Building A Harem Of Supervilainesses... But First, I Have To Save Them Chapter 33: Ch 33: Under Arrest

"Even if there’s another bactin invasion, I’ll ditch it and be there."

She smiled.

Then she leaned in and kissed my cheek, leaving a little tingle where her ability drained a touch of ki from .

She lingered for a second, but then continued on her way, doing a little happy hop when she thought I wasn’t looking.

"Duuuude."

Ben’s hand slapped down on my shoulder.

"You two just made up?"

"Sort of. We are going to have dinner after work. But enough about that. We need to get back to the office and show our faces, or Candice will realize we’ve been gone half the workday."

I made eye contact with Ben and the three won.

"We just lost track of ti at a team lunch. We worked during it, anyway."

They all repeated after with smiles.

"Good. Now let’s get back to work. Mary, Kate, I need both of you working on setting up the logistics for a shoot in two weeks. Rachel, do a favor and get a list together of the supers we picked. Send it to the Bureau so that they can arrange for the supers to et us for the shoots."

"Can do." Kate nodded.

"What about ?" Ben asked.

"Ben, you don’t work for ," I reminded him.

He shrugged.

"Honestly, I just goof off at work most of the ti. I wrote bots to handle most of my tasks."

"Then... I don’t know... help Mary."

He grinned widely and bounced his eyebrows at my direct report.

"No. Down boy."

I wagged a finger at him.

"She needs to get work done."

Ben looked crestfallen.

I really didn’t need him distracting Mary, though. We were already on a tight tiline.

"I’ll keep him under control," Mary promised .

---

Stretching in my office chair, I let my eyes take a break from emails and budget reports.

Blinking, my eyes found the clock on my office wall.

I cursed.

It was already past five thirty.

Leaning over to the right, I looked out the little window in my office.

The bullpen of cubicles was empty.

I imagined a little tumbleweed rolling through.

Candice was probably the only other person in the office by now.

It often cleared out by four thirty.

And I couldn’t hang around much longer.

I needed to get going if I was going to make it ho for my date with Stella.

Closing my laptop, I called it quits.

Whatever else there was would have to wait until tomorrow.

Which ant that, of course, Candice chose that mont to swing by my office, popping into my doorway.

"Zayn, can I get you to look at sothing?"

She even put a little of her ability into her voice.

I knew that ant it was important.

"Let’s make it quick. I have to get ho."

"Moonlighting for the BSH?"

Candice squinted her eyes at , and she put a pretty heavy dose of her ability in her voice.

"No," I said, even as I stamped out her power.

"A date," I told her honestly.

She looked shocked.

She’d never known to prioritize my personal life over work in the ti I’d been here.

"Lucky lady. It’ll be quick."

Now I was shocked.

I hadn’t realized she’d consider that a valid reason to hurry out of work.

Usually when she wrangled , she’d keep for hours.

"There’s this bounty that the BSH is trying to wire to our accounts for distribution, but we have no record of posting it."

She grabbed her laptop, pointing at emails.

"We have a federal obligation to give the bounties out once earned, so we need to fix this."

Oh, I knew exactly what the cause was... .

Leaning over her computer, I pretended to look at the emails for a mont.

"I think I know what happened. Send this to ? Ben will have to do the fix in the morning."

"Really?"

"It’s happened before, but Ben caught it before it escalated to you," I lied.

"Ben really is a godsend. That boy gets so much work done."

It was everything I could do not to crack up.

Ben loafed around in my office most of the ti doing nothing.

But I still liked him.

"He really does great work," I agreed.

Candice nodded distractedly as she started to send the email and turn away.

"Have fun on your date."

I wondered for the first ti about Candice’s personal life.

Did she have sobody she made ti for?

Or was the lack of a person in her life making her want to have sothing different?

Because she had never let off the hook with such urgency before.

Whatever the reason, I took my opening.

I had a little pep in my step as I hurried out of the office.

The elevators were empty, so it was easy to get out.

As I hurried, I nearly ran into the security guard.

"Careful."

She dodged out of the way, moving surprisingly quick for her size.

"See you tomorrow."

She saw that I was in a hurry and didn’t bother , just waving a good day.

Her mood had certainly improved since I’d worked with the BSH this weekend.

Not bothering with thinking about it further, I hurried down the street.

It was past peak rush hour, so commuters were closer to a trickle.

And it was those who stayed late that were heading ho.

More suits, fewer polos.

And far more people were on their phone as they walked, not bothering to look both ways and just crossing the street.

I got about two blocks down from work when a loud whoosh above caused to look up.

Omnigirl was flying overhead and crashed down in front of , cracking the sidewalk.

The crowd around all scattered and I grumbled to myself.

I was already late.

"Calm down, everyone. I have the situation under control."

She pointed at .

"You, do not attempt to activate your superpower. On behalf of the Bureau of Superheroes, you are under arrest."

Now she had my attention.