The Vigilante's Handbook (Misfits #1)

Forty Three: I Love You Guys

There was a time when Eleanor was still Ellie. Before I sent shards of ice sharp enough to kill her. Before the Academy left the graduating class in the wilderness to die. Before everyone worried that I would go dark side. Before she left Paramount Lake.

There was a time when we were roommates sharing a little dorm room tucked away on Paramount Lake's campus in the center of Lincoln Lincoln.

Ellie was kind enough to keep the lights off while she got ready for class. It was my third migraine of the week, and I was determined to make an appearance in class too, but she talked me out of it. Each of her words just made the pounding in the base of my skull worse. She was right. I was in no shape to leave our room, let alone learn about advanced algebra and the new vigilante laws.

"I'll take notes for you," she promised in that small, eight-year-old voice that hadn't changed much. "And I'll try to get Principal Merriweather to excuse a few of your absences. She knows that you don't feel well." She stumbled through the dark toward the foot of my bed where our backpacks were heaped up in a pile.

I shook my head. The movement hurt. "She stopped back last time I missed class. She wants the Academy doctors to take a look at me. She sounded worried." I didn't need to let her know that Merriweather also thought Ellie was part of my recurring sickness. Ellie always hated it when she hurt people on accident.

At my words, she stiffened. I thought that I had accidentally slipped up and said that last part out loud, but Ellie said, "You can't let them look at you. Not all doctors are good doctors."

I tried to reason with her. "These ones work for Paramount Lake. Merriweather and the other teachers would let them hurt me." But the headache got worse. Whatever other arguments I had prepared were replaced with static. "Ellie, you're doing it again."

The pain didn't let up. When I looked at my friend, there was still that dark and dead look in her eyes that came with her Gift. "Doing what?"

I didn't want to tell her that she was hurting me. So I raised a shaky hand to my forehead like I was feeling for my temperature and willed some of the heat away. There was a flicker of blue that sputtered and fizzled out like a defective memento in Coke. That had been another reason Merriweather came to see me. My Gift Tests had taken a dramatic plunge for the worse as my headaches worsened.

When no cool relief came, I had no choice but to tell Ellie the truth. "You're hurting me again."

The static nearly disappeared. Her eyes widened but no tears replaced the darkness. I wished I hadn't said anything. The headache hadn't been that bad. It was still there anyway, in the back of my head where it would be aggravated by sound and light and my classmates. I should have just dealt with it.

I laid back down in bed with my head buried under a stack of blankets and pillows, anything to keep out the rest of the world. "Don't feel bad. You don't know what you're doing. But you need to go to class now or both of us will get marked absent." Without another word, our bedroom door unlatched and Ellie slipped out into the hallway, leaving me alone with the already growing static.

Maybe that's why I pulled my punch. The shards of ice flew through the air fast enough to find blood. They cut through the coat she wore and drew thin streaks of red on her cheeks and exposed skin. Behind her, the mercenaries doubled over in shock and pain. It should have been worse. It should have hit more of them.

Mona was already on her fit like a dutiful little soldier attending to her captain. The lines of blood sealed up on Eleanor's face, the mercenaries stood a little straighter.

Miguel was the first to jump. He streaked across the air in the form of a wolf, leaping over Eleanor and into the pack of mercenaries. They swarmed him but his giant paws batted away a few at a time. I wanted to shout out to him, to protect him, to help him. But I was too busy with my own fight.