Hello my monster lovers!! 

I’m so thrilled with the joy Be My Bad Guy has been met with, I want to celebrate by sharing the the whole first chapter with you (shhh, don’t tell KU). Personally, I think more meet cutes could start with a kidnapping. 

Chapter 1: Ellis

The world feels like it’s ending outside, and I still have to go to work. Drive the van, haul the shit, report to the boss. Day in, day out. 

There’s gravel-flecked snow piled up on the sidewalk, already melting into slush under the late afternoon sunlight. Between my constant yawns and the harsh glare stabbing my vision, I’m just trying to stay awake in the Channel 6 News van and keep my eyes on the preview screen. 

Lacey Vigil, weather girl. She has a constant smile for the camera of course, but she’s known for adding in a running commentary about what roads to avoid because some giant mutant fishman crawled out of the marsh to throw some cars around on the Lower East End. 

Keeping an eye on her is implicit in my job description, but that I would do for free.

Her big brown eyes have a grip on my soul. There’s something about the way her lashes flutter before she gives a little eye roll, and she launches into her weather report from the street.

Normally I only get to see the live broadcast; this behind-the-scenes look from the news van is a real treat. 

I watch her for a few moments, glancing up and down the city streets while she leans precariously close to some kind of oozy by-product of yesterday’s supers fight. She waves to her cameraman to take a close-up of the damage to public property, the iridescent ooze that has congealed around a storm-drain grate. Taxpayers are going to love that.

There’s a memo taped to the news van’s dash with Channel 6’s logo about being mindful not to frame any of this particular type of stuff in shots, to keep the composition clean and optimistic. Viewers prefer that, it concludes. 

I press the talk button on the headset that’s been left on the dash. “What are we doing, Lace? Did the boss say he wanted glamour shots?”

“We’re getting B-roll,” she replies, chewing her lip as she crouches nearer the discolored snow, and the cameraman focuses the lens.

“Boss would have my ass if you fell headfirst into the ooze. Especially cuz you’re on in two.”

“I’d probably turn into one of Dr. Maestro’s mutant goons.” She laughs; the sound makes butterflies take off in my stomach. She flips through her itinerary and sets off at a brisk pace for the right backdrop. “Do you think it pays better than Channel 6?”

I crack a smile. I can’t help myself and push the intercom talk button again. “Definitely not. But he’s a doctor, right? Now you don’t need health insurance either.”

She stops at some snow piled up high on a street corner out of the main throughway, with plenty of rock salt scattered over the wet pavement. Some city-owned trucks are a little further down, continuing to plow the streets.

“Alright, mic check,” her cameraman says as soon as she tucks an earbud in and starts threading its little wire down the front of her sweater; she plugs the jack into the transmitter hooked on her back pocket. 

A high pitch sounds momentarily, a sensation that grinds the side of my face the way breaking a tooth feels, and then there’s the lull of her voice, soft and intimate in my ear. “One, two, three, can you hear me?”

“Uh, yeah, I have been.”

“Hey, who is this? I thought Adrianna was covering the van today,” she asks and pauses to reapply her lip gloss, concentrating on it just hard enough she doesn’t realize I fail to answer her. 

Her camera man starts counting her in; she rolls her eyes and flashes a brilliant smile at me, er, the camera, before launching into her spiel.

“As you can see, it’s still snowing,” she starts to tell me through the microphone, long eyelashes framing her big brown eyes as she looks directly into the camera. “Which is about as much information as you would get by looking out the window.”

I watch, besotted. 

“Quit flirting and hurry up,” my coworker growls from the back of the van. He’s been busying himself with peeling the last used edge up off the roll of duct tape, because he didn’t bother to fold the corner down on it ten minutes ago like I said he should. 

It would never work, I remind myself. Besides, I have a rule about not asking people out when they’re working. And we’ve really only seen each other during work. Or I’ve seen her. I don’t think she’s ever really seen me.

I wave a hand at my coworker to chill. I’m planning to wait till she’s finished the segment before I bother her again. 

There’s a loud, yet muted crackle of buildings being smashed around from further north. I roll my eyes. Another smackdown from Goethal’s resident superhero, Steel Heel. 

I check my watch; everything is proceeding right on time, according to schedule. I look up at the camera preview, and she’s gone again. 

“For fuck’s sake, Lacey,” her cameraman swears, echoing my own sentiments. How did she disappear so quickly?

The camera man starts walking down the street, shouldering the equipment so that all I can see is a patch of gray slush melting just off a curb, with boot prints in it that I hope are hers. They lead down a corner where the buildings are blocking the sun, but I’m not sure what street that is. 

I click the headset again, and say, “Anyway, you gotta come back to the van, we got a call from HQ to head downtown. There’s, uh, more snow down there. Flurries. It’s so important.”

Her sigh comes in the intercom with some static crackles. “Hang on just a sec, I want to check this out.”

That’s Lacey’s microphone coming back into range, and the camera man picks up into a motion-sickness inducing jog. 

“And you saw him? Like actually got a good look for yourself?”

The camera’s view readjusts, settling on her holding the microphone tucked under her arm and talking to some older guy rubbing his hands on a greasy apron. He’s somewhat familiar, I think I’ve bought a breakfast sandwich from his food truck before.

Lacey’s eyes widen with excitement when she sees the cameraman approach, waving for him to start rolling. 

I glance at my watch. We’ve got a schedule to keep, and she’s making this harder than it needs to be.

“I think we’ve got enough eyewitness segments,” I say in an undertone, watching her through the shaky movements of the camera being adjusted on the guy’s shoulder. “Hey, this isn’t on the schedule.”

She doesn’t pay attention.

Lacey grabs the guy’s arm and starts rearranging the way they’re standing. She’s setting up the shot to get exactly the kind of backdrop she wants for interviewing this guy, including one of the recently damaged buildings from last week’s mutant smackdown—a car that has been flipped and stuck in a shop window at a terrible angle, the caution tape roping it off, and a tow truck trying to drag the car out of the mess.

“He witnessed a skirmish between one of Dr. Maestro’s mutants and Clayton—I mean, Steel Heel,” Lacey is saying to me aside, a hand against her earpiece, her eyes all bright and excited. 

“It wasn’t Steel Heel,” the guy tells her; a needle of dread pricks my heart when I finally start listening. “It was a new super I ain’t never saw before.”

Every hair on my body is standing on end. Now I remember where I’ve seen him. 

He shifts back on one foot to turn and point at the car sticking out of the building, but I catch sight of the street sign he was blocking the view of and immediately twist the keys in the ignition. The engine groans as it turns over. 

Change of plans, then.

Lacey just frowns and continues questioning. “A new super saved you? What did he look like?”

“A car was flying at me, and he scooped me up and dropped me off at the bus stop,” the man continues, gesturing his arms wide. “He was like, real lanky, blue from head to toe, and he had a whole ass tail! And he had these like bat wings and—”

“Lacey, we really need to get a move on,” I urge, before clicking the intercom off. 

I barely listen or pay attention as the tires squeal against the salted pavement, merging into traffic a little too precariously. The driver behind us flips us off and lays on the horn, but I’m already weaving into another lane and around the corner. Whatever, they can call the number on the back of the van about my driving.

“Get ready,” I call over my shoulder, and my coworker grunts in response, standing up. 

I slam on the brakes as soon as I see Lacey standing on the curb, pulling the van up beside them. She frowns heavily, dropping the microphone to waist height. 

Up close and in person, she’s a little shorter than I thought she would be, her hips a little rounder than the camera typically ever shows. I can’t think about that right now, the window is closing on us. 

I watch through the side mirrors as she stomps up to the van and bangs a fist on the side, looking incredibly irritated. 

There’s a glimpse on the news van’s preview screen as the cameraman wheels around to look at Lacey, and my coworker throws the van door open, standing to his full height and ripping a length of duct tape off the roll.

The news van’s actual driver is tied up with his mouth taped, laying on the floor behind him. I watch Lacey’s expression shift from annoyed to agog in a matter of seconds, the blood draining from her face. 

Between one second and the next, there is barely room to breathe or react. I turn my attention to the road in front of me, but I hear her gasp before the news van door rolls and slams shut. 

“GO,” my coworker snarls over Lacey’s muffled protests, and I peel out, the cameraman from Channel 6 News shouting after us. 

We stop a quarter mile down the road at a red light, and I watch her camera man running down the sidewalk after us, unable to ditch the equipment. I roll my eyes and feel sorry for him as the traffic light turns green and I can speed down a main thoroughfare, and then down another service road to where another van, this one unmarked, is waiting for us. 

We only drove a short distance, but it’s enough for my coworker to tape Lacey’s wrists and ankles together. He’s just finished tying a blindfold over her eyes when I throw the van in park and get out. 

It’s best to ditch the Channel 6 News van before we head back to Maestro’s lab.

Static rumbles from the walkie-talkie at Vas’s hip, and Dr. Maestro’s soft, whispery voice comes through. “What took so long? Vas?” 

Vas lifts Lacey a little too roughly for my liking, hefting her over his shoulder. He hops out of the van easily and carries her into the other with one fluid motion. He’s bundled up for the winter weather enough that it’s hard to see that he isn’t exactly human. 

“Plan changed because this one had to pull her pigtails and ended up losing the target,” Vas grumbles into his walkie.

“It’s still the same plan, we just had to make a detour,” I correct Vas, and climb into the back of the van after him. “Everything’s fine, just go.”

He closes the doors, and a second later the van jerks to a start, rolling down the road. By the time the cameraman gets to the abandoned news van, we’ll be long gone.