The Torment of Renegade X

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  The sound gets louder and louder. I cover my ears, but it doesn’t do anything to stop it, because somehow it’s coming from inside my head. I think if it doesn’t stop, my ears are going to bleed, or maybe I’m going to go insane.

  I think I hear Riley shouting at them to leave me alone.

  Then all of a sudden it ends. Noah’s out of breath, and his face is a little red from the strain, like that was all he could manage. I guess he really doesn’t get to practice it that much.

  I let go of my ears. I’m crouched down, almost doubled over in front of the bed. I stand up.

  “His power only works on villains,” the first guy says. “Guess it works on half villains, too. Nice job, man.” He reaches over and high fives Noah.

  “Thanks, Aiden. I was just getting started.” He says that, but he looks pretty worn out, and I notice he doesn’t try it again.

  The fourth guy, who so far hasn’t said anything, sneers at me. “Looks like being a half villain’s just as bad as being the real thing.”

  Riley hobbles over on his crutches to stand next to me. “Leave him alone.” Then, to me, “Are you okay, X?”

  I nod, even though I’m not sure. Even though it’s taking everything I have not to go completely electric right now. And maybe I should just let it happen, because they attacked me first, but I can tell from their eager expressions that that’s exactly what they want me to do. They want to see the half villain completely lose it, and I can’t give them the satisfaction.

  “It’s not even a fraction of what he deserves,” Noah tells Riley.

  “I don’t know why you’d be friends with him,” the second guy says. “He hates heroes. He said so on TV.”

  I think he means the launch video Grandpa made for the Truth, the one where he played a recording of me without my permission. And that’s so not what I said.

  “Maybe you hate heroes, too.” Aiden narrows his eyes at Riley. “Weren’t you at the gala? Didn’t I see you on the news?”

  “I—”

  “He was,” the fourth guy cuts in, before Riley has a chance to answer. “The two of them were attacking the League together. That’s why the League was shooting at them. That’s why he broke his leg. That’s what you get for being friends with a—”

  “Shut up.” Lightning crackles across my arms. I don’t care about holding it back anymore.

  Riley moves a step away from me, though it’s not really far enough to be out of range.

  The guys all look really pleased with themselves. Aiden flashes me a superior grin. “It just goes to show that even villain lovers get what’s coming to them.”

  I take a step toward him. I’m this close to blasting this guy, but he doesn’t seem scared, and now I’m really wondering what his power is. Should I be expecting an energy ray to the chest, or does he think Noah’s going to take me down with his villain-only sound projection? “Back off,” I tell Aiden.

  “The school really shouldn’t have let you come to this,” he says, right as he holds up his hands and blasts me.

  I suddenly feel cold all over, like I just fell into a pool of ice water or a snow bank or something. My lightning disappears, all my energy going to fight off the cold instead.

  As soon as my electricity’s gone, Aiden shoves me really hard, so that I stumble backwards and crash into the bed. “Well,” he says, “looks like it’s going to be a really fun week.”

  Chapter 2

  I MOTION FOR THE girl sitting across the table from Amelia to scoot down so we can sit with them at lunch. The girl’s eyes get really wide when she sees me, and she gasps and almost chokes on her food. Her face goes kind of red, though that might be because she’s coughing so hard.

  When she’s done coughing up her bite of hamburger, she just kind of sits there, gaping at me.

  I clear my throat and motion for her to move again.

  Amelia rolls her eyes. “Ignore him, Jana. He’s just my stupid brother.”

  “It’s okay,” Jana squeaks. She scoots down the bench, practically crashing into Melissa, who’s sitting next to her. One by one, everyone moves down until there’s room. Well, room enough for one person.

  I set down my tray and point to Amelia. “Move.”

  She lets out this really annoyed sigh, like I just asked her for the moon, then scoots over to make space for Riley. “You guys shouldn’t even be sitting with us. You’re not part of our cabin.”

  I set down Riley’s tray across from mine. “Nobody said we have to sit with our cabins.”

  “Yeah,” Riley says, carefully leaning his crutches against the end of the table. “There’s no rule about it.”

  “But you’re supposed to want to sit with your cabin,” Amelia says, crunching on the handful of potato chips she just stuffed into her mouth. “It’s part of the bonding experience.”

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I tell her.

  She gets this smug look on her face. “What’s wrong? Is someone having trouble making friends?”

  “Shut up. Everyone in our cabin is a douchebag. I don’t make friends with douchebags.”

  “Or with anyone. What did you do to them?”

  “Nothing.” Yet. “They’re the ones who attacked me.”

  Amelia snorts, like she doesn’t believe that.

  “I didn’t even provoke them.”

  “Yeah, right. You didn’t do anything, but now you’re so afraid of them you have to come and crowd up our table when you’re not even part of our group?”

  “It’s okay,” Jana says, still kind of gaping at me. “It’s not that crowded.”

  “I’m not afraid of them,” I tell Amelia, hoping I sound convincing. I mean, I’m not afraid of them. Even if they did sort of prove that they can, like, totally disarm me and overpower me and stuff. But I was just caught off guard. And I didn’t want to get sent home. “I’m just avoiding them. Besides, why would we want to sit with a bunch of douchebags?”

  “We wouldn’t,” Riley says.

  “Well, you can’t join Team Glitter,” Amelia tells us. “We already have six people, and it’s girls only.”

  I roll my eyes at her. “We’re not trying to join your stupid group.”

  “And they don’t have the matching headbands,” Hil points out. She leans down and digs around in her backpack, then sits back up holding a headband covered in glitter with paper rabbit ears taped to it.

  Amelia gets hers out, too, and then so do Melissa and Jana and the other two girls at their table. They all put them on, getting glitter everywhere.

  “Team Glitter!” Amelia calls out.

  All six of them start clapping rhythmically and shouting, “Team Glitter, Team Glitter, Team Glitter!” over and over. At the end, they all stand up and shimmy, then throw their hands up and scream, “Team Glitter!” one last time before sitting back down again.

  I exchange a look with Riley.

  “See?” Amelia says, a little out of breath. “You don’t even know the cheer.”

  “I think I could figure it out.”

  “Well, you’re not joining.”

  “I’m not trying to.”

  “I mean,” she goes on, like she didn’t hear me, “I could almost see letting Riley be an honorary member, because he’s Zach’s brother and because he’s nicer than you.”

  “I’m your actual brother.”

  “Half brother. And he’s still nicer than you, and I only said almost. We’d have to put it to a vote. And,” she adds, turning to Riley and pointing to her headband, “you’d have to make your own ears.”

  “Er, that’s okay,” Riley says.

  “It’s not that hard,” Jana says. “We have plenty of extra glitter.”

  “Riley’s not joining your group,” I tell them. “We’re just trying to eat lunch.”

  Amelia sniffs, offended by that. “Fine. I only said maybe anyway.”

  “What did you guys do for your team unity project?” Melissa asks.

  She means what did we make instead of
glittery bunny-ear headbands. We were supposed to come up with something to make as a cabin that represented our team spirit and togetherness, or at least that’s how Steve, our camp counselor who looks maybe a few years older than us and who was super nervous the whole time, explained it. Our cabin mates decided to make anti-lightning signs out of paper. They each drew a lightning bolt inside one of those crossed out red circles, colored them so everyone could see what they were from a distance, and then taped them to their chests. They wanted to do crossed out Vs, but our counselor got really uncomfortable and said that was going too far, especially after what happened with the League. He didn’t seem super happy with them switching it to lightning, either, but I guess he’d used up all his backbone for the day, because he didn’t stop them, even though the anti-lightning symbols obviously didn’t promote unity, or at least not for the whole cabin, since me and Riley refused to make them.

  The rest of our group didn’t really care what we did, though Counselor Steve said we still had to make something because we had to participate, so I drew a picture of a dinosaur fighting a truck—something to give to Alex once I get back home, even though it’s been about a million years since we played Trucks vs. Dinosaurs—and Riley drew one of a cow at a grocery store being horrified by the price of butter.

  It took us the whole hour and a half of allotted time, and we still almost didn’t finish because Eric, one of our cabin mates who also happens to have the same superpower as Amelia—the ability to teleport objects to himself as long as he’s touched them before—kept stealing our drawing utensils out of our hands and laughing about it. Counselor Steve told him not to, but after the third time it happened and it was obvious nobody was listening to him, he gave up.

  “We kind of did our own thing,” I tell Melissa.

  She scrunches up her nose in confusion. “But…”

  “But that’s not team unity,” Amelia says, finishing her sentence for her. “Oh, my God. You guys are so hopeless. Sorry, Riley,” she adds. “I know you’re not really.”

  “Um, thanks?”

  “Don’t thank her,” I tell him. Then, to Amelia, I say, “And it’s hard to have team unity when the rest of your group’s a bunch of letterist douchebags who hate you.”

  “What did you expect?” She gives me a look like I’m the stupidest person in the world. “That pretty much describes everyone at our school. Besides Team Glitter, I mean.”

  “Well…” Okay, it’s kind of exactly what I expected, except worse, because I didn’t count on being stuck with people who, like, aren’t afraid of me. “It doesn’t matter. They’re still douchebags.”

  My stomach rumbles, and I realize how hungry I am. I reach for my hamburger.

  Right as my whole lunch tray disappears out from underneath my food. A serving of baked beans I didn’t even want splatters into my lap, my potato chips scatter across the table, and my hamburger rolls onto the floor.

  I glare at Amelia out of habit, even though she’s not holding the tray and obviously didn’t use her power to steal it.

  She holds up her hands. “I didn’t do it!”

  And then I hear laughter. I turn around, and all four of our cabin mates—Aiden, Noah, Gabe, and Eric—are standing about ten feet away, laughing their heads off, and Eric’s holding my now empty lunch tray. They’re also all still wearing their anti-lightning signs.

  Eric must have touched every tray before lunch started, just so he could mess with me.

  All four of them clap their hands and go, “Team Glitter, Team Glitter,” in whiny, high-pitched voices.

  Amelia scoffs, though she keeps her voice down when she says, “Is that supposed to be us?”

  Then Noah uses his power and makes that horrible nails-on-a-chalkboard-only-worse sound in my head.

  It catches me by surprise, just like it did last time, because even if I was maybe kind of expecting it, it’s still jarring. It totally takes over my brain, not leaving room for anything except pain and wishing it would stop. I cringe, covering my face with my hands.

  It probably only lasts for a few seconds, but it feels like a lot longer. When it’s over, I put my hands down and look up. Our cabin mates are gone, and everyone at the table’s staring at me.

  Amelia looks worried. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” My head still hurts, and there’s electricity burning beneath my skin because I totally want to kill those guys, but other than that, everything’s just great.

  “What did they do to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “But—”

  “It was nothing, okay?”

  She’s obviously not buying that. She looks over at Riley.

  He looks away. “X…”

  “I said I was fine, and I am. Okay, Perkins?”

  “If you say so.” He lets out a deep breath, also obviously not buying it.

  Amelia squints at me and bites her lip. “But what are you going to do?”

  “Get back in line and get another hamburger, I guess.”

  “No, I mean… don’t electrocute anybody.”

  Beside me, Jana sucks in a quick breath and scoots farther down.

  “I wasn’t going to,” I tell Amelia.

  “You’re not going to freak out?”

  I swallow and clench my fists, trying really hard not to freak out. “Nope.”

  “But they were really mean. They made fun of Team Glitter, even though we don’t sound like that. And they practically stole your lunch, except they spilled it on you, which is even worse. And they did something weird to you.” She gestures to my head. “It looked like it hurt.”

  “So?”

  “So, you’re just going to let them get away with that?”

  “What do you want me to do, zap them and get kicked out of camp and maybe out of Heroesworth?”

  “No, but—”

  “It’s what they want me to do.” They want to see the half villain freak out after only using their powers on me for a few seconds. They want me to use my lightning on another student, and then get sent packing because I couldn’t cut it. Bonus points of I get kicked out of school completely and they never have to deal with me again.

  “But you could do something,” Amelia says.

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  “But—”

  “Drop it, Amelia. It’s only four more days. I can take it.”

  The campfire ceremony is after dinner, once it gets dark out. There’s an amphitheater surrounding a big fire pit, and me and Riley sit on the lowest tier, near the entrance, because of his leg. Nobody sits next to us, or maybe I should say nobody sits next to me, since Riley’s sitting on the very edge, where there wouldn’t be room for anybody else anyway.

  One of the camp counselors—not Counselor Steve—is standing in front of the campfire, giving us a big spiel about friendship and bonding and what we’re going to accomplish together at camp this week. At least we haven’t had to sing any songs yet

  “The friendships you make this week…” The counselor pauses, putting a hand over his heart. “They’re the friendships of a lifetime.”

  Barf.

  I can see Amelia’s group sitting across the amphitheater from us, a couple tiers up. They’re all wearing their bunny-ear headbands and holding hands and trying not to cry.

  “Looking back,” the counselor goes on, “I didn’t know who I was before my week at Serenity Trails. Because who you are isn’t just who you are on the inside—it’s the connections you make with people. It’s the friendships you forge together.”

  Ugh. I glance over at Riley to see if he’s just as bored and grossed out as I am. “How much you want to bet this is the exact same speech they gave when your parents were here?”

  “It probably is,” he says. “It’s supposed to be the same experience every year.”

  “So you think they’ve got the campfire-ceremony speech down to an exact science?”

  “Well, they’ve probably changed it at least a little bit. He just ment
ioned Facebook and how everyone’s only superficially connected online and that it’s not the same as the real bonds we’re going to be making this week. They couldn’t have said that when our parents were here.”

  “If everyone’s going to treat me like crap, I’ll take superficial over real any day.” After all, freeze rays don’t work over the internet. “Hey, did you find your parents’ make-out tree?”

  “Don’t call it that.”

  “Fine. Did you find your parents’ sex tree?”

  He makes a face. “Don’t call it that, either. And no, I didn’t. I think I figured out where it is on the map, though, and I meant to go over there while you guys went on a tour of the camp this afternoon—”

  “You mean when you were supposed to be resting your leg?”

  He ignores that. “I was going to go see the tree, but then I went outside, and I would have had to go all the way back to the main part of camp, past the dining hall, and then all the way past one of the far cabins, and I think it’s uphill a little ways, and… I didn’t feel up to it.”

  Because his leg was hurting him, he means. And because even if it wasn’t, it would have been after all that. Plus it wouldn’t have been very comfortable going all that way on crutches. And if he already didn’t feel up to it after not even one whole day of camp, it seems pretty unlikely that he’s going to make it there this week. “Show me on the map. I’ll take a picture of it for you.”

  “A picture’s not the same thing.”

  “It’s better than nothing.”

  “I want to see it for myself, in real life.”

  “Okay, let me put it this way. A picture’s better than you permanently screwing up your leg because you had to go visit some tree.”

  “It’s not just some tree, X. It’s—”

  “I know. That’s why I said I’d get a picture for you.”

  He takes a deep breath. “I don’t want you to. I want to see it in real life. I’m going to, I mean.”

  Yeah, sure he is.

  The counselor giving us the whole friendship-is-forever spiel tells everyone to join hands. “The connections we make this week have already started,” he says. “They’re happening right now, and all you have to do is reach out to another person to form that link.”