“You didn’t kill him!” My voice was ecstatic. “He’s still alive. I knew it. All this time…”

“Ems, stop. Please.” Elijah pleaded. “In private, please?”

I shook my head. “No. These are my girls. My team. They’ve been here to support me over the past year when I needed it the most. What I know, they know. Even if you would tell me in private, I’ll spill it all to them over our next glass of wine.”

“You won’t like what I have to say.” Elijah blew out a breath as he looked around the table to the five sets of eyes staring at him. “Fine. But this stays in this room. Okay?”

A round of yups and you betchas circled the room.

Elijah continued, “I knew Shadow Strike since we were both teens. He was my… friend back at WynGlo when Doctor Quackery took us from the orphanage for his experiments. Shadow Strike and I had both gone to a special school they named the School for Superheroes.”

“Wait… you were supposed to be a superhero?” I asked. He had never told me that part of his backstory.

“No. None of us were. It was just a name used to make us feel special. But it went to some of our heads, like the Wonderful Wons. Shadow Strike was the leader of our little band of teens with superpowers. The super quartet was supposed to be a super quintet, only I couldn’t stand the Thunderbolt. I went off on my own, but the public only saw me as the villain. The Thunderbolt made sure of that. So, I switched sides. Being a villain is so much more fun. At least, it would have been with Doctor Quackery out of the way. He had power over us all. Deep brainwashing shit.”

“So, you know all the Wonderful Wons secret identities?” Jasmine asked, leaning on the table again.

Elijah shook his head. “I only knew the boy behind Shadow Strike’s cape since we had been friends. Doctor Quackery never let us into school without our superhero costume disguises. And back then, we hadn’t made our civilian lives yet. We were only teens wearing masks.”

That lump in my throat grew. “I knew Doctor Quackery was evil, but this is a whole new level. He set you up to kill his own creation, your friend, to save me?”

“The doctor was bitter, since the superheroes turned against their creator. And me, I revolted too. Killing Shadow Strike wasn’t the option Doctor Quackery gave me. He wanted me to bring Shadow Strike in as a trade for you. And that’s why it took me so long to hunt you down and rescue you. I had to come up with a plan alongside Shadow Strike.”

“So, your plan was to fake Shadow Strike’s death.”

“And I couldn’t just kill him. I had to disintegrate him to nothing, so there would be a reason the body wasn’t around.” Elijah took a deep breath. “The point is that Shadow Strike was my friend, and I knew his secret identity. I simply used his secret identity to blackmail him into leaving town. He had a family and kids who I… threatened.”

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My fellow villainesses exchanged skeptical glances.

“So, you didn’t actually kill him?” Hannah asked, her brow furrowed.

“Told ya!” I gloated, struggling to hold back a rush of excitement at confirmation of my hunch. “All this time and you didn’t actually kill him.”

“I blackmailed my friend. The only Wonderful Won that had my back. That was bad enough. But I had to convince everyone that I killed him, so Quackery didn’t retaliate. And to keep Shadow Strike and his family safe from Quackery and his henchmen in the future…” Elijah paused, then he let out an evil chuckle. “And, of course, a villain needs to protect his reputation. It’s better if everything thinks I’m ruthless.”

Hannah let out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s a relief. I felt guilty allowing a murderer to go home to sleep on Emily’s couch.”

“Hey!” Jasmine said. “You were going to let him sleep on my couch?”

“I knew you could handle yourself.”

“And I couldn’t?” I huffed with a playful hand on my hip.

Hannah winked at me, and I knew it was all in good fun. “Anyway, we don’t need any murder on our hands. Blackmailing is one thing, but outright murder is a whole different level of evil. We need to put our heads together on our next step. This puts a little kink in our plan to break Elijah out of prison and have him tell us how to hunt down the Superzeros in order to expose their flaws. It turns out that he only figured out who Shadow Strike was because they had been childhood friends.”

“So, we don’t need him?” Madison giggled. “Emily took a bullet in her bum for nothing?”

“Don’t tell me that bullet was for nothing.” I laughed. “Elijah is still valuable, as he had superhero training, fake or not. He knows how they think.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Jasmine said. “That bullet wasn’t for nothing. You now have a war wound. Something to show off.”

“I guess. My butt was hot before, but now with a big scar? Nobody will be able to resist it.”

Elijah growled from beside me. “You better not show that off to anyone but me.”

My world stopped. “Possessive, are we?”

He cleared his throat. “A little. That’s why I’m sticking around to keep you out of trouble.”

“I’d like to argue that I only got this bullet wound because you were around.”

Elijah chuckled. “What was your line? Bygones? Besides, I loved your sister, too, and agree we need to make sure the public knows the truth.”

Jasmine interrupted our flirtatious chatter. “You two can take that back to your bedroom if you want to continue.”

And as always, Hannah brought us back to reality and focused on us. “We need to be smart about this. Our original plan still stays. We are going to discredit the heroes and show the citizens of Obsidian City that they cause harm, too. Like what they did to our loved ones. Exposing them just might take us a little longer without hijacking Elijah’s master plan.”

Natalie, a mischievous glint in her eye, chimed in. “So, we need to expose their secret identities. Elijah used Shadow Strike’s secret identity against him. Maybe that’s the first step. Then we could dig up some juice to discredit them in the eyes of the public.”

“Like maybe they have a secret love for crocheting?” Madison giggled.

“Or maybe they secretly attend karaoke night every week and sing off key?” Natalie added with a chuckle.

Hannah shook her head in disbelief. “You two are ridiculous. Let’s focus on finding something that will actually damage their reputation.”

I didn’t hear much of what the girls were saying. This past year, I had hated Elijah for the blood on his hands, but it turns out, his hands were mostly clean. I whispered towards my ex, “I testified against you…”

“You did. And it hurt.” His gaze pierced directly into my heart. “Now can we talk in private?”

I sucked in my bottom lip and all I could do was nod.