The Vigilante's Handbook (Misfits #1)

Thirteen: Hello? Anyone There?

I hadn't hugged Stitch before. I had very few interactions with him before the Phantom fight except for our carefully curated conversations. From the way his arms latched around me like he was clinging onto an older sister, I would have guessed that he had never been hugged. The kid was starved for affection.

He was the first to pull away.

"Have you seen anyone else?" He shook his head, as mute as Miguel. "They should be around here somewhere. Take me to where you woke up."

It wasn't a far walk. Just over the lip of a slight incline, barely out of sight from my own resting place. That gave me hope. What were the chances Paramount Lake had left only the two of us here? The others had to be close.

Starting where Stitch woke up, we made a loose spiral outwards. Our path grew more and more skiwampus the further out we went. Eventually, we ran into a small lake on one side that neither of us felt like wading through to keep our pattern. Then there were outcroppings of rocks that were impossible to traverse so we wound our way around them. As long as Valentine, Ariana, or one of the others wasn't lounging on top, I figured it would be fine.

With Stitch at my side neither of us felt the need to call out for our peers. My temporary lapse of common sense was over.

A football field away we found Diego, flat on his back, wings retracted and hidden. His eyes were open in a glassy kind of way that made me worry he was dead. Then he blinked slowly at us like he was clearing sunspots from his vision.

"I would think this was a dream, but the two of you are the last people who would show up in one." The only difference between him and Lucia was that he didn't notice when he was being incredibly rude, and she made a special effort to insult me. It made Diego easier to deal with.

"Good to see you too, even in these less than exciting circumstances."

"What do you mean less than exciting? We got kidnapped. That is real superhero stuff."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Superhero?"

No blush warmed his neck when I pointed out his mistake. He didn't even have the gall to shove his hands in his pockets and look ashamed. It could have been because he didn't have pockets, actually. Diego was rocking the gift test jumpsuit with its suspicious lack of pockets--if anyone should have pockets, a superhero should. Had he been wearing that when we got ambushed in the auditorium?

Had I been wearing one? Definitely not. I was in pajamas. But I was now, and so was Stitch. The suits were designed to feel like nothing. Even with whatever technology was woven into the fibers, it felt weightless. The electrodes in my suit were buzzing so subtly I wouldn't have noticed if I weren't straining to feel them. So we were being tracked. Monitored at the very least. About to be electrocuted to death if I was feeling really pessimistic.

"Vigilante sounds dumb. And I'm around two social outcasts. I can afford a faux pas here and there." Diego was blunt. But I could get behind that.

Stitch didn't appear to mind either. He helped Diego up with a hand. Quite a sight, if I do say. A twig of a kid helping a slightly less twiggy, slightly older kid up while they both looked like they might pass out. The finest of entertainment in this part of the mystery forest.

"Let's find everyone else," Stitch said.

Eventually, we did find everyone. Like Stitch, Diego, and me, we had all formed clumps of people wandering around aimlessly. Lucia, Julien, and Miguel. Alek, Foster, Valentine, and Mona. Malee and Evan. Ariana and Cody. That was all of us as far as we knew. Unless Paramount Lake had pulled a last minute prank and thrown the younger students into the wilderness with us.