(This is only the second draft of the book Worthless. Expect typos, plot holes, odd subplots and the occassionally wrongly named character, especially minor characters. It is made public only to give people a rough idea of how the final story will look)

Chapter 11

The afternoon sun glittered on the wet streets as we stood by the road. Patrick had been silent, not a text from him. Whatever he was dealing with, it seemed best to leave him to it. A car was a luxury, anyway, considering how close to home we both were.
"Wait, what time is it?!" I asked Mischa, and he looked at his wrist.
"Half past noon, why?"
I glanced at the oversized wristwatch, one of the many odd things his parents had a tendency to bring home from their trips back to family in Poland. He had taken a liking to it, but it still looked weird on him.
"For real? No more than that?!
Mischa shook his head, and I tried doing the math in mine. Therapy in the morning, then everything at the school. It felt like a whole day, like too many things for them to have happened in such a short span of time. I was pulled out of my thoughts when he pointed down the road.
"See? Lunch crowd coming for the grill. I skipped Geography, not like I'll forget the Earth is round or anything."
Like a herd of animals slowing trodding out to graze, the other students at all the schools in the center of town began pouring past us. I was about to ask Mischa how he got Patrick to drive out there, but something interrupted me. A small pinch in my side. I looked down, but nothing was there.
"Oh yeah, I wanted to..."
My words were cut short by another pinch, this one stronger. Again, I saw nothng as I looked around. Older students were walking by, chatting amongst themselves. Nobody seemed to even touch me.
The third one was a bit worse, feeling like a sharp jab in my thigh. I let out a loud whimper, Mischa instantly looking at me wide-eyed!
"Shit, I think my phone is..."
I only just got my phone out and up to look at, before another jolt went through me!
"Could we please go? I don't like this!" I said, realizing I had said it loud enough to turn a few heads from the passing students. Other than a chuckle here and there, they didnt react, but I still became very self-conscious about it.
Pushing through a bit of the crowd, we made it to the nearby parking lot, one of the many small lots that catered to school parents. I was still feeling my skin crawl a bit, unwillingly looking around for someone with a needle or something else to slowly torture me with. But away from the crowd, the jolts stopped.
"Seriously, Ida, you're freaking me out, here! Talking about breathing people and acting all crazy? What the hell is with you, is it because of that thing you saw? The fireworks thing?"
"For the last #*@!ing time, it was not fireworks," I snarled at him, immediately regretting the tone. "Sorry, just... It wasn't fireworks, okay. It was something else, I just don't know what."
Rubbing his face with his palms, Mischa let out a sound of frustration, a slow hiss, like air was seeping out of a balloon he was somehow hiding. I tried to ignore my own stress by looking at the crowd of students that was thinning out ever so slowly. A few dozen had passed already, if not more.
"Okay, but you gotta talk to someone about it. Can't your mom get, like..."
"Therapy," I interrupted. "Yeah, already been there."
That new bit of information apparently caught him enough by surprise to leave im speechless, even if just for a moment. He bounced back though.
"Is there... someone else? I don't know, maybe someone specializes in these things, or has some experience with it. Seriously, I'm flying blind here. But just, like, someone?"
I shook my head, feeling my emotions alowly getting the better of me. I wanted to cry and punch something, but I held it in. There was nothing to punch, anyway. I wasn't about to punch Mischa, that was for sure. Then, something lit up in my brain!
"Yeah, I think there is someone!" I said with nervous enthusiasm, looking towards the school.

"I give up, Ida, what's going on?!"
Mischa's words nearly drowned in the sound of kthe many young kids running around in the school playground. He had asked me similar questions many times on our short walk there, but I was too focused to worry about such trivial things as telling others what I was doing. With eagle-eyed precision, I spotted a path through the playing kids and over to the stairs by the building. From up there, I would have a better view! Mischa wasn't even trying to keep uo any longer, having disappeared somewhere behind me. Not until I got to the stairs and turned around did I see him walking casually in my direction through the chaos, hands in his pockets and a weird look on his face, like he was complaining to himself and nobody else about the whole thing.
I spotted her in less than a minute. She was standing by the corner of the school building, looking at her phone. To be more precise, I spotted her hoodie, and the tufts of light brown hair sticking out of the drawn hood.
"She's over there!" I shouted at Mischa, but he was clearly jus letting me do my own thing by now. "I'll catch you after... whatever!" I shouted at him, and he waved and gave a thumb up back, not bothering to try shouting over the noisy crowd. I felt bad. He had come all that way to get me, both him and Patrick skipping school, Patrick even doing something that had gotten him into trouble at home. I felt like I should show my gratitude. But every part of my brain shouted at me to do this, instead!
"Hey..." I started calling to her, but realized I never even got her name. Maybe that was why she didn't react. Not until I put a hand on her shoulder, then she practically jumped out of her skin.
"Hey, uhm...."
"Camilla," she said, her eyes shifting from the phone to me and back several times. She looked different with the hood up.
"Hey, Camilla, how are you doing?"
Her eyes shifted down to the phone, mostly, refusing to meet mine. She seemed even more shy now than after therapy, for some reason.
"Fine, I guess," she answered, then stood absolutely still for a few seconds before looking at me. "Why?"
I ignored her obvious confusion at the simple question. "Camilla, what can you tell me about those people watching you? Do you know if they have anything to do with a school south of Nakskov?"
"What school?" she asked, looking like she was on the verge of panic. She was still holding her phone up, but she was clearly neither writing on it nor reading anything. Her eyes were darting around in her head like those of a spooked deer.
"The one that's...." Something in me finally clicked, and I stood straight, giving the surroundings a quick look over.
"No," she said, "just look at me, okay? Please?"
It was finally dawning on me that she wasn't panicked about me. Something else was bothering her. Or, more likely, a combination of the two.
"Are there people watching?" I asked in a clumsy whisper. She first shrugged, then nodded hesitantly. "Can we go somewhere?" I added, and she finally moved a little more, turning her head and looking around. The school kids were being called in, the younger ones taking extra time to gather. The older students were still scattered around school grounds, the ones that were not on their way back from the grill.
We never got very far. Camilla suddenly tugged hard on my jacket sleeve, her eyes pointed at the schoolyard. I looked, and a teacher I had seen a few times was walking our way. With him was a man, a bit short and kind thuggish.
"Camilla Amundsen, please coem with me," he said in a very serious voice.
"There's something wrong with him," whispered Camilla. I was looking straight at him, but his eyes were entirely fixed on the girl. Far too fixed.
"Yeah, I don't think he's him," I mumbled, not really sure precisely what I meant by that. But before I could figure it out, Camilla started walking away from me, away from the two men. To give her some extra time, I stepped into their path and started to speak. The teacher just pushed me aside, rather roughly! I stumbled back a few steps as they passed by, and as the thuggish man passed by me, I felt another jolt, this one in both of my arms. To my surprise, he seemed to suddenly get a bit uncomfortable, too! He never stopped, though, being fully fixated on Camilla.
My legs felt numb, refusing to work. I called out Camilla's name, but my voice cracked. Looking around me, I realized that we were alone, everybody else having gone back inside. I never even noticed the bell ringing. Then, feeling my heart hammering so hard my stomach felt sore and I felt like vomitting, I ran.
I ran for her. I had stood frozen for longer than I would have thought, and Camilla was now leaving the schoolyard, out into the street. She was starting to run, and the two men had picked up their pace. Something told me they would not run, not while everyone could see them. Two men chasing a small girl looked bad, even, or perhaps especially, in a schoolyard. Neither of them had paid any attention to me after passing me, and I hoped that would benefit me!
With my legs beginning to hurt from straining them, running as fast as I could, I quickly began to catch up on the two men, but just before I could pass them by, the thuggish one turned, perhaps having noticed the sound of me, and reached out! Without a flinch, I ducked and leaned, avoiding his immediate grasp, but something else got me instead. A massive jolt, like an electric shock, raced through my body, causing every muscle to twitch at once. As the world blurred for a moment, my legs lost all control and kicked themselves out from under me! The impact as I hit the ground knocked all air out of me, and the back of my head slammed into soft grass.
Gasping for air, I forced my head up far enough to see the thuggish man. To my surprise, he was stumbling about a bit, his arms flailing to help him stay balanced. His face was contorted in a strange pain, but he made no sound. Still, the teacher had noticed, and turned. As my eyes briefly met his, I could see him say something. There was nobody to hear, but he was clearly talking.
Fighting against the pain in my entire body, I clampered to my feet, swaying dangerously even as I stood fully. The thuggish man seemed at first to be unsure of himself, casting a glance back at his teacher sidekick, but then he faced me again. There was death in his eyes, a rage I had only ever seen in movies, mainly bad action ones! He even pulled up his sleeves, revealing a set of tattoo lines, looking very much like the tribal tattoos I had seen on young bikers as they tumbled their way out of bars in the late afternoon. I was confused if he was trying to impress me somehow, but in any case, none of it really intimidated me, no more than I was by everything already. Then he made a quick motion, a shake of sorts, with the arms, and the lines began to glow!
Desperately trying to spot Camilla, I began to back away as the man came closer, sporting an angry grin. Before I could turn and run the other way, he flicked one arm at me, and a thin bolt of pink shot at me. It hit me, dead center, sending another spasm through me, and although I remained on my feet, I knew those feet would not move, not now, and not in time! As he grabbed me by the throat, clenching his fingers into a fist with the collar of my sweatshirt inside, I twisted my head around to scream. To my horror, I realized that I had run too far when chasing them. There was nothing but the empty street and rows after row of hedges around us. We had not only left school grounds, we had left any place where others could see us. Any place where others could help.
"Boss, we have a second one, native," he started, looking at me as he spoke. "She somehow tried to..."
He stopped. His eyes became unfocused, blinking and squinting, while his voice became so coarse he couldn't even speak. My entire body felt like it was shaking, jolts going through my every bone and muscle. There was a stench of foul smoke coming from...
It was coming from me! It was coming from where his hand touched me, little sparks starting to build up around his fingers. I looked him in the eyes and saw nothing but confusion. And as if by instinct, I reached out with both arms and grabbed him, holding the collar of his fauz leather jacket tight, as I pulled myself in close to him. For a brief moment, the sparks began flying like crazy, the smell of my sweatshirt smoldering and his flesh simmering mixing into a putrid, bitter stench. Bu tthen, they stopped. Everything seemed like it was shaking, or perhaps I was the one who did. As he loosened his grip and tried pushing me away, I simply held on tighter, grabbing anything on his jacket I could and pressing against him. When the smell finally became too much and the world became a loud buzz, I pushed against him and watched as he fell away from me. He screamed as flickering dots of color surrounded him, and the second I recognize them, I threw myself on the ground! There was a loud hiss of air and then, a very loud pop, like mighty hands clapping together hard. I turned, and he was gone. All that remained were charred bits of clothing and a black spot on the ground where he had stood.
Little sparks still ran between my fingers and crackled in my hair as I fought to stand. The teacher was gone. Camilla was nowhere to be seen. And still, I felt something, something powerful inside. As I raised my hand, I looked at the tiny sparks between fingers as they closed into a fist.
"I am special," I whispered to myself, still not sure what it meant, only sure that it meant something.
Ignoring the many pains in my body, I first jogged, then ran, and finally sprinted in the direction I had last seen the teacher! We had somehow made it all the way to the grass fields used by various sports clubs in town. Goal posts of varying sizes littered the edges along tall metal fences, leaving everything else entirely open. Had it not been, I would probably never have spotted them. Camilla, not the fastest of runners, was reaching the opposite end of the field when I caught sight of her, the teacher strolling oddly casually in her direction. It didn't make sense until I spotted two others, standing not far from where the girl was headed. She was running right into their arms and hadn't even noticed it yet. All she could think about was probably the teacher.
I nearly slipped on the wet grass as I bolted through the opening in the fence and onto the grassy field. I felt a heat burning in my veins that I had never felt before, at least as far as I could remember, and it drove me forward. Ignoring the teacher completely, I stormed straight past him and towards the two men approaching her in the distance. I was never much of a runner, but with the wet sound of my feet hitting the rain soaked grass, I nearly leaped forward.
The two were in no way surprised to see me, ahving likely spotted me from far away. They simply didn't care. With stiff steps, looking almost militant, they walked towards Camilla, who only now seemed to realize that she had run straight into a trap. How they managed to be exactly there was not important. Perhaps there were more like them waiting in many places aound town, perhaps they had ways to get there quick, I really didn't care. And only when they realized that I was heading right for them and not stopping did they even care about me.
The one on the left made a quick move, reaching out to grab me as the previous one had done. I sidestepped him, nearly slipping on thewet ground, and threw my body at him like a sack of potatoes. No grace, no elegance, no tactics, but just a small girl flying through the air with an enraged scream. And as I caught him and he, out of pure reflex, caught me, I felt the surge of heat and energy go through me, stabbing my flesh with little spikes of fire. Colors began to dance, and as he desperately pushed me away, I pushed with him, launching me back into the soggy grass as he roared into a ball of blazing dots. The heat from the blast washed over me as I lay on my back, clothes soaking in the mud. Deep within me, that strange feeling came again, the feeling of a driving energy, overpowering all pains and fears in me. Dripping with mud and rain water, I stood, staring at the last remaining of the two. There was a lot of confusion in his eyes, his body still turned towards Camilla, who stood just as paralyzed near him.
"Stay the hell away from her," I snarled as I plunged myself forward, flailing clumsily to shake off the mud and water. He hesitated, just a few seconds, and that gave me all I needed. My fingers locked tightly around his short grey coat, my fingers grabbing the rim of his poscket to hold on. As he tried to pull away, he pulled me with him, and I bodyslammed myself against him, grabbing the lining at the coat's bottom with my other hand and, to even my own surprise, digging my teeth into the side of his jacket! I breathed in deep as I felt the sparks run through me and surround us, and this time, I simply stepped back and watched as dots engulfed the man and his brief attempt at screaming was cut short. I smelled smoke and steam, as the heat of my body brought the water in my clothes to a boil. Then everything got hazy. I felt myself stumble a few steps sideways, then a step back. In the sudden dark that began to cover my eyes, I felt a small hand grab mine.

"What happened?!"
I sat up, heart racing and my mind trying its best to race even harder. Light was soft around me, a light beige color almost everywhere. It was peaceful. For a brief moment, I thought I was dead. After a few seconds I decided that no, I wasn't.
"Hey, you okay?"
The soft voice came from somewhere behind me. I turned to find Camilla standing in a doorway, tugging her sleeves nervously. We were indoors, in someone's living room. Along the walls were books and a few figurines, and one rather large flatscreen TV. Beneath me was a surprisingly soft couch. It, too, was beige, although with stribes of dark and light.
"Where am I?" I asked, head still spinning. I looked at her, but she seemed to not quite undrstand my question, or perhaps why I asked it.
"I... I helped you back home," she answered, eyes going everywhere in the room but at me. I took another look around, thoroughly confused.
"I don't live here," I answered. To my surprise, she smiled, shyly.
"No, my home." She finally looked straight at me, but for some reason, she seemed concerned. "You don't remember? I almost dragged you here, you could barely even walk. You've been out for three hours or so."
As glimpses in my mind, things began returning to me. At first, flashes of the men that had been at the sport field. The thug at the school. The teacher, whom I still had trouble remembering exactly who was. I had seen him at school, but nothing more. Then, images, hazy, of stumbling through gravel paths, everything hurting, the short girl supporting most of my weight somehow.
"You're strong," was all I managed to say. Camilla clearly expected something else from me. "You supported me all the way here. You're stronger than you look," I elaborated. For the first time in the few days I had known her, she smiled, a full and honest smile. She did it without looking at me, but still, it was a welcome change.
"Hey, uhm, Ida... It was Ida, right?"
I nodded, wondering why I had never made sure she knew my name.
"Uhm, so, Ida, what was that, like, out in the fields? Did those men die or something?"
She was extremely uncomfortable in asking the question, but it was hard to tell if it was because she disliked the idea of them dying, or if she was afraid of my reaction to the question.
"Dunno," I said, trying to keep my voice calm. It was an honest answer, I really had no idea. In fact, I wanted to ask someone the same thing, but there was nobody for me to ask.
"Did they ever come for you like that before? I mean, those were the people you said kept watching you, right?"
"I think so," the girl answered, clearly thinking hard about it. "I mean, no, they never came for me at all, they always just looked. I think it was them, or people like them. I'm not sure."
Without a word of warning, she disappeared from sight, slipping out through the doorway she was standing in. I heard her voice shortly after, echoing through the house from some other room.
"You want, like, a soda or something? Or coffee? Do you drink that?"
"Just soda," I answered as loudly as my sore body allowed me. Camilla came rushing back, her arms full of bottles.
"I didn't know what you wanted, sorry," she said, sounding like she really was sorry about it, and not just using the phrase. I smiled and grabbed a red soda, and she seemed oddly thrilled about it.
"Do you get a lot of visitors," I asked, having a strange feeling about the answer. As I had expected, Camilla shook her head.
"Nah, my mom doesn't like when I invite people over, not unless she knows them first. I don't know why, she's just real carefuol and stuff."
"Is your mom home?" I asked, almost as a reflex, not wanting to question why someone would be afraid of guests. Nakskov was a fairly quiet place, so much so that many I knew had a tendency of forgetting to lock the door at night, including Peter. My own mom had been a bit on his tail about that ever since someone we actually knew down the street had a break-in. But they were the exception to the rule, as far as I knew.
Camilla shook her head. "I didn't want to call her until you woke up."
"Why?"
"Maybe she got mad," the girl answered. The notion baffled me, but she said it as if it was perfectly normal.
"You probably should. You know, call her."
Camilla looked panicked for about a second or so, then she pulled out her cell phone. She looked at me one more time, as if asking for permission, before she made the call.
Not feeling like listening in, I stood, legs still shaky, and wandered around in the living room. There were a bunch of pictures, nearly all of them of a woman, with or without Camilla, so I assumed it to be her mom. No man, or other woman, or anyone else, really. Single mom, I thought. A very isolated single mom, or perhaps just a loner. I knew the type. Hell, for weeks at a time, I was the type. No photos of family, either, and no photos of her mom, or whoever the woman was, as a child or teenager.
"Camilla?"
She was putting the phone in her pocket, the call clearly over and done with. Her eyes turned to me immediately, almost as if she was afraid not to pay attention.
"Where's your dad? I mean, if it's okay asking?"
"Dead," she said, with a sad look in her eyes as they drifted slightly. "My mom said he died in an accident right before I was born."
I didn't dig more into it. It looked like it was still a bit painful for her to think about, even if she never really knew him. She, however, chose to continue.
"He was... I think some kind of mechanic? She said he was real good at fixing things, and he saved up money from it to move us here. But about a year later, he got sick because of some accident, and he died. I never got to know him, just what she..."
A car screeched to a hlat outside, scaring the both of us! A bit uncertain of what to do, Camilla just peeked out the window, through the drawn curtains.
"It's my mom," she said, sounding surprised.
"That was fast!" I responded, instantly noticing how skeptical I sounded. Camilla mumbled a drawn out "yeah", clearly wondering about the quick response, too.
Without warning, the front door flew open, and the woman in the pictures rushed through. Camilla had only managed to get to the doorway, and the woman grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Are you okay?!" she asked, her hadns moving around to check for injuries. Camilla just nodded, but even from within the living room, looking at just the back of her, I could see how scared she was. The mom wasted no time, moving straight through the hallway, never even enetering the living room. I had no idea if she even saw me.
"We need to leave, Cammy. Right now!" she called from another room. I could hear things being thrown around, soft thumps of things being stacked. It sounded like she was packing clothes into something.
"What? Why, mom?!"
"Just do as I say!" came the answer, sounding needlessly rough! Camilla looked at me with a tear in her eye, confusion beaming out of her.
"I called one of my old friends, we can stay..."
The mom froze up the moment she stepped into the living room and saw me. I froze, too, absolutely terrified of saying or doing something wrong.
"Who are you?" she asked, or more precisely, demanded to know. Camilla and I shared a nervous glance before I could bring myself to answer her question.
"I'm Ida," I said, speaking the words so quickly that they seemed to flow together into one.
"She saved me, mom," Camilla said almost proudly. "Those men tried to grab me, but she..."
"Thank you so much, Ida! You can't ima..."
The mom moved in for a hug, tears starting to roll from her eyes. But just before she could hold me, a sharp blue light erupted! A spark, thick and bright, jumped between us, hitting her in the face and sending her backwards, even before her feet had stopped moving forwards. She fell on her back, hard, her head making a nasty sound as it had the floor. Had there not been a thick carpet, it could have gone very badly.
Both Camilla and I just stood there, staring as a thin, wispy coloumn of smoke snaked its way upward from the woman's face.
"Mmm... mom?!" said Camilla, almost crying. She gasped with relief when her mom let out a groan and began to carefully move her limbs, just a bit.
"What... happened?" the mom asked, flailing slowly, her body trying to figure out up and down again.
"I'm so sorry, miss... Camilla's mom," I said, my body and voice both trembling from the shock of what had just happened. "I never meant to... I mean, it's not something I control!"