Free The Rules of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 1) by C.T. Phipps

Gary,” Mandy interrupted. “Why are you doing this?”
    I realized this deserved a serious response. Dropping my flippant attitude, which was hard , I gave her a straight answer. “My brother.”
    “Your brother?” Mandy looked surprised.
    “Yeah. Remember what I told you?”
    “He was the arch-nemesis of the Silver Lightning?” Mandy asked, sounding somewhat impressed. She shouldn’t have been.
    “Arch-nemesis may be too strong of a word. The Silver Lightning can turn into living electricity, my brother had a harpoon. There’s not much comparison. I think he should have tried being the nemesis of an aquatically-themed superhero…but yeah, Keith’s the reason.”
    Mandy put her computer aside and got up. She walked over to me and placed her hand on my shoulder. It was warm and made me feel better. “Tell me what you’re thinking.” She knew about Keith’s death but not about how it related to my sudden, from her perspective, desire to become a costumed criminal.
    “Sorry,” I said, clenching my teeth at the memory. Even after a decade and a half, discussing my brother’s death was painful. “I keep thinking about how he died. The papers celebrated his death. Celebrated, Mandy. My brother never killed anyone during his decade-long career and they still cheered when some wannabe shot him in the head.”
    I still had nightmares about Shoot-Em-Up. I always would. Some things never left you.
    “So, you want to be like your brother? Is that it?” Mandy asked, looking at me in disbelief.
    “No,” I answered, turning back to her. “I don’t intend to get killed, for instance.”
    “I doubt he did, either.”
    “Keith never made it to the big time.” I ignored her jibe. “He was a B-list villain for an A-list superhero who I bet doesn’t even remember his name. Still, it was the happiest time of his life. I figure, if I can be the supervillain he wasn’t able to be, I can exorcise his ghost.”
    Mandy looked at me with a skeptical expression on her face. “That is the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”
    “Okay, it’s because I want to be rich and famous,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “That better?”
    “If people ask, go with that.” I was about to say more when my cellphone rang. Voltaire’s “When You’re Evil” was my ring tone.
    “Can you change that to something more upbeat?” Mandy asked, staring at my cellphone. “That creeps me out.”
    “Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s a Sin’?”
    “No.” Mandy rolled her eyes.
    “Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’?” I smirked while suggesting.
    Mandy threw up her hands. “Forget it. Answer the damned phone.”
    Pulling it out, I asked, “You want to get Chinese food tonight?”
    “Sounds good,” Mandy replied, switching gears, “as long as you aren’t going to get evil noodles .”
    “No, that would be silly,” I said, answering the phone and putting it to my ear. “Hello?”
    There was nothing but an unearthly horrible static on the other line. Then there was a voice which sounded eerily like Mandy’s own. “Gary...zzzzt...Gary...we...bzzt...need—”
    I hung up.
    “Who was it?” Mandy asked.
    “Wrong number,” I lied, shrugging.
    “ You really shouldn’t have done that. That sounded like spirit world static .”
    “ Is it a pressing issue ?” I asked, mentally.
    “ Not now .”
    “ Then hold off on it ,” I said. “I’m talking to my wife.”
    I started dialing the Chinese restaurant.
    Mandy walked a bit away from me. “Gary, is this your dream?”
    “Excuse me?” I asked, looking up.
    “Your dream, the thing you want most in the world.”
    I was surprised at the direction the conversation was going but, I supposed, this is what I wanted, the chance to talk to Mandy about this seriously.
    She walked over to the fireplace shelf. The fireplace, which we hadn’t used in our entire marriage and wasn’t even linked to a chimney, was purely a place to put pictures. Picking one up of her