Chapter 2
I woke up to several texts from Madeline.
Mads: HOLY FUCK MIKEY
Mads: 3,000 people watched my story
Mads: That’s like all of our student body plus half of Wakefield’s
Wakefield was our rival school. Because there was only one mall between the two towns, all Middleborough drama was Wakefield drama and all Wakefield drama was Middleborough drama.
Mads: Jake said I was dramatic for getting excited about it :(
Mads: He said I should take down my story
Me: Weirdo. What a jerk.
Mads: Uh-huh
Looking out for someone acting suspicious was going to be harder than I thought. Jake was already being weird and I wasn’t even at school yet.
Jeremy came to pick me up, as an apology for making me walk home.
“Sorry for ditching you yesterday. Since the SQUIP, my dad’s been overprotective,” he said.
“It’s cool Jer, don’t worry about it. I get it.”
He smiled and started the drive to school.
Like I’d hoped, Superheroes going to our school had everyone buzzing. Or almost everyone.
The SQUIP Squad didn’t mention it at all, nor react to other people mentioning it. Which was very weird.
Throughout the day, this group’s popularity only grew, and I doubted the Squad would be able to ignore it for much longer. By the time the bell rang for fourth lunch, the superheroes had names that everyone in school knew.
Polyphase: the superhero who was summoning electricity. He was going to be the hardest to track down because his mask covered almost his entire face, just leaving his mouth exposed.
Invisigirl: the one who had been summoning force fields, but could also turn invisible. Her mask covered the top half of her face but left everything below her nose revealed.
Ember: He’d been fighting Fever Storm with fire. It was obvious he was a guy because his mask only covered the area around his eyes. Plus I was pretty sure I heard another superhero refer to him by “he” so I don’t think it was unfair to assume.
The rest of the team’s masks only covered the area around their eyes as well.
SonicLass could create sonic booms and other very loud noises, Melior healed fast and could heal others, Reflex could clone herself, and Counterglow could control light. The group could be incredibly powerful, but not until any of them learned how to use their powers. And the Legion of Victory couldn’t help with that until we figured out who they were.
“OMG!” Madeline started as she sat down at our table for lunch. “Did you guys hear? It looks like ze Legion of Triumph goes to our school. I wonder who zey are?”
The rest of the Squad ignored her. Only Dustin and I acknowledged her presence. I gave her a smile.
“What’s the Legion of Triumph?” Dustin asked.
Madeline rolled her eyes.
“Ze superheroes who saved ze Brooklyn Bridge yesterday. Do you live under a rock? Dumbass,” She said, losing her accent on the last word.
I snorted. The only person Madeline hated more than Chloe was Dustin. Dustin had first started telling people that she wasn’t French, so she made it her personal mission to call him stupid whenever she could.
“Legion of Triumph is a little bold, don’t you think? The Legion of Victory had been in action for years before they got their name. ‘The Legion of Triumph’ has only had two ‘triumphs.’ and the one yesterday was more Nix and Kid Comet than those losers,” I said.
Chloe’s head snapped in my direction.
“They’re not losers,” She said.
I laughed. I definitely hadn’t expected that to get a rise out of Chloe.
“Yes, they are,” Madeline said before I could respond, “their masks don’t even hide their identities. Except, polyphase.”
“I bet you wouldn’t recognize them if you saw them on the street. No one has figured out who they are yet, so clearly the masks work somewhat.”
Before Madeline or I could respond, Jake and Jeremy arrived sitting next to Madeline and Me respectively.
“I don’t know why everyone is so obsessed with these new Superheroes. I wish everyone would just shut about it already,” Jake said.
Rich and Jeremy nodded.
“It’s so annoying,” Rich replied, “there are better things to worry about.”
Rich and Jake had been obsessed with Nix just before winter break. There was no way they’re fascination with superheroes was over just like that.
“Mikey.” Madeline’s voice shook me out of my thoughts. “Watch my stuff, I’ll be back in a minute.”
Jake watched her walk away, his face scrunching into a scowl.
“How long has she been calling you Mikey?” Jake asked.
“A while. How long have you been skipping dates with her to hang out with Chloe?” I retorted.
I knew the answer already: a while. Jake, while mostly a nice guy, flitted between Madeline and Chloe whenever he wanted. He was sleeping with both at any given time, but only “dating” one. It was pretty fucked up.
“If this is about yesterday, I wasn’t skipping our date to hang out with Chloe. I had something important to do.”
“Oh, I’m sure. It’s not like she saw you, Chloe, and Rich together on her snap map,” I said.
His eyes widened. I couldn’t blame him, I wouldn’t want to be caught lying to my girlfriend either.
“Mikey,” Jer said before I could say more, “it was important, I was there. Just drop it.”
My smile faded. Jake might not be lying, but Jeremy was.
“I thought your dad needed you home?”
“Uh oh! Looks like Jakey isn’t the only one lying!” Madeline said, coming back to the table. She started packing up her stuff before turning to me and saying in (broken) French, “ Let’s go eat in the band room. ”
I grabbed my stuff and followed her. The band room was the best place to eat lunch anyway. Madeline had eaten there every day while Jeremy had his SQUIP and Jake was dating Christine. All my fellow band and orchestra nerds ate there and blasted show tunes. It was always fun, and never involved drama, besides the theatrical kind.
After lunch, I didn’t see Jeremy on my way to English. He normally walked with me some of the way. I used to him ignoring me, but him being a jerk was not a valid reason to avoid me.
English went quickly, we just had to write an essay, then I had to hold the first band practice of the spring season. The band was in charge of playing the music for the musical every year. So 10 of the school’s best musicians were chosen and learned the music to back up the performers on the stage. Since I was the only member of the theatre band that was starting their third year in the band, I was in charge.
Our band was really good and had been the saving grace of many shows. Especially since I joined.
Since it was the first rehearsal, no one was expected to know the music. Our instructor and I decided on more practice dates, and when we would work with individual actors. Our instructor then left a full hour before he was supposed to, which was why we needed a student in charge.
I led the group through warmups and we stumbled our way through any songs with little to no piano. Since I was the pianist, we’d have to wait until we had a separate conductor to play any songs with a strong piano part.
We were just about to pack up when Madeline walked into the band room.
“Mikey, I need a favor!” She called.
“Ooh! Mikey.” One kid, John, mocked.
I rolled my eyes.
“What do you need Mads?” I asked, deciding not to entertain John.
She gave me a coy smile.
“I need you to be my date to the Basketball game! Jake’s playing again, finally, so he’ll be there. He ditched me to hang out with Chloe again.” She dramatically sighed and frowned before continuing. “So now I have to get him back.”
“You could do that by getting a boyfriend who deeply cares about you instead of dragging the gay band nerd along!”
“He doesn’t know that you're either of those things! Come on, please?” She made puppy dog eyes at me.
I sighed, before relenting.
“Fine, but you owe me.”
She smiled and pulled me out of the band room.
“I’ll drive you home so you can change! Tonight’s theme is neon-out!” She said.
Tonight was going to be a long night.
By the time we pulled up to the gym parking lot again, I was already tired. Part of that was we had to stop at Target to get matching hoodies since neither of us owned much neon, but I doubted I would be able to stay upbeat for another 3 hours.
The JV boys' game was just finishing, meaning that the Varsity team would be waiting outside to do a dramatic entrance. Jake’s leg had healed over winter break, so he’d be playing for the first time this season, and just in time. Next week’s Friday night game was against Wakefield.
We sat in the student section, where there were already too many people, and watched the JV team lose. 62-4. The other team should have shown mercy, but our JV team sucked.
Regardless of the devastating loss, some rap song started blasting from the speakers with the base too high to hear any words. The doors to the gym opened and the Varsity team started their warmups. Jake was out there, but none of the other members of the SQUIP squad were present, which meant I’d have to leave with Madeline.
I opened my phone to check the time when I got a notification from Instagram. Sarah - another gossip mogul- had posted.
“Legion of Triumph strikes again,” she posted on her story, “Six of the seven teammates were spotted stopping another robbery only twenty minutes ago. OMG.”
I read the article she linked. The robbery was at the Walgreens next to the Target Madeline and I had stopped at almost a half-hour ago. The heroes would be long gone.
“God!” Madeline said, reading over my shoulder. “Someone could have figured out who they were! They could be anywhere in Middleborough by now! Hell, they could’ve gotten here by now.” she pouted and turned back to the court, where the teams were now huddled on the side.
Actually, they’d be just arriving. Since they went to our school, there’d be a good chance they would show up for the game. So whoever they are, they would probably walk through the doors any second.
Someone tapped me on my shoulder, shaking me out of my thoughts.
“Mikey! I didn’t know you were coming,” Jeremy said.
“I wasn’t.” I gestured to Madeline.
He laughed and wrapped his arm around me.
He, Chloe, Rich, Jenna, and Brooke had all just arrived. With Jeremy around, the game would be more bearable.
Besides the screaming student section, the game did end up being a lot of fun. Jeremy had his arm around me most of the night, which was great. Madeline would lean against me whenever Jake looked over, which was not great. But we won 28-24, and the 8 of us took Jake out to celebrate.
Jake and Madeline ended up “making up” at the restaurant, so Madeline was too occupied to take me home. Since everyone else’s car was full, Jeremy stepped up.
“Sorry I ditched you,” he said when we were about halfway home.
“It's fine, I guess. I just wish you didn’t lie to me. I don’t care as long as I know why.”
He sighed.
“I can’t tell you.”
That made me laugh. At least he was honest instead of making empty promises.
“You can tell Rich and Jake though? And Chloe? Fucking Chloe Valentine over me.”
“Yes,” he snapped.
An awkward silence fell between us.
“Oh. Okay.” I eventually replied, trying to keep the hurt from leaking into my voice.
The silence continued until he was almost at my house.
“You got a text from Rich,” I said, reacting to his phone buzzing.
“What’s it say?” He asked as he pulled into my driveway.
“Uh…” I leaned over to get a better look at the screen. “Did you ask him?”
Jeremy snatched his phone away from me and unlocked his car’s doors.
“See you later Mikey.”
I glared at him. He had no reason to be mad at me, and he and I were going to need to talk about it.
But that wasn’t going to happen tonight.
“See ya.”
I opened my front door and started making my way upstairs. Jeremy was being such a jerk. Ditching me for no good reason, trusting Chloe over me, and just generally acting shady. I honestly wasn’t going to let him treat me like trash again, he was gonna need a reason to be acting dodgy.