Podcast of a Teenage Super-Villian

Chapter Twelve: Captain Whatshisface and His Doomed Friends

"I hate you." Finn's foot is stuck in the Coke machine. His jaw is ground so tightly you can make out the veins bulging against his throat. Soda fizzles from a broken can lodged at the base of the machine and drips into a brown, fizzing puddle on the floor. "I hate you all!" He kicks the machine again, and his glasses hit the floor.

Chip runs his hair through his hands. "Do you need help?"

"Not from you." Finn presses both hands against the machine's glowing skin. "Kai, get me out of this death trap, huh?"

"How did you...?"

"I kicked it, genius!" And then he slams his fists into the machine, once, twice. And then in a relentless staccato of pounding and clanging. There's a crunch and both watching boys wince. 

When Finn finally stills, Chip glances over his shoulder for witnesses, not a fan of the whole 'getting arrested' possibility. A man whose sleeves are rolled to his elbows peeks into the alcove, swallows dryly, and folds his dollar bill back into his pocket.  Chip moves against the doorframe, angled to hide as much of the alcove as his body can.

"That's unfair. I'm sorry." Finn wipes sweat from his brow, shoulders trembling. "But please help me."

Kai untangles Finn from the machine with a few tugs. Finn is thrown sprawling across the floor, his glasses flung from his face. Chip picks them up, the lenses sticky with spilled Coke, and offers them to the cussing Finn. Finn snatches them out of his hands. "What do you want?"

"Why do you hate me?" Chip's hands fly in front of his face, an edge creeping into his voice he didn't intend but doesn't bother to hide. He knows Finn's best friend is dying. He knows that he's hurting, but he can't help asking. "What did I ever do to you?"

"Besides not telling anyone about Max until he took Percy and Monet?" Finn glares, wiping his glasses with his shirt collar. "We almost died, and you could've stopped it."

"Finn!" Kai shouts, rushing to take Chip's hand. Chip doesn't react, stiff and openmouthed. It takes him a moment to remember he can shut it. "You don't know what he's been through!"

Finn raises an eyebrow he sets his glasses back on his nose. He sweeps a loose curl out of his eyes, revealing the thin chain of bruises near his hairline. "What did you go through, Chip? That you let this happen?"

Chip can't breathe. He's thought about this before, but he didn't know this is how Finn felt, too. He stands there, his hands shaking while he winds them tighter and tighter into the hem of his shirt. And then he snaps. "It's not my fault Masquerade—"

"Max," Finn says, arms crossed. His eyes are bloodshot behind his glasses, and he's still shaking. Kai glares up at him, standing on his tiptoes.

"Stop it," Kai says quietly, dropping Chip's hands.  Dried mascara flakes off on his fingertips when he rubs his eyes. "Just stop it."

"It's not my fault!" Chip undoes his sleeve cuffs and yanks them up his arm. His bruises have faded, but they're still clear, yellow and green splotches in perfect ovals near the wrists, larger up the forearm. He can still feel Max's fingertips pressed into his skin. He can still remember how much Max said he hated him, how the next day Max would run a hand through Chip's hair and tell him that he was the only thing left in the world keeping Max sane. "I didn't deserve...I couldn't stop him...you have no right to..." He stops. He couldn't stop Max, the supervillain. And the thought makes him feel so helpless and so angry, that he withdraws back into his only comfortable place: silence. Finn's eyes widen and he scratches the back of his neck, blinking down at the sticky soda residue on the floor as if seeing it for the first time.

"Oh, hey." His voice is scratchy and quiet. "That was a shitty thing to say. I'm sorry. I don't hate you. I really don't."

Chip says nothing, remembering. Remember what it felt like to be thrown across a room and land on his elbows and knees, the cries of pain he had to swallow.  Max's hand on his chest, as the calm, smiling demeanor melted into something so angry. Max hates him. Percy's dad hates him.  And Finn hates him. Chip's breath is coming in faster and faster spirals.