was also a story by someone else: a profile of my dad and his military service. Another story detailed rumors about more funding being set aside for military research into advanced technology.

  I slid that aside and went cold.

  There was a picture of me, taken as I walked up a street. The background was as blurred as I was in focus, so it could have been on the way to school or home. It could have been taken anywhere, anytime. I shivered.

  A hand landed on my shoulder. “Lois?”

  I flinched, then gave a chagrined smile to Anavi, who stood next to me.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. Anavi and I had been friends since my story on the Warheads. She had been the one targeted by the Warheads in the first place.

  “Um, sure,” I said.

  Even though she didn’t try to look at what was on my desk, I shut my notebook on the contents of the folder. No need to involve her in whatever this was or remind her of bad things in the past.

  “I was concerned by your immobility,” she said.

  I frowned.

  She paused. Then, “The bell rang, and everyone left except you. And me.”

  “Oh,” I said, rising from the desk. “Thanks, lost in thought.”

  In worries, more like. What did it all mean? The fact the kid had this intel on him and I’d been able to get it from him? Had he let me steal it? If not, why hadn’t he asked for it back?

  He’d whined for the return of the backpack itself.

  I needed to know if the others had said anything else to my friends that would illuminate the situation. The word that kid had used to describe them meant nada to me.

  I slipped my phone out and typed a quick message into the chat app to SmallvilleGuy: Does the word Typhon ring any bells for you?

  He wasn’t in the app and probably wouldn’t log in again until after school. I put my phone away. Anavi watched me with amusement.

  “You must be in preparations for an article,” she said.

  “Seems that way. Don’t tell Butler—he was salivating about it this morning.”

  “We’re not confidantes, so no problem. And in case you forgot, Nellie Bly, it’s lunch period,” Anavi said as we emerged into the crowded hallway.

  “Good, I’m starving,” I said, but it was a lie.

  For once, the only thing I was hungry for was knowledge. And finally taking down Donovan. That too.

  CHAPTER 4

  I’d sent a text to Taxi Jack at the beginning of last period. So my trusty favorite cabbie and his many-ringed fingers waved at us from the curb as we fled the scene of school after last bell.

  I surveyed the crowd of departing students around us, but saw no sign of the silver-armored misfits who’d attacked us earlier. That metal hadn’t resembled anything I’d ever seen or heard about. In fact, all I could say for sure is that it was metallic-looking. The way it had molded like a skin over feet and faces and hands, and even the way those spiky wings had moved so easily, meant it was flexible, though. Almost as if it was molten, though it clearly wasn’t. Otherwise at least one of us would’ve been burned. I wondered if anyone had touched it.

  James opened the back door of the cab for Maddy and Devin. Then he got in too, leaving me to climb into the front seat.

  “How’s it going, Jack?” I asked.

  “You tell me—we headed somewhere dangerous today? What’s up?” Taxi Jack asked, the eagerness in his voice surprising.

  I could relate, but… “Can you just take us to the Daily Planet Building?”

  “’Course.” He shook his head and levered the car out of park. “But you’re losing your edge.”

  “My edge is razor-sharp,” I volleyed back.

  No one in the backseat weighed in. Traitors.

  I still wasn’t sure how to handle the contents of the folder. My friends should know what had been inside. I also knew they’d be concerned for my safety if I told them. Well, more concerned than usual.

  That always proved inconvenient. I didn’t want to risk outright lying though, not when they’d been targeted too.

  “Uh-oh,” Devin said. “Lois is being a little too quiet. Think she’s figuring out how to manage us into letting her take point?”

  “Definitely,” Maddy said.

  James couldn’t resist chiming in too. “It’s her way.”

  “I’m not that predictable,” I said.

  Taxi Jack made a disbelieving grunt, which I chose to ignore.

  The thing was, even though they’d attacked all of us, my byline had been the only one underlined in the folder. My stories were the only ones included, even if the others had done additional reporting to help. Sure, there’d been four of them like there were four of us and they’d come after the others too. But that boy had come after me first. Not to mention the story about my dad. And not to mention the picture of me on the street.

  It had to mean something.

  On the other hand, Donovan was plenty smart enough to figure out that the best way to manipulate me was to put people I cared about in danger. That didn’t mean I would risk them getting hurt for some vendetta against me. Where were these teenagers even from, that they’d spoken about being rescued? How had they gotten hooked up with Donovan?

  Taxi Jack wove effortlessly through traffic.

  “There are so many Loose Lips threads about spring formal season,” James said. “I’m wondering if we should do a story.”

  I snorted, and scooted to face the backseat. “James, maybe you should volunteer to take someone shopping. An exposé on the horrors of dress hunting.”

  “You know,” Maddy said, “it’s not a half-bad idea.” James shot her a skeptical eyebrow raise, and she said, “Well, for someone to do it. How to find something affordable and flattering, you know.”

  That sounded like Maddy was giving the dance real thought. It never occurred to me to do social stuff like that, not unless we were covering it. It’s not as if I could take a date with SmallvilleGuy so far away.

  “Wait, are any of you going to the spring formal?” I asked.

  Devin said, “I already asked Katrina Long. We’re keeping it casual.”

  “And you, you’re going with Dante?” I asked Maddy.

  She shrugged. “I guess so. We haven’t talked about it.”

  Huh. I visualized one of the posters in the hallway at school. We were talking about something less than two weeks away… was it weird they hadn’t made plans yet?

  “What about you, James?” Maddy asked.

  James shook his head, and if I wasn’t wrong, there was an embarrassed pink tint to his cheeks. “I don’t know if I’ll go,” he said. “There’s, um, no one I really want to ask.”

  We pulled up at the curb in front of the Daily Planet Building, and so the time for dance talk was over. James practically leaped out of the car, Maddy piling out after him. I started to take out my wallet, but Devin said, “I got this one,” and paid Jack.

  As he accepted the cash, Taxi Jack shot me a kind look and said, “Take care you don’t cut yourself with that sharp edge. A dance would do you good.”

  Then he screeched away into traffic. “Let’s go,” I said, giving a sarcastic twirl as we crossed the concrete plaza to the revolving doors of the Daily Planet Building.

  The thrill of working in this building, with its iconic globe on top, would never fade. Some of the older, professional Planet reporters—even besides our editor Perry White—recognized us now, and we got friendly nods as we made our way through the gleaming lobby, all the way over to the grim, gray elevators down to our basement office.

  So what if we were headquartered in the Morgue alongside the paper copies of the moldering archive? That didn’t bother me anymore. Being part of the Daily Scoop meant we were also part of the Daily Planet.

  We navigated the dim hallway, past the fam
iliar row of framed front pages screaming about disasters and big news events. One more recently hung was the story with which we’d taken down mobster Moxie “Boss” Mannheim and cleared James’s dad’s name.

  Tension built inside me. I didn’t like feeling behind the curve. This story was mine. I was going to get Donovan.

  But I still couldn’t figure it out. The group had come after us, provoked us. They’d said they’d be seeing us again soon.

  They were stronger than us. Faster. One could fly. I still didn’t know what powers the fourth girl had—the one who’d apparently come after Devin.

  James opened the office door and flipped on the lights, illuminating the room that held our four giant, ancient desks and rows of file drawers against the walls. Meanwhile, I logged into the chat app. There was a message from a few minutes earlier, a response to my Typhon query.

  SmallvilleGuy: Nothing. Let me see if I can track it down. Everything okay?

  SkepticGirl1: Peachy-ish. Fill you in later.

  Researching the term was one less thing I had to worry about for now. I could always count on SmallvilleGuy to have my back.

  Devin walked over and snagged his chair, rolling it into the middle area of the office between our desks. James and Maddy followed suit with their own.

  I stood, crossing my arms. They’d accused me of plotting to manage them, but I was getting the distinct impression they had made a plan about how to handle me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Devin strode over and grabbed my chair, then wheeled it over to the others. “You said we’d regroup, so we’re regrouping. Whatever scheming is going to happen, we’ll do together.”

  “We’re all involved in this,” Maddy said. “You think it’s got something to do with Donovan.”

  I eased into the chair. “Fine. Tell me what happened to you guys this morning before I got there.”

  Maddy, James, and Devin exchanged a glance.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Shouldn’t we ask you to tell us what you saw on the way home Friday first?” Maddy said. “I mean, chronologically. We’re assuming it’s related.”

  “Touché,” I said, “it is and I will, along with what happened to me this morning. But I want to hear your impressions without them being biased by mine.”

  “Okay, I guess,” James said. Devin and Maddy nodded.

  They’d freak about the articles and that photo of me.

  I was convinced it was Donovan. He loved paper records, and he hated me. But why would he be trying to lure me or any of us into coming after him? I couldn’t puzzle it out. Maybe knowing what the other members of the silver squad had done would help.

  “You can go first,” Maddy said to James.

  “I was going to school like always,” James said. “Dad was heading into the campaign office, so I rode partway in his car. They let me out a couple of blocks away, and I was early, so I wasn’t in any rush.”

  “I wonder what it’s like to be early,” I mused.

  “You’ll never know,” Maddy said.

  “When I got close to school, I saw a scuffle out front,” James went on. “Then I realized it was Maddy and that winged guy.” He paused. “I know we’ve seen some crazy things, but I can’t believe I just said that I saw a winged guy.”

  “At least we all saw it too?” I said. James didn’t know about my experience with the flying man years ago, so he had no idea I’d had a similar experience with far fewer witnesses.

  Perry always says a good journalist trusts their gut, then finds the proof to back it up.

  “We all saw it, and we saw some crazy stuff from the others,” Devin said. He mimed zipping his lips and throwing away a key. “I know, I know, I’m waiting my turn.”

  James went on. “So, I saw a winged guy standing over Maddy, and she was kicking at him.”

  “Good job.” I held up my hand for a high-five and she slapped it. She’d taught me a trick the other week for always connecting with the other person’s hand: looking at their elbow. It was a high-five game changer.

  “She could have been hurt,” James said.

  “She wasn’t,” I said.

  Maddy leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. “It seemed to freak him out, honestly, that I was fighting back.”

  “Hmm,” I said, “the others didn’t seem freaked out. Not too freaked out, anyway.”

  James interrupted. “Then I called out to Maddy, but before I could go over there, that girl picked me up with those silver hands of hers and carried me there.” He rolled up his sleeve to show an angry, darkening bruise on his forearm.

  Maddy gasped. “James!”

  He soaked in Maddy’s concern. “It hurt. She wasn’t gentle about it.”

  “You’ll live,” I told James. Was Maddy’s concern for James friendly or something more? That wasn’t my real question. My real question was whether something was up with her and Dante. (Was she still happy with him? Or was something going on between them? That was a conversation for me to have with her later. In private.) “What did her hands feel like?”

  “Cold. Not stiff, though,” James said. “Whatever was on them was flexible. She moved them like regular hands. Just very, very strong regular hands.”

  “Do you think it was metal?” I asked.

  He considered. “Not any kind I’ve ever felt before. But… maybe.”

  “And she deliberately carried you over to Devin and Maddy?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she did,” Devin answered. “I saw her grab him, before I got distracted by the girl who came after me. I was walking up from the other direction when mask girl started shooting these eye-beams at me. I know how it sounds. I pretended it was some kind of laser game, because there were still a few people around—and I had to dodge to stay clear of them.”

  So that was her special thing. Laser eyes. Great. “But you could?” I pressed. “Dodge?”

  “Only because she wasn’t trying too hard. Or maybe isn’t that good at using her eye lasers? I did feel them once, though. It was like a wave of heat pushing me where she wanted me to go.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “She wanted to push you to where James and Maddy were. The fast guy was watching me after the movie the other night. And he knocked into me twice—first on Friday, then again this morning. He led me to school.”

  “You were going there anyway, though,” Maddy said.

  “Obviously they wanted to mess with all of us.” I thought of that photograph of me. They’d wanted to mess with me more. That guy had known where to pick me up all three times.

  “What is it?” Devin asked.

  They were getting far too perceptive, my friends.

  “The guy had articles in his backpack,” I said. “In the folder I got.”

  I wasn’t going to conceal everything. I opened up my messenger bag and passed over the folder. They flipped through what I’d left inside it.

  I’d taken out the picture of me. And I’d taken out our article about Steve Jenkins and Advanced Research Labs, Inc. But I’d left the military stuff. Except for the profile of Dad.

  “These are articles about military research,” James said. “Why would he be carrying them?”

  “Who do we know who keeps paper records?” I asked. “That logo, it had the elements of the Ismenios logo in it. That was our dragon and warrior.”

  “True,” Maddy said thoughtfully. “But they looked different. I’m not sure it’s him.”

  This I hadn’t expected at all. “Why not? Because of the art style?”

  “Why would he come back? At us? It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “And they seemed to like whoever did this to them. I can’t imagine anyone liking Donovan.”

  “You’ve got a point there.” I shuddered just thinking of him and his creepy research techniques. “But who else could it be?”


  “I’m not convinced either way,” Devin said. “They didn’t seem to recognize his name. And as far as I’m concerned, figuring out who’s behind this is step two—especially if it’s Donovan. We need to find out where the new test subjects came from. They looked like they were our age, and there was something sad about them…”

  Rudely mocking, but yes, sad too. I knew exactly what he meant. Trust Devin to pick up on the same thing as me. “You’re right. They were too skinny. Their clothes weren’t in great shape. Maybe we should start by checking missing kid reports,” I said. “Someone has to be looking for at least one of them.”

  Devin wheeled away to mouse his computer to life. “I can do that.”

  I tugged on my lip, thinking about how else we might be able to track them down. A series of actions unfolded. “Maddy, do you think Dante could whip up some flyers with their faces from your description? We could split up and take those around a few neighborhoods after school tomorrow.”

  And hope not to encounter anyone we couldn’t handle.

  Maddy hesitated, but said, “I’ll text him.”

  So my sixth sense was right. Something was up with her and paradise boy.

  “I volunteer to write some posts on Loose Lips, for schools around town,” I said, starting to roll back to my desk.

  I’d also be thinking about how to connect this to Donovan. How to nail him. Finally.

  James moved back toward his own desk in his high-backed chair. “What should I do?”

  I didn’t get a chance to answer, though, because our boss chose that moment to storm in. Perry entered like a thundercloud, slamming the door behind him so hard the glass rattled. He sported one of his usual trendy knock-off suits, and his tie was loose around his neck.

  I now recognized that as a warning. A loose tie meant he was in a mood.

  “Was that just for the effect?” I asked. “Or were you hoping to shatter the door?”

  “Do I do anything just for the effect?” he returned in one of his “end of my rope” tones.

  “I’m going to refrain from giving an answer you won’t like,” I said.