The Vigilante's Handbook (Misfits #1)

Five: Don't Bring a Gift to a Gun Fight

Walking home with Mona, Stitch, Miguel. Probably crashing when I get home. Breakfast date tomorrow? The text sat delivered but unopened in Julien's inbox while the misfits and I distanced ourselves from Pirate Nick's Nifty Nickelcade.

Apparently not far enough away to get that awful jingle out of my head. "Welcome to the world of treasure and mermaids here at Pirate Nick's Nifty Nickelcade!" It was still looping in one ear and out the other, but I felt hopeful that it would eventually fade in the way I hoped my homework would eventually disappear if I postponed it long enough.

To my unceasing amazement, Mr. and Mrs. Moreau had sent us to a nickelcade on the edge of West Lincoln. We were only a handful of blocks from the academy apartments in the more suburban East Lincoln. But this part of West Lincoln was home to the streets the city buses avoided on account of it being, for lack of a better term, sketchy to the highest degree.

The streetlights kept the four of us from wandering in darkness, but only just. On either side of the street were graffitied strip malls that had boarded up windows. The exposed plywood was just asking to be defaced. It felt like walking down an unfinished hallway.

Needless to say, the street made all of us regret turning away the hired cars outside the arcade that had offered us a ride home. The Monreaus had given the event that much thought at least. Apparently, they didn't want us walking from Pirate Nick's to the apartments. Who could guess why?

We had easily convinced the driver that we could find our own way back to the apartments. Stranger danger and all that. It surprised me how dull adults outside of the academy seemed to be. Fooled as easily as if they were preschoolers, but that was an insult to the few toddlers at Paramount Lake. At five I had been better at calling out crap than most adults were.

At this point, a car ride with a stranger was looking as appealing as a dessert buffet compared to making our way through West Lincoln. Not that any of us would admit it. We were soon to be superheroes, for goodness sake. Weren't creepy alleys and dark streets probably teeming with criminals supposed to be our natural setting?

So when Stitch squeezed his way between Miguel and me, no one said anything. As I pulled my jacket tighter, I claimed it was the cold. No one bothered to point out that I was dressed plenty warm for the evening in school uniform slacks and an academy windbreaker over my super suit/ Not to mention that I was usually less bothered by the cold thanks to my gift. In fact, no one said much of anything for the first six blocks of our nighttime stroll through Lincoln City's crime epicenter.

Not until we stumbled upon a chapter of the local gang.

Okay, they might have not been the Phantoms, but they weren't good news either way. In the leader's hand was the glint of something that looked suspiciously like a drawn switchblade and my superhero training kicked in just enough to recognize the dark shapes in the others' hands as nine-millimeter pistols.

They had guns, and we had a bunch of useless superpowers. Okay, three superpowers that were useless in most situations and Stitch.

The Phantoms were casually strolling down the block in the middle of the street. The four of us crowded closer together on the sidewalk. It would be too obvious if we turned around now. They were the type of people to take that as a sign of submission, a weakness to be exploited. If we could make it to Pirate Nick's that would be a different story. I doubted my ability to run half a dozen blocks faster than a bullet could leave a gun.

The closer we got the more I felt like I was going to end the night with soiled britches. I hoped the super suit I wore under my school uniform was machine washable.

Half a block away from the gang, Miguel acted. Not by showing his mystery power, but by slinging his left arm over my shoulder so Stitch was sandwiched between us. On his other side, Mona acted in sync. Her shoulders rolled back, and she threw her hair into a bushy ponytail. One hand went into her jacket pocket like she was packing as much heat at the guys in front of us. In a smooth couple of steps, she was on the other side of me, so Stitch and I were encased on either side.