Author's Note: Once again, I am truly sorry for the lack of updates. I now have a job as a substitute teacher and now that I actually have some kind of a schedule, I will be updating this more regularly. I am so sorry for any inconveniences and am planning on finishing this story because I love my And All That Jazz babies. Warning: There will also be a few f-bombs dropped in this chapter.
Chapter 12
The Big Reveal
"All right, kids," Dr. Pendanski announced as the group finished their dinner in the Mess Hall. There was a collective groan. The other tents filed out of the hall while Pendanski ordered the boys to set up the folding chairs in a circle.
Once the D-Tent teenagers took their seats in the circle reluctantly, Ms. Divan ran into the Mess Hall, dressed in a pale green pant-suit and what smelled like every bottle of perfume ever made. "Am I late?" she asked, smoothly, fluttering her eyelashes at Mr. Pendanski.
"No…not at all," Pendanski smiled widely, looking her up and down.
Dare gagged at the obvious flirting between the two absolutely annoying adults and Disney laughed out loud.
Ms. Divan glared at them. "Well, our counseling session for today is about the reason you're all here," she said, snidely. "Latiqua, you can go first."
Dare raised an eyebrow at the woman. "What the hell? You always call us by our nicknames…"
"Well, I've told Samantha that calling you girls by your nicknames only perpetuates your juvenile delinquent behavior. So, go ahead, Latiqua, tell us why you're here," Mr. Pendanski encouraged, the stupid smile still on his face.
Silhouette raised her hand. "With all due respect, my girls already talked about why we're here," she snapped. "We don't need to go into that."
Before Pendanski could say anything else, Ms. Divan sneered at them. There was a cruel glint in her eyes that Silhouette didn't trust. "Fine. We'll talk about what you'll do when you get out of here and any regrets you might have."
"I regret getting caught," Chill muttered under her breath. Fox and Magnet, whom she was (unfortunately for them) between, snorted.
"Dare, you're still going first." She turned to Dare, who was sitting between Disney and Innocence. "What will you do when you get out of here? Go back to that street gang of yours?"
It took both of her friends to hold her back from striking Ms. Divan, who smiled wickedly. The other girls and some of the boys stared at Dare in shock. Yes, she was aggressive, and the girls knew she was left on her own at the age of ten to run the streets but many of them had no idea she was affiliated with a gang.
"That's none of your fuckin' business!" Dare yelled fiercely.
"Oh, it isn't? Well, if one more incident goes on your record, you'll head straight for juvie. Do you think your friends here will want to talk to you when you're in an actual correctional facility?" Dare's eyes widened and her rough persona seemed to fade. Tears rushed down her cheeks. Angry on her best friend's behalf, Innocence put her hand on Dare's shoulder, letting her know that that would not be the case.
"That's not true," Armpit said, suddenly. Dare shot him a grateful smile.
"How about you, Theodore?" Mr. Pendanski said, trying to get things back on a positive note. "Your mother kicked you out after the first time you got caught selling drugs. What do you think you'll do when you leave here?"
Armpit shrugged. "Ask my mom to take me back, get a job, maybe. Oh, and finish high school!" He said, proudly.
"Good, good. Anyone else?" Disney raised her hand tentatively. "Yes, Jody?"
"Um…I won't paint the White House purple anymore?" Everyone laughed at her statement, except the two adults.
Ms. Divan scolded. "Vandalism of a national landmark isn't a laughing matter!"
"It could use some decorating," X-Ray snickered.
Pendanski let everyone settle down before he turned his attentions to the bespectacled boy. "And you, Rex? You're the oldest one here besides Nubia." He nodded in Silhouette's direction. "Do you think you could come out leading a better life than the one you came in here with? Do you have any regrets?"
X-Ray smirked, but his eyes instantly became hard. "Nah, no regrets, Mom." Pendanski wasn't going to go there…was he?
"You don't regret that turf war? You don't regret taking another life? Even if it was the life of the person who killed your younger sister? What was her name? Olivia?"
He was.
There was absolute silence for a split second. Only Armpit and Squid knew the reason why X-Ray was in Camp Green Lake. For the murder of the guy who murdered his little sister. Everyone else gasped and then came the sound of glass breaking. X-Ray had gotten up and punched out a window in the Mess Hall before stalking out of the Mess Hall and back to D-Tent.
"That was wrong," Innocence said quietly. Now she understood why X-Ray looked out for her. "We didn't need to know that."
Silhouette looked at her proudly as did many of the other older ones.
Before Pendanski could speak, Ms. Divan once again spoke over him. "Well, I think it's fair for the rest of them to know another cold-blooded killer is among you." Wary eyes met each other, but skipped right over the person whose heart was currently beating wildly.
"Look, bitch, that's enough of airing our dirty laundry," Lyter snapped angrily.
Ms. Divan ignored her. "Innocence, do you regret stabbing your stepfather to death?"
All stunned eyes were upon the youngest member of D-Tent. She had slid out of her chair and onto the floor, sobbing wildly, her glasses askew. Before anyone could move to comfort her, Innocence also rushed out of the Mess Hall in tears. Zero and Silhouette immediately followed her.
"That was low," Squid muttered, shaking his head.
As one of the people holding her back was now gone, Dare easily flew out of Disney's arms and punched the counselor straight in her face. There was a cheer as Dare landed another blow. Lyter and Chill allowed her to get one more well-deserved hit in before grabbing her back. "Okay, counseling session's over!" Pendanski shouted, going to Ms. Divan's aid. "Bring Latiqua to the Warden's cabin." He ordered Lyter. Dare smiled. At least she socked the evil woman straight in the gut just once…
After looking for Innocence in her tent, the Wreck Room, and the girls' bathroom and not finding her, Silhouette and Zero split up. Silhouette found herself outside of the boys' tent where she heard a slight sniffling sound. "Innocence?" she asked, poking her head in. The sniffling wasn't coming from Innocence, but X-Ray.
"What the hell do you want?" X-Ray asked, hoarsely.
Silhouette sighed. This was not the time to argue. "I can't find Innocence. She ran off after…well, after Ms. Divan told us all what she did to get here."
X-Ray immediately perked up. "Why? What happened?"
"Well, let's just say you're not the only one who killed somebody…" She quickly filled him in on what happened after he left.
"…damn…" X-Ray said, shaking his head. "Your counselor's a piece of work."
"Tell me about it…I'm sorry about your little sister…"
"I really don't want to talk about it." X-Ray took a deep breath. "Let's go find Innocence."
"Are you sure?" asked Silhouette. "I mean, you got pretty tore up in there, too."
"I'm probably the only person who understands her right now."
Silhouette nodded. He had a good point. She stared at him for what seemed like a long time before she spoke, "Well, let's go find our little sister." Smilingly slightly at her once-nemesis, she squeezed his hand lightly once before heading out of the tent.
Zero found her first. First he heard her gasping sobs and followed the heart-breaking sound until he found her sitting in a hole, covering her face with her arms. "Innocence? Are you okay?" Mentally, he kicked himself for asking such a stupid question. Of course, she wasn't okay. He jumped into the hole and sat beside her. Hesitantly, he put an arm around her. "Do you wanna talk about it?" Innocence shook her head wildly. Instead, she threw her arms around him and Zero rubbed her back as she sobbed into his orange jumpsuit.
How long they stayed like that, Zero had no idea. Both he and Innocence had apparently dozed off inside the refuge of the hole. He woke later to complete darkness and the sounds of Innocence's steady breathing and of X-Ray and Silhouette's voices yelling for him or Innocence. "We're in here!" he shouted. Gently, he moved the still sleeping Innocence off of his shoulder and stood to alert the others, waving his hand. When Silhouette caught sight of him, he knelt back down and shook Innocence awake.
She woke with a start and stared at her surroundings with nervous eyes until her brown eyes met Zero's hazel ones. He smiled at her shyly, but she looked down.
"Innocence, you all right?" Silhouette asked as soon as she reached the hole. Innocence nodded once, but it was obvious that she wasn't.
X-Ray jumped in beside the two younger teenagers. "Mind if I talk to her alone?" X-Ray asked both Silhouette and Zero. Zero shook his head and Silhouette stretched out a hand to pull him up. X-Ray waited until their footsteps retreated before he took a seat beside Innocence and started his story.
"I was in a gang like your girl Dare, but I wasn't that serious about it because I had Olivia. She was exactly like you, y'know, big eyes and real sweet. She didn't even like for me to kill spiders or nothing like that. Well, my leader got jumped one day and we were supposed to go after the other leader of the other gang, but it was an ambush. I was supposed to meet Olivia after she got home from school, but because of the fight, I wasn't there to meet her. She came to find me and before I could get her out of there…she was gone. She was only eleven. I shot the guy that did it. He died, and now, I'm here. I'm seventeen…been here since I was fifteen."
Innocence looked up at him, staring at him intently. When she first spoke, X-Ray had to strain to hear her. "I didn't mean to do it…" she said, quietly. "He was nice at first when he married my mom, but she didn't know he used to hit me. Then, he started hitting her. It got so bad that I thought he was going to kill her, so I just ran to get a knife from the kitchen to scare him off. He told me that I couldn't do it, that I was too weak to. He ran at me, saying that he was gonna kill me." At this point, Innocence broke into sniffles again. "That's when I did it…"
"But that's self-defense!" X-Ray said, angrily.
Innocence shrugged. "The judge didn't seem to think so."
"Well, look, you don't have to worry about that here. No one's gonna hurt you, I promise." Before he could say anything else, Innocence hugged him tightly. It was a weird feeling in X-Ray's opinion, no one had hugged him since Olivia died, but it was also a nice feeling. Slowly, he hugged her back. "Now, how about us cold-blooded murderers get out of this hole, huh?" He asked, smiling at her. At first, Innocence frowned but then gave him a half-smile.
"You like her, huh?" Silhouette asked Zero, eyeing the small teen boy.
Zero nodded without hesitation.
"You should really let her know," she said as they headed back to their respective tents. Zero blushed, but nodded.
"We're all in here," Lyter stuck her head out of the boys' tent. "How's Innocence?" she asked, worriedly.
"I think she'll be okay," Silhouette said. The others sighed with relief. "She's talking with X-Ray."
"That's sweet," Fox said, pointedly. Silhouette rolled her eyes at the other girl, good-naturedly.
"Where's Dare?" Silhouette asked, noting the younger girls' disappearance.
It was Chill who answered soberly, "With the Warden."
Silhouette's eyes widened and then narrowed. "What did she do?"
"Punched the crap out of Ms. Divan!" Disney crowed triumphantly.
Before Silhouette could respond, there was a flurry of shouts as X-Ray and Innocence made their way into the tent with X-Ray giving Innocence a piggy-back ride. Innocence was nearly trampled with the ferocity of hugs she received from the girls and the boys. "Where's Dare?" Innocence asked, looking around for her best friend. Disney once again explained what happened and Innocence actually looked smug knowing that Ms. Divan got what was coming to her, but then remembered what happened to the other girls who did something much simpler than hitting a counselor. "She's not gonna hurt Dare, is she?"
