The Vigilante's Handbook (Misfits #1)

Two: I Am a Human Refrigerator

Miguel found me a few doors down from Miss Freyson's room before the tide of students ebbed. In either hand he held half of a sandwich, our usual pre-physical snack. We pushed through students toward the nurse's office, him with more ease than me on account of his large frame and height advantage.

Crossed legged on the tiled floor next to the door, we dug in.

"You ready for today?" I asked through a mouth full of sandwich. There was always a squirm in my gut when I asked him that question. It reminded me that I was never ready for the test.

Dark curls bounced atop his head in the affirmative, not a hint of worry on his face.

I took another bite of the sandwich. "I'm just ready for it to be over."

Not much could stand between myself and some chattering conversation. A mouthful of ham and cheese sandwich stood no chance. What can I say? I'm a nervous chatterbox. And, oh boy, was I nervous. As nervous as I had been before every bimonthly physical since I came to the Academy.

That was why Miguel was the perfect choice of friends--he didn't talk at all.

Scratch that.

Miguel spoke so rarely that it was like he didn't talk at all.

In the ten years I had been at the Academy, he had said exactly five words to me. One of those was more of an ambiguous grunt, but I liked to count it. It made me the student he had spoken to the most.

The first real words came six weeks after the academy rescued/kidnapped with permission/adopted me (My legal status at Paramount Lake was ambiguous at best). Grandma had always taught me that shaking hands was the polite way to introduce yourself to someone. So on my first day I had offered him a peanut butter fingered handshake, a smile, and my name. He just looked at me with wide eyes and made a noise like his name was stuck in his throat. The infamous uninterested grunt.

Then he finally told me his name six weeks later, after I had learned it from his two cousins who were also in our class at Paramount Lake. "Miguel Castillo."

Finally he had whispered a few words to me after Eleanor got kicked out of the Academy and left me to deal with the aftermath. "I'm sorry." That's what everyone told me. Poor Anna Green was damaged goods now. She had been around Eleanor for too long. Her gift was gone. Blah blah blah.

Miguel's words of comfort would have been drowned out by the rest of the chorus, but when he spoke, I tended to listen.

Count it up. A whopping four words and a grunt. Hence my lack of worry when mine and Miguel's after school, pre-physical snack passed without him saying anything.

"Do they know what your power is?"

His eyes narrowed.

"If you insist. Do they know what your gift is?"

A noncommittal shrug.

"You're no fun. Are you ever going to tell me? You could even show me if you don't want to tell me."

An even more noncommittal shrug.

"I bet Lucia and Diego don't know what you can do." He smiled that signature Miguel smile--not quite a smile but almost. It was one of our running jokes and my favorite conspiracy theory that Lucia and Diego weren't actually his cousins. He had never said they were. They had never said they were. It was just something everyone already knew. "I wouldn't tell them if you showed me."

Because that was another strange thing about Miguel, one of many, might I add: no one knew what his gift was. I had seen every other student's gift in action. Not Miguel. He earned his reputation as the school enigma just as much as I had earned my position as Queen of the Misfits. I didn't push the topic.