“Yeah, I heard you.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
“Because it never should have happened in the first place.” I take a deep breath. “I should have gone home.”
“What?”
“I should have given in and gone home. Or I never should have come here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about. This happened to you because of me.”
“Uh, no, it happened because Aiden’s a jerk.”
“But the ice was meant for me, not you.”
Riley shakes his head. “He still shouldn’t have been doing it.”
“Yeah, but he did, and you got hurt again. And if I’d just listened to you and gone home—”
“X, it’s not your fault.”
“—then this wouldn’t have happened. You got hurt because I had something to prove. But I shouldn’t have even come on this trip. I knew it would suck, and I knew there was a chance—maybe a pretty big chance—that me being here would make this trip suck for you, too.”
“You didn’t know this would happen.”
True, because if I had, I would have actually zapped all of them days ago. “But if I’d just given in, then you wouldn’t have gotten hurt. And if I’d just stayed home, then maybe you would have had the camp experience you’re supposed to. Just like your parents did.”
“I told you, it’s not because of you. Even if you weren’t here, camp still wouldn’t be what I thought it was going to be.”
“Maybe for the first day. But then you would have bonded with our cabin mates—”
“I would have what?”
“—because they wouldn’t have been treating you like… Well, like they treat me. They wouldn’t have stolen your markers during art or frozen your clothes in the mornings.”
“Wow, X. That’s messed up. Because first off, they’re not treating me like they treat you, because they treat you a hell of a lot worse. And second of all, I wouldn’t have bonded with them just because you weren’t here.”
I tilt my head, giving him a skeptical look. “Come on, Perkins. Of course you would have.”
He studies my face for a second. “You really believe that?”
I swallow and glance down at the floor. “It would have been different. You would have fit in with them, so—”
“No, I wouldn’t. They’re douchebags.”
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t have known they were douchebags if I hadn’t been here.”
“Yes, I would. Melissa said they cut in front of her friend at dinner, and I heard them making fun of people yesterday. They were standing outside the dining hall, insulting everyone who walked by. Everyone could totally hear them. And even if I didn’t know they were jerks—even if I never saw them acting that way—it still wouldn’t change the fact that they are. And I wouldn’t want to be friends with people like that.”
“Even if it made you feel closer to your dad? Because if I wasn’t here, if you were having the same camp experience as everybody else, then you wouldn’t need to find that tree so badly, and—”
“I can’t be friends with people who would treat you like that. I don’t want to be. These are the same people we go to Heroesworth with, and I’ve seen how most of them act around you. And they weren’t at the gala, and they didn’t go through all that like we did, and… I can’t pretend that didn’t happen. And I can’t pretend that everyone around us gets it when they don’t. There’s no way I could have just come here and bought into all this crap about friendship and unity when I know they don’t mean it.”
“They do mean it. Just as long as it doesn’t apply to me.”
“But I’m not okay with that. So… I was never going to experience this place the way my parents did.”
I glance over at his leg. “And now you’re not even going to get to see their tree.”
He’s quiet for a second. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. And if I hadn’t come here—”
“X, seriously. It wasn’t your fault. And if I had to choose between seeing that tree and having you here—”
“Don’t, Perkins. You already said seeing the tree was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Don’t pretend you’d choose me being here and making your life hell over getting to see it.”
“You didn’t make my life hell. And yeah, I would. Who would I even talk to if you weren’t here?”
“Amelia, obviously. You’d be a full-fledged member of Team Glitter by now.”
He laughs. “I don’t know about that. I might not be able to get the cheer down. And anyway, I’m glad you came on this trip, no matter what happens.”
“Happened,” I correct him. “I’m going home.”
He sits up a little. “You’re what? It’s Wednesday night. The week’s almost over.”
“And as you pointed out, there’s still a whole lot more crap I’d have to put up with. I mean, I’d put up with it. I don’t care. But—”
“X, you can’t leave. What happened to not giving in to them?”
“It doesn’t matter. I was being stupid, because it’s obvious they were getting to me, even if I didn’t pack up and go home. I wasn’t fooling anybody, and now you got hurt because of it—”
“Because of what Aiden did. Not you. And what, you think they’re going to do it again?”
“Well, no,” I admit. “But maybe they’ll leave you alone and you’ll have a better time if I’m not here. And… look, it’s clear that I lost and they won.”
“No, it’s not.”
“They got to me. Anyone can see that. They made my life completely miserable, and you were right—I was living like an animal.” I think about all the sleep I’ve missed and yawn. “I was only kidding myself, and staying here just to show they can’t drive me out wouldn’t really prove anything. It’d just mean more torture.”
Riley scowls at me. “Of course it would prove something. It would prove that maybe they can make your life hell, but they can’t make you leave. They can’t just get rid of you. And I don’t want you to leave, so if you’re doing it because of me, well, don’t. And the only reason you think they ‘won’ is because you weren’t fighting back.”
“Yeah, because I’d get kicked out. They can use their powers on me all they want and nothing happens to them, but if anybody even saw me with my lightning, they’d flip the hell out.”
“So who says you have to use your lightning? You could still fight back. You could still do something to make their lives hell, right?”
I smile a little. “I like where you’re going with that, but”—I yawn again—“face it, Perkins. It’s over. I’m too tired and too hungry to be able to think of anything besides blasting those guys, which isn’t going to work.”
“So you’re just going to admit defeat? Just like that?”
He says that as if they haven’t been torturing me all week. As if the whole school doesn’t treat me like crap every single day. “If I leave now, I can still have a four-day, douchebag-free weekend.”
Riley gapes at me, this really serious, troubled look on his face. “So you’re just going to let them get away with it?”
“You sound like Amelia. And you’re the one who told me to go home.”
“I never said—”
“Yeah, you did.”
“Okay, but I was worried about you.”
“And now you’re not?”
“I am, but…” He chews his lip, then looks up at me. “I’m more worried about you giving in than I am about you getting hurt. Because, X, you don’t give in to people like that. I mean, you don’t really give in to anyone, but especially not people like those douchebags. And especially not ones who’ve spent the whole week torturing you. And they haven’t won yet, no matter what you think. At least, not as long as you don’t go home. As long as they still have to put up with you, then they haven’t won. And as long as you don’t give in to them and call it quits, then they haven’t really gotten to you, either.
I mean, maybe they have, in the sense that they’ve made your life hell, but they haven’t changed who you are. And that’s more important than me getting hurt, because my leg will heal, but if you give in to these guys, that’ll be forever. You won’t be able to come back from that.”
I swallow, really hating that he’s right. “And if I stay here and I end up blasting them?”
“You won’t,” he says, though he doesn’t sound too sure about it.
Chapter 6
I SIT DOWN AT Amelia’s table for breakfast on Thursday, after waking up in the infirmary, where I actually slept through the whole night for the first time since before we came to this stupid place.
Amelia’s nostrils flare. “I didn’t say you could sit here.” She looks at Jana, who’s beside me. “Don’t let him sit there.”
Jana glances over at me, an uncertain look on her face, like she’s not sure how to carry out her orders. “Um…”
I roll my eyes. “Amelia—”
“You were mean to me last night when all I was trying to do was ask if Riley’s okay.”
“Well, he is. I talked to him, and he’s going to be fine.”
“You could have just said that.”
“I didn’t know.”
“And that doesn’t change the fact that mean people can’t sit here. Right, Melissa?”
Melissa looks bewildered that Amelia just brought her into this and almost chokes on the water she’s drinking. She ends up spitting some of it onto her food. “I don’t think—”
“Never mind.” Amelia makes a huffing noise. To me, she says, “You were mean. That means you’ve lost your sitting privileges.”
“I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” I tell her.
“You were still mean.”
“I was worried about Riley. And I hadn’t slept in days. And I’m not going anywhere, because I need your help.”
“You do?” She perks up a little, then remembers she’s mad at me and studies her fingernails, trying to act uninterested. “With what?”
“I—”
Right then, my cabin mates come into the dining hall, shouting, “We’re going win!”
Amelia narrows her eyes at them from across the room, with the rest of Team Glitter giving them similarly dirty looks.
I glance down at my breakfast tray. It’s mostly a pile of scrambled eggs and fried potatoes, but I grab the piece of toast and shove it in my mouth, just in case my breakfast ends up on the floor again.
“They’re not acting like people who just hurt somebody,” Hil mutters, keeping her voice way down.
My cabin mates high five some of their friends from a different cabin. Then they say something mean to some guy who walks by. I can’t actually hear what they say, but I can tell it’s something mean by the look on the guy’s face and by the way they laugh afterward. Then they start heading in this direction, and I quickly stare down at the table, like if they don’t notice me they might not come over here.
But of course they do anyway.
“Hanging out with Team Glitter again?” Eric twists up the words Team Glitter, making it clear how stupid and beneath him he thinks it is. “Where’s your bunny ears?”
The others laugh at that.
“Today’s the scavenger hunt,” Aiden tells me, as if there’s any way I wouldn’t know that. “You stay away from us. We don’t need you to win.”
“You’ll just weigh us down.” Noah sneers at me. He knows I’m waiting for him to use his power on me again, and he smiles a little at the hesitation on my face.
I wish I could just blast them. Just enough to show them they shouldn’t mess with me, or at least that if they’re going to, it’s going to be painful for them, too. But even though lightning burns beneath my skin, I force it to stay there, because getting kicked out right now would definitely ruin my plans to humiliate them.
Gabe looks around the table. “What, you’re not going to do your cheer for us today?”
“Shut up,” Amelia says.
“How did it go? What were the words again?”
I get to my feet. “The words are get the hell out of here.”
Gabe smirks, not taking me seriously.
Noah snaps his fingers. He makes that horrible noise come into my head again.
I thought after actually sleeping last night it might not be so bad today, but it feels worse than ever. It still fills up my head with pain and makes it impossible to function. I think he’s getting better at it, what with all this practice.
They all laugh at me as I’m forced to sit back down.
“Remember,” Aiden tells me after Noah makes the pain stop, “stay out of our way.”
They start to leave. I think that’s it, but then Eric steals my breakfast tray just for good measure. He doesn’t even turn around to see my food scattered everywhere—he just laughs to himself about it.
“Jerks,” Melissa says once they’re out of earshot.
“Nobody listen to them,” Amelia tells the rest of the table. “Team Glitter’s the best.”
There are nods and murmurs of approval, but nobody gets out their bunny ears or does the cheer or anything.
“They’ve been terrorizing everyone all week,” Jana says. “One of my friends said they made fun of them for wearing their pajamas to the ice-cream social last night.”
“Wait, there was ice cream last night?” It must have been while I was hanging out in the infirmary with Riley. And by hanging out, I mean talking to him for a few minutes and then passing out on the empty bed because I was so tired.
Amelia nods. “I thought Riley must have been really hurt. I thought that’s why you didn’t go to it. Or that maybe your cabin mates did something even worse to you.”
I sigh. “I’m okay, Amelia, and so is Riley. And I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“Well, in that case, I suppose you can sit here. On a trial basis.”
I ignore her. Obviously I’m sitting here. “I need your help. I mean, I need all of Team Glitter’s help, but yours especially.”
Amelia’s eyes light up at that. “I’m listening.”
“Ooh,” Melissa says, “are we going to sabotage your cabin so they don’t win? Are we going to trick them into falling in the lake and having to crawl through all that mud to get back?”
“Uh, no,” I tell her. “And actually… We’re not going to sabotage them. We’re going to make sure they win.”
Everyone looks at me with sudden disgust.
Amelia wrinkles her nose. “You want us to help them win? I think Noah fried your brain.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “It’s all part of the plan.”
“Making sure they win is part of the plan?”
“You said they were going to play a slide show at the farewell campfire ceremony tonight, right?”
She nods.
“Good. That’s also when they’re going to announce the winners of the scavenger hunt. I need my cabin to win so they’ll be there, accepting their award in front of everyone. They might win on their own, but I doubt it, and either way, I can’t take the chance. That’s where Team Glitter comes in.”
“That means we won’t win,” Amelia says. “That’s a big sacrifice.”
I raise my eyebrows at her. “I didn’t think you guys were that competitive.”
“Well, we’re not,” she admits. “But it’s still a sacrifice.”
“It’ll be worth it.”
She looks me over, still not too sure about this. “And what about me? What do you need me to do?”
“You, Amelia, have the most important job of all. You’re coming with me when I confront them.”
“I’m what?”
“They won’t know you’re there. You just have to bring your phone. I need you to film something.”
“That’s all?” She sounds unsure, but maybe also a little relieved.
“Yeah, well, that and make sure they don’t actually kill me.”
Amelia sucks in her breath and looks back a
nd forth down the trail we’re standing on later that afternoon. The same trail my cabin mates should be coming down any minute now. She has her phone out, in preparation for her part in this, but her hand’s shaking.
“Are you sure I have to do this?” Amelia asks, her voice kind of squeaky. “Maybe I should be helping with the other stuff.”
She means the other tasks I gave to Team Glitter. Each cabin got a different list of stuff to find for the scavenger hunt, and I gave them my copy. They’ve spent the day trying to find the more obscure items on the list and then putting them somewhere my cabin mates will be sure to see them. I told them not to make it too obvious, but I can’t be everywhere today, so I just have to trust they did it right, or that my cabin mates are too dumb and too obsessed with winning this stupid thing to care that they’re not having to try very hard.
“No, Amelia, I need your help with this. Normally I’d have Riley do it, but obviously he can’t right now, and that leaves you.”
“But what if they notice me?”
“They won’t.”
“But what if I sneeze or something? That’s always what happens in the movies.”
“Then don’t sneeze.”
“But I won’t be able to help it. And then I’ll sneeze, and they’ll look over at me, and they’ll see me hiding in the bushes and recording you guys, and then—”
“You won’t be in the bushes. Just hide behind the trees.”
“And then they’ll kill me.” She swallows.
“No, I’m pretty sure they’ll kill me.”
“But—”
I hear their footsteps coming down the trail and the faint sounds of them talking and laughing.
“They’re almost here,” I tell Amelia, keeping my voice down. “You have to hide. Now.”
Amelia’s eyes go wide. Her hands are shaking even more now. I want to tell her to get a grip on that, because it’s going to tank our production quality, but I figure she can’t help it and pointing it out would probably only make it worse. Plus, there’s no time.
She’s just standing there, like a deer in the headlights.
“Amelia—”
“I’m going,” she whispers.
The Torment of Renegade X Page 5
