The Vigilante's Handbook (Misfits #1)

Thirty Nine: Don't Do Drugs

Lucia shoved her chair between her body and the table with the syringes lying on it.

If she had her super strength, the chair would have fractured into splinters of wood. Her grip on the back of it was turning her knuckles white and sent a shaking through her whole body. "We might have decided to trust you and your story as a whole, but I am not going to let you, an untrained teacher, give me a shot of who knows what's in there! The last time I trusted anything the Academy gave me was when I stopped being able to throw cars."

"You can't throw cars anymore?" Alek asked in unison with Diana asking, "You used to be able to throw cars?"

It was a night of revelations for everyone.

I'm sure the conversation that followed was entertaining and equally hilarious, but I couldn't hear a word being said. Instead I found my hands drawn to the syringe like a moth to a bonfire. I couldn't stop myself. "Lucia, shut up."

Before my fingers could brush the cool glass casing, I looked at my co-leader. She had her hands on her hips and looked ready to punch someone. Nothing out of the ordinary. "Don't tell me to shut up."

I just shook my head. I would argue with her later plenty, but for now, I had something serious to say. "I recognize this from the last Gift Test. The one after you cheated in our fight."

"Now is not the time, Anna."

"Fine, but I still recognize it." I gave into the compulsion and picked it up in my hands in the same delicate way one would pick up a newborn baby or a nuclear bomb. The yellow chemical looked remarkably similar to Elliot's energy drinks if they had the consistency of honey. "Something kept me awake but in slow motion during the test."

Miss Freyson cleared her throat.

"She kept me awake by slowing down my internal functions. The Nothing Syringe took too long to take effect. Then they gave me a shot of this." I held up the needle for emphasis. "And I could actually use my power like I can now. I froze a lake."

Lucia rolled her eyes like I hadn't given us a reason to trust Freyson. "I don't care if you know what it is. I'm not letting you, Freyson, or anyone else stab me with a needle from the Academy."

I put my hands up in the air to plead my innocence. "I'm not suggesting you do. But you realize what this can do right?"

She looked at the syringe, and her fingers twitched. I saw the look of want on her face. If had lived my whole life able to dig up the well of my power only to have it suddenly taken away, I would have pounced on the needle. Lucia showed more restraint. "I know." And she turned her attention away from the injection and back to Freyson. "We don't need it."

"Needle or not, my first offer still stands," Freyson offered as she held her hand out for the syringes. "I'll help you find the others."

Lucia snatched one from my hand before I could give it to Freyson. She shoved it in the pocket of her leggings. "Just in case," she said. Just in case she couldn't break through the suppressant and we needed her to chuck a car at someone, went unsaid but implied. "So that's the next step, finding the others? Putting an end to this?" Lucia gave me a look that asked for confirmation.

I tipped my head toward her and smirked in a way that I knew made her blood boil. This was her decision since we were back in vigilante territory. I could see why Lucia was always giving me that look. It felt good to defer to her judgement.

She moved to the head of the table like we were planning for a normal night of patrols. Elliot and Miguel scrambled to grab the maps of Summersville from their stash. Diana went to man the security cameras like she had been through years of superhero school with us. Aleksei blacked out the windows and doors with his shadows and joined the rest of us around the table.