The Vigilante's Handbook (Misfits #1)

Thirty: Brother-Sister Confidence

Since the leaves fell, tourism in Summersville had dropped. And with it the crime rate plummeted. By late October,  the only thing my Misfits had to deal with were dumb high school kids looking for their kicks. Our burly patrols did little more than provide over qualified security to Main Street. 

The locals were already predicting the first snow when Foster and Cody were dealt patrol duty. The rest of us were wrapped up in an intense card game and sharing leftovers from Tacos El Jefe. They grumbled something about this being the third time in a week that they got put on patrol. Then there was a complaint about how nothing exciting ever happened anymore followed by the sound of coats zipping and shoes being shoved on. 

They left the apartment without so much as a goodbye. 

Nothing was out of the ordinary. When midnight rolled around the five of us who weren’t freezing our butts off in spandex suits threw our paper plates in the trash and claimed our beds for the night. It was all part of our nightly ritual. We would fight for a bed, air mattress, or couch to sleep on, then I would check the window locks while Lucia got the door. Stitch and Miguel put away their crime fighting notes so we wouldn’t look like psychopaths if a stranger walked into the apartment. Alek took too long in the bathroom changing into pajamas. The last person up had to turn off all the lights in the apartment. Occasionally Stitch would dazzle us with a miniature lightning display that looked more like a night light than a superpower. 

That part was mostly for his benefit. Not that he needed a night light. If anything, he was the least afraid of the dark between all of us Misfits. But there was something therapeutic for him in being delicate with his Gift instead of dangerous. 

It sent everyone to la la land almost immediately. When Lucia started snoring, Stitch killed the light show. I heard him rustle deeper into his blankets. The kid slept like a caterpillar wedged into a cocoon of blankets. 

It was the quiet kind of night where I could hear only breathing, snoring, and the first snowflakes falling onto the window sill. 

“You still awake, Anna?” Stitch whispered from the air mattress on the floor next to my bed. He hadn’t fought hard enough for a real mattress tonight. 

I hummed a little response because I wasn’t awake enough to actually respond. According to Lucia, my duty as elected leader was to make sure everyone came home from patrol at a decent hour. That meant staying up until they got home at three in the morning, and I was not a night owl. 

“Are you sure?”

I tried for the same little hum, but it stuck in my throat because I could hear the tightness in his voice. Stitch was a pretty tough kid. Aside from the occasional panic attack, he tried desperately to show as little weakness as possible. But every few weeks something like this would happen. It would remind me that he was young enough to be my little brother and purely terrified of the world. So I couldn’t just hum away this conversation and fall asleep. 

I rolled to my side and propped myself up on an elbow. “What’s up, kiddo?”

He hated when I called him that, especially in front of the others. It really ruined his tactical genius persona. Tonight he didn’t argue it. Instead he said, “Did I ever tell you that my real name is Elliot?”

“Your real name?” I couldn’t help the surprise leaking into my words. He had always just been Stitch and occasionally Mr. Mason from the Academy professors.  “I don’t think you ever did tell me that.”

“My parents weren’t nice people. They were awful to my sister. Really awful. They weren’t much better to me, but they weren’t terrible enough to write Stitch Mason on my birth certificate.”