CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Text

It's big, Ross heard Lewis think as he and Camille followed him into his house. And very clean. Well, except for over there.

Ross glanced at Lewis and noticed he was looking into the living room, where Jack was playing with his LEGO castle. They must have just had a big war that left behind discarded LEGO bricks and people strewn across the carpet. Jack looked up from his toys and stared at the two strangers in the entryway with a tilted head.

"Jack, these are my friends. Camille, Lewis, my brother Jack," Ross introduced them quickly. "We're going to be in my room. Tell Mom I'm home for me?"

He never brings friends home, Jack thought with a line forming between his eyebrows. "Uh, sure."

"Great, thanks buddy." Ross sent his brother a relieved smile and ruffled his hair as he walked past him towards his room. Camille and Lewis followed loosely behind but stuck close to each other.

I don't like kids, stay away from me, a voice that sounded like Camille entered Ross's mind. He smirked to himself. Lewis didn't seem to mind Jack quite like Camille did, but the way he was eyeing everything and babbling in his mind made Ross think Lewis was really just nervous about how nice everything in his house was, which made him frown.

Jack paused from playing with his toys and stared at the pair of strangers as they walked around him. Camille felt a shiver run up her spine. They hurried after Ross and relaxed as soon as he shut the door to his room.

"Okay, what's up with your brother?" Camille asked, sliding off her coat and folding it over her arm. Ross shrugged as he sat at his desk and pulled out his school laptop.

"I just don't bring friends over a lot." He bit down on his lip as he searched online for any recent news on the Flame.

Behind him, Camille snorted. "He looked like he's never seen another person in his life."

Ross opened his mouth, struggling to find his words. Eventually, he sighed. "He's just shy."

Camille and Lewis shared a look.

Ross shook his head and turned back to his computer screen. "Let's just get down to business." 

After a half hour of researching with nothing to show for it, Ross handed his laptop over to Lewis and opted to join Camille on the floor, where the pair designed their own disguises on a sketchpad. At some point Jack had wandered into the room and offered the teenagers a bowl of popcorn in exchange for two minutes of "hanging out" with them. He still had a minute left with them when he got bored of the silence in the room and left to watch a movie.

Ross's bedroom door opened and shut suddenly, making Lewis and Ross jump and look up. Camille walked in and sat on the edge of the bed, half an avocado in one hand and a spoon in the other. She flicked her long braids off of her shoulder and crossed a leg over the other.

"Where did you go?" Lewis asked. Neither of the boys had even noticed she left.

Ross's eyes flickered down to the half-eaten avocado in her hands. "And where did you get that?"

She took a bite. "I brought it."

Ross blinked at her. "Right. Well, Lewis found something." They both looked to the aforementioned superhero, who was sitting cross-legged on Ross's desk chair, tapping his finger against the desk at a superhuman speed.

"Well, not really," Lewis said, "I was just rewatching all the filmed evidence we have of The Flame, from all news outlets and personal videos that were uploaded to YouTube or posted on social media." He clicks through a few tabs of videos, all paused on a frame that shows the Flame in action. "I'd already seen all these videos a hundred times over, trying to figure out who she is. But this one," he plays a video, "is new."

The video was taken on someone's personal phone, judging by the vertical angle and the jerky movements of the camera. It shows the familiar blonde supervillain in her usual attire—all black—but she isn't necessarily doing supervillain-y things. She's just sitting at the edge of a river that runs through part of Elton, twirling her finger in the air like she was spinning an invisible basketball. Her back is to the camera, like she's unaware of the video.

Camille was about to ask what was going on when the water started to float up out of the river and collect at the girl's fingertips. The Flame created a ball of water, and then threw it back into the river. The video ended there.

Lewis turned to Ross and Camille, still tapping his finger. "So far we've seen her use fire, she created some kind of earthquake when I encountered her, she can somehow manipulate the air to carry her, and she can use water." He stared at the two of them expectantly.

"So she controls the elements? That's her superpower?" Camille muttered, eyes wide as she stared at the paused video. Lewis nodded solemnly and turned back to the computer screen.

"It's not much, but at least we know what we're up against."

Ross stepped back and ran a hand through his hair. "We're not against her, not yet at least." He didn't need to see the bewildered looks on Lewis and Camille's faces—he could hear their thoughts, and neither of them were too enthusiastic about his statement. "We still need to talk to her and see if she knows anything about why we have these powers and if she can help us."

Camille groaned and sat back on Ross's bed. "Yeah, which is highly unlikely considering she's a supervillain? She tried to bomb an auto repair shop downtown, Remington."

Ross studied Camille's stern face with a blank expression. He knew he'd kind of sprung this whole making-friends-with-the-villain idea on the two of them recently, but he was hoping they took him seriously about it. Because he was serious.

"Are you still with us on the plan?" he asked. Camille laughed humorlessly.

"You mean our very vague plan? Yeah. But I just don't know how smart it is to go into this thinking we'll all just magically get along."

"I don't think we're automatically going to be friends. Obviously it's going to take some persuasion. Hopefully now that we know what her powers are, we can figure out a way to hold her down and talk to her. Really talk to her."

Lewis sat back and watched Ross and Camille discuss this plan. He knew that since he was the newest addition to their previous duo, making them a trio, he didn't have much of a say in business matters, but if he was being honest he felt a sinking feeling deep in his chest when he thought about actually capturing The Flame and talking to her.

"What makes you think she's willing to talk civilly?" Camille asked.

"Well, we all go to the same school. Chances are, she's our age, too. That's got to count for something." Honestly, Ross felt for The Flame, as awful as that sounded. If his assumption was right, then she was probably just as confused as they were about everything.

Camille didn't know what to say to that. It seemed reasonable enough—why hadn't she thought of that before? There was an obvious pattern to all of this. Surely The Flame could relate to them and want to figure out what's going on, if she doesn't already know.

Lewis decided that he should add his two cents now, before they switched to a new topic, but before he got the chance his phone vibrated in his pocket. He frowned, not expecting anyone to contact him, and fished it out. As he pulled it out and took notice of the lack of caller ID, he saw Camille and Ross also looking down at their phones.

"Who the hell—" Camille trailed off, her eyebrows pinched and avocado long forgotten next to her. Ross looked just as confused as she did as he frowned down at his screen.

"Did we all just get this message?" Ross asked aloud. He sat beside Camille and Lewis joined on her other side as they held their phones together, each showing the exact same message:

𝗧𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄, 𝟭𝟬:𝟯𝟬 𝗽.𝗺.
𝟭𝟳𝟬𝟬 𝗪𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗦𝘁.

"ROSS!" Jack screamed as he knocked furiously on the closed door. The three teenagers jumped and Camille let out a muttered curse. "DINNER IS READY!"

"What the hell do we do?" Camille hissed quietly to the boys, but there was another knock at the door before they could answer.

"Ross, honey," said a woman's voice, "why don't you invite your friends to eat with us?" She opened the door a crack, saw the three of them standing together in the middle of the room, and opened the door all the way. She glanced between the three, eyes narrowing slightly as she took in the tense atmosphere.

"Uh . . ." Ross looked at Lewis and Camille. Each of them were still reeling from the text they'd just gotten. He gulped, eyes moving between the two of them as he listened to their thoughts.

I don't want to go home, oh fuck what if someone knows about us?

Oh frick oh frick what the heck—

"Guys? Do you want to stay for dinner?" He said out loud. Then, he added telepathically, Everything's gonna be fine. We can figure it out after we eat.

Lewis was the first to find his voice. "Okay."

The boys looked to Camille, who was trying really hard to not show how confused and terrified she was on her face. She forced a smile. "Yeah, sure."

They followed Anne Remington and Jack down the hallway to the dining room, where Fred Remington was already sitting. A cooked chicken sat on a decorative plate in the middle of the table, surrounded by little side dishes and vegetables. Anne leaned down and kissed Fred's cheek as she passed him, and then sat in a chair at the opposite head of the table. Camille's steps faltered at the sight. An image of her father talking to that Hannah lady on the phone late at night clouded her vision.

With the way they were so obviously in love, Camille couldn't imagine Ross's parents betraying each other like her dad had.

Lewis leaned over towards Camille, his eyes flashing with concern. "You okay?" he asked quietly, assuming it was about the text. She cleared her throat and nodded, joining the rest at the table. She sat beside Lewis, across from Ross and Jack. She gripped her fork in her hand but immediately released it, not wanting to bend it out of shape without realizing.

Everyone bowed their heads as Anne said grace. As soon as she said "Amen," Jack was up and reaching across the table for the mashed potatoes, diverting all of Fred and Anne's attention away from the anxious teenagers.

Across the table, Ross made eye contact with Lewis and then Camille. He sent them a reassuring nod, hoping it would put them at ease enough to enjoy their meal, though he wasn't so sure he believed it himself.

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