“You . . . you . . .” Emily said.

“Me!” he said right back. “Thanks for the distraction, by the way. Turns out . . .” He stopped and pointed to the end of the alley the Heroes went down. Emily followed his finger and stared at the brick wall across from them. The alley obviously forked between two buildings. She could hear the cars and such on the street, but not see them. He went on. “Although you can come from that way, you can’t leave that way.” He pointed over his back with a thumb. “Bit of a dead end. I’m quite lucky you were there!”

Something in Emily clicked. “Teddy.”

“Yeah, Boss?”

“You remember what you did to that man in the bar?”

“Yeah?” Teddy said.

“Do it to him,” she said while pointing to Alea Iacta.

The Villain stared at the two. “What, is the tyke going to kick my shiiiiii— What the hell!”

Teddy’s transformation into a grizzly bear, now that she wasn’t hidden in the depths of a dingy bar, and now that Emily was so far past stressed that she couldn’t muster the energy to care, was actually quite impressive.

One moment she was Teddy, a normal girl, a bit chubby and kinda cute when she wasn’t asking uncomfortable questions about the values of communism. The next, she was taller than Emily while on all fours, her body covered in bristling dark-brown fur.

Alea Iacta stumbled back, but he couldn’t move backward faster than a car-size bear could move forward, and he found himself rather quickly with no space to maneuver.

Emily had never intimidated anyone in her entire life, but she figured with Teddy helping her, she could maybe manage a little.

The Rascal’s eyes were looking all over for an escape. Then Teddy’s paw crashed into the wall next to him and her claws bit into the bricks.

His only other route of escape was through Emily.

She glared.

He didn’t seem that impressed.

Do you wish to reveal your identity?

“Yes.”

Alea Iacta’s eyes slowly traced up from her face and to the words hanging above her. What little she could see of his face turned white, then went a bit green.

She glanced up, too, just in case.

The Boss

Villain, Level 1

“I . . . have questions,” Emily said.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

An Adorable Misunderstanding

Teddy didn’t know what the weird guy did to anger the Boss. All she knew was that he was smaller than her, and not nearly as strong, and those two things made it real easy for her to pin the guy against the wall and keep him there for the Boss.

“I . . . have questions,” the Boss said. Her voice sounded shaky, like she was holding back a whole lot of anger.