Podcast of a Teenage Super-Villian

Chapter Twenty-Five: Playing 4-D Chess

Song Selection: Killing Me Slowly–Bad Wolves

Chip.

"Well, what the hell do we do now?" Finn asks, his arm wrapped around a shivering Kai pressed against his chest. "Chip? Chip?"

Chip collapses to the pavement outside the apartment, vomiting. He's not having a panic attack as much as his whole body tightening into a knot, every attempt at calm dashed. Max is doing it again, he's doing it again, Chip says to himself. He's gonna take another guy, sweet-talk him, pretend everything's okay, and by the time the boy figures out who Max is, it'll be too late. "Why did you get me out of there?" His whole body is shaking, the violent kind, like shockwaves are rippling out of h He wipes spittle from his mouth, wipes the sick off his face. "I could've saved him, I—"

"Hey, you need to chill out. It's not my fault." It's Finn, his voice gruff and strained. Chip can't look at him through the tangles of blonde hair in his eyes. But the sound of his voice finally makes Chip snap.

"What did I ever do to you? Why the fuck do you always talk to me like this?" He presses his knuckles into the parking lot, gasps coming shakily out of his aching throat. And for the first time since the death of his parents, more than a couple of sentence. "I'm done with you. Who the hell gave you the right to treat me like this! I could've saved him—"

"He would've shot you!" Finn, seething, his teeth clenched and his fists pressed against his sides, growls like an animal. "Just—shut—up!"

Chip wheels to his feet. He swings at Finn, tears streaming down his face. He swings at him with cut up knuckles and clenched fingers. No, he's not thinking straight. Yes, he'll absolutely regret this. But he can't think about that, he can only think about the story about to play on repeat. The story of Max taking on a companion and destroying them the moment it becomes convenient.

"Stop! Stop!" Kai shoves Chip back, the much smaller boy trembling from the exertion of it. His face becomes red and sweat-soaked. "Stop, please!"

Chip looks at Kai. He looks at his own fists. He looks at Finn, Finn's wide green eyes, and he thinks about the horrors, plenty of horrors, behind them. He thinks about how they found him when Max had gotten to him, Finn collapsed on the ground, blood gushing from his head. Chip thinks about this and lets his hands fall limp at his sides.

"I'm sorry," Finn says, rubbing his jaw. "I just, just didn't want you to get hurt." He tries to smile, a kind of twitch on the edges of his mouth that doesn't reach all the way. "I'm an asshole to all my friends, right Kai? It's just, it's just a part of it."

Chip's head hurts. He's hollowed out and hungry. "What are we going to do?" If he squeezes his eyes shut, he can pretend he's somewhere far away, not here. Not in front of this beat-up apartment and in this sea of asphalt. "We have to do something."

"We know where Max is," Kai offers. He's still trembling, and it breaks Chip's heart. "That's something. Maybe we should get a, uh, hotel? Figure this all out tomorrow?"

'No,' he wants to shout it at them. Tonight, before Max flees and he doesn't know where to find him. Tonight, they have to figure something out tonight. But Chip's exhausted, feels like he's been carved up and emptied out, can hardly stand, can hardly keep his burning eyes open. So when Kai grabs him by his sleeve, he lets himself be pulled into the back of the old dented mini-van. He tries not to let the images play on loop in his head, the handsome boy with the white tattoos pulling the gun on him, the boy's hands on Max, holding and healing him.

He collapses in the backseat, Kai pressed up against him. Kai's hands are already in Chip's hair, undoing tangles, brushing warmly against his scalp. He can feel his breath against him, a soft puff. Chip reaches for his guitar, grips the neck tightly in his fist. A hot tear slides down his cheek, but he can't bring his mouth to form the words. Instead, his eyes fall easily shut and he drops like a stone out of consciousness to images of white charred feathers tattooed on smooth skin, and the stupid little smirk on Max's face.