The Rise of Renegade X Read online

  “How was it?”

  I shrug. “I’ve had better.”

  Helen laughs and pats me on the shoulder. “Guys are jerks.”

  “Oh yes. Down with Joe. Good riddance to him.” I chug down a glass of water to go with all the crackers. Maybe tomorrow I’ll eat something real. After I’ve slept.

  “Gordon wasn’t too happy you were going to stay out on a school night, especially after your phone call, but I told him you needed space and it was good you were making friends. I won’t tell him it didn’t work out if you won’t.”

  I promise her I won’t say anything. She says good night, chuckling to herself over my exploits, and goes to bed.

  I turn out the lights and flop down on the couch. I’m already half asleep when I hear the attic stairs creak, and then Amelia pokes me in the shoulder. “Psst. Damien.”

  I open my eyes, which is a mistake because she has a flashlight. I squint and shield my face with my arm. “Put that away.” I ward off her flashlight, covering the bright end with my hand. It glows red, but at least I’m not blind.

  Amelia points it at the floor. She kneels down beside me and whispers, “There was a message on the machine, from the school. About you not showing up today. I erased it.”

  “Ah, for me? You shouldn’t have.” So much sarcasm oozes out of my voice, even someone as thick as Amelia could pick up on it.

  “I told Mom you were at a friend’s house. So you wouldn’t get in trouble for not coming home.”

  “Oh, great. Too bad none of that makes up for what you did. Dr. Wiggles finally got his degree, only so you could kill him.”

  “I said I was sorry.” Her voice is tight and small. “I thought …”

  “You thought I’d forgive you if you covered for me?” I raise myself up on one arm. “I thought you wanted me out of here? You could have done us both a favor and let me get in trouble.” Okay, I am kind of glad she did what she did, because I’ve had enough hassle tonight—I didn’t need to deal with Gordon getting mad at me for coming home late, too. But on the plus side, if Gordon got mad enough to kick me out, Mom would have to take me back early.

  “I shouldn’t have done that to Dr. Wiggles,” Amelia goes on. “I got carried away, because I was mad. I should have believed you about Blue Bunnykins. I’ve caught Alex playing with him before, but …” She scrapes her fingernail against the rim of the flashlight. Her eyes shift back and forth, too guilty to meet mine. “I didn’t blame you because you’re a supervillain. I did it because I was jealous, okay? I jumped to conclusions.”

  “You got me thrown off a building.” Does she expect me to let that go? Because she says she’s sorry?

  “I didn’t know Dad was going to—”

  “Oh, I think you did.”

  “Okay. I didn’t know you’d take it so badly.”

  I glare at her.

  “I didn’t know you were almost going to die!” Her eyes meet mine for the first time in this conversation. She sets her flashlight down on the floor, so the glow from the light creeps around the edge of the couch. “I thought you’d tell Dad you didn’t want to do it, and then he’d see how you don’t belong with us. How he shouldn’t have brought you here.”

  “And then he’d see how great you are, since you’re chomping at the bit to get your flying power going?”

  “Dad told us what happened, how he couldn’t save you and thought you weren’t going to make it. First, I was mad at you for not saying no. You didn’t have to try and fly. You went on and on about how you were a villain and didn’t have flying power, so I thought you were stupid for going along with it. But then I was mad at myself for betraying you. You’re my brother, and”—she grits her teeth and sucks it up—“and maybe you wouldn’t be so bad, if I got to know you. So I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  “Thanks.” I think. “I want you to know, Amelia, that I feel the exact same way.”

  A hint of a smile plays across her lips.

  “I’m glad I’m not dead, too.”

  The smile wilts. “Ha ha.” She punches me in the shoulder. Then she lowers her voice, talking so quietly that I can barely hear her. “Did you really kiss a boy?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  She’s silent for a while. I’m drifting off when she says, “Damien … I … I tried to fix Dr. Wiggles for you. I taped him back together, but he’s not the same.” Her voice gets higher and louder the longer she goes on. “I really am sorry! I sewed up Blue Bunnykins—he’s all right—but Dr. Wiggles is really dead! I killed him!”

  “Shh.” I reach out and poke her cheek. “It’s okay.” It’s going to be. I think. I’m too tired to fully assess how I feel about her apology and her confession of not hating my guts. “Sleep now. Grovel later.”

  Amelia gets up and hovers over me. She keeps making sounds like she wants to say something else. Finally she says, “Damien … do you hate me because I’m a superhero?”

  If I wasn’t already half asleep, I might tell her that her being a superhero is the least of the reasons she’s given me not to like her. Instead, all I manage to do is mumble, “No.”

  “Good,” she says, sounding like she means it.

  And I don’t know what happens after that, because I’m finally asleep.

  “I’m so glad you didn’t let me come home,” I tell Mom Tuesday morning before school. I’m sitting at the dining table, forging a note from Gordon, saying to forgive my absence yesterday, since I was too busy recovering from a nasty fall I had this weekend. One that left me emotionally scarred for life and that was all his fault.

  “What?” Mom yawns on the other end of the phone. She wasn’t awake when I called. Not the first five times anyway.

  “I was having trouble adjusting at first”—I pause to get the flare on the G of Gordon’s name right—“but now everything’s great. All I needed to do was give it some time.”

  “Damien, it’s six a.m.”

  “Did you know superheroes get up early? I’ve been up since five—can’t wait to start the day, you know?” I got up twenty minutes ago, and only because the rest of the house was awake, stomping around while I was trying to sleep. I had to race Amelia and shove her out of the way to get a turn in the bathroom, and when I looked in the mirror … my hair was lopsided. Because someone had to shoot at me with a raygun. That first blast from Henrietta singed off the ends of my hair on one side. It could be worse—there could be a bald spot or a racing stripe instead of only being uneven, but still. This is the thanks I get for helping out Sarah. And it’s not over.

  “Mom, you’ll never believe how many nice superhero girls I’ve met. They’re totally hot and extra friendly. Three hero girls want me to call them tonight. One might want to go all the way, but I’m okay with that. I can see myself settling down with her, having some kids.” I put the finishing touches on my fake note from Gordon and give it a second to dry.

  “Damien,” Mom growls. She knows I’m saying these things to piss her off, but that doesn’t mean it’s not working. “What happened to Kat?”

  “You see, the thing about Kat is she’s not what I’d call ‘my type’ anymore. All that villainy.” And, you know, taking up with other guys. “She’s—”

  “Would one of these new girls happen to be Dr. Kink’s daughter?”

  Whoa. How does she do that? “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Plus, Sarah’s not a superhero. “Must be the generation gap. Could you use hipper slang?”

  Gordon wanders through the room, all dressed for work in his cape and leotard. I stuff the note I forged into my pocket before he can see it. He glares at me. “We need to have a talk,” he says. “About appropriate use of Q and A sessions.”

  I point to the phone, indicating I can’t be bothered.

  He clenches his fists and seems like he’s going to have it out with me right there, whether I’m on the phone or not, but then he takes a deep breath, gets ahold of himself, and continues on into the kitchen.

&
nbsp; Mom’s tone is serious business. “Taylor got a phone call last night. Two kids broke into the room where they were holding Dr. Kink at Vilmore. One of them turned out to be his daughter. Messy blond hair and glasses. Does that ring any bells, sweetie? Because the other description sounded a lot like a certain, beloved son of mine who I know would never betray me like that.”

  “No bells are going off. Honestly. But since you brought it up, I’ve been doing a little Internet research. Dr. Kink is a biologist, not a … hypno-device maker. I think your problem with him is you might have gotten confused. It was probably a different Dr. Kink who wrote those articles and made the prototype.”

  “We found it in his house.”

  “Probably his cousin or a sibling, then. Or someone could have stashed it to make it look like it was his. Either way, I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

  Mom sighs. “You know, that’s very astute of you. Taylor and I, we were starting to think the same thing.”

  Gordon’s phone rings. I hear him answer it in the kitchen with a groggy, “Hello?”

  “So you’re going to let him go, right?”

  “Damien, he’s not a lab rat. We can’t go around letting everyone go.”

  “But, Mom, he’s not the right guy. He has a life to live, biology students to teach. Maybe he can still go back to that, if you didn’t mess him up too much.”

  “I don’t know, Damien. His daughter knows where we kept him. It could be a liability.”

  “But it’s already a liability then, so letting him go doesn’t change anything. Plus, what’s she going to do, go to the police? You can cover it up. Dr. Kink’s still a brilliant scientist. You wouldn’t want to kill off someone in the profession, would you?”

  “Well …” I think I have her. “We’ll see.” Typical Mom answer. “You really don’t know this Sarah Kink girl?”

  “Never heard of her.” I’m totally not on a two-month plan for getting into her pants. A plan she came up with, not me. I said I was going to choose the experiments, but that one can definitely stay.

  “Are you sure? Because, if it was you last night—”

  “It wasn’t! I was singing folk songs with my new family after eating dinner together, and then we all hugged for an hour. I was way too busy to break into Vilmore to find some guy I’ve never met with a girl I don’t even know.”

  “Good, sweetie, because I remember the lab-rat incident, and I wouldn’t want to repeat it. Behavior like that isn’t conducive to making the history books as a first-rate supervillain, and it’s not going to turn your X into a V. Taylor and I have put a lot of work into this project, and if this girl is part of the puzzle—”

  I miss what Mom says next because Gordon suddenly shouts from the kitchen, “What?! Dear God! No, I was about to go to work, but of course it can wait. This is serious.” He hangs up, runs his hands through his hair, and then marches up to me at the dining table.

  “What was that, Mom? I couldn’t hear you. Someone wasn’t respecting my personal audio bubble—”

  “Hang up,” Gordon says.

  “Hold on,” I tell him.

  “Damien, hang up the phone now.”

  “Is that man telling you what to do?” Mom says. “Because you tell him from me that he’s not going to order my son around!”

  Gordon reaches over and rips my phone out of my hand and flips it shut. “Come on—let’s go.”

  He tries to grab my wrist, but I pull away from him. “Oh no. Last time I went anywhere with you, you pushed me off a building. I’m staying put.”

  “It’s an emergency.” Gordon motions for me to get out of the chair. “We need everyone we can get, even you.”

  “Wow, even me? I’m so honored.” For the record, emergencies aren’t my thing. It was poor word choice on Gordon’s part, because he could have told me he wanted to take me out for ice cream or to get me my own puppy. Something he might imagine was pleasant and that I might conceivably go for. Dragging me out of the house at six in the morning to go to some emergency that I presume has nothing to do with me or anyone I care about? Try again.

  “I’m not giving you a choice,” Gordon says. “I hate to do this the hard way, but we don’t have time to argue.” He lifts the back two legs of my chair off the ground and tilts it to one side, so I slide off. He grabs my arm so I don’t fall and drags me out to the car. “Come on, son—it’s time you found out what superheroes are really like.”

  This big superhero emergency Gordon’s dragged me to at almost the crack of dawn is a burning apartment building. Four stories of spewing flames light up the dark morning. Clouds of black smoke fill the sky. Bystanders gather around the scene, sipping their lattes and pointing up at the building. The police motion for them to keep back, while the fire department and a couple of superheroes fight to stop the flames.

  Gordon parks the car, badly, on the far side of the street and tears his seat belt off. I’m tempted to stay right here. What the hell is he thinking, bringing me to a dangerous scene like this? I’m all ready with my spiel about staying in the car, instead of getting within burning-to-death-range, but Gordon doesn’t say anything to me. He brought me here to help, or so he said, but he flings open the door and jumps out without closing it. He leaves the keys in the ignition. I’m surprised he turned the car off.

  “I’m just going to stay here,” I mutter to no one. “No, it’s okay, you go ahead. I’ll watch.”

  Gordon runs across the street—not looking both ways first, like he teaches kids on TV—and gets to work, only pausing to check with one of the firefighters. There’s a superhero with freeze breath using his power on the ground floor, but that doesn’t do anything for the upper stories. The firefighters hurry to get a ladder up, while Gordon takes to the air and zooms up the side of the building and into a fourth-story window. Another hero with super strength helps the firefighters with the hose. I watch as a couple others catch Gordon’s insanity and run inside the burning building.

  If Gordon really wanted me to help, why’d he ditch me? Maybe when he got here, he decided I was a useless supervillain and the best thing to do was to get going before I could ask questions and get in the way.

  Flames shoot out of the same window Gordon flew through only half a minute ago. My heart stops. I’ve only known the guy a couple weeks, and I don’t care that he’s technically my dad, but cold fear runs up and down my spine anyway and leaves me shaking. I fumble to get my seat belt off and think about how mad I am at my father. Who might be dead now. Thanks a lot, Gordon. You not only push me off a building, but you bring me to this gigantic bonfire so you can get yourself killed. Great. I suppose he expects me to deliver the news to his now-fatherless family, since I was a witness and everything.

  I get out of the car and stumble across the street, dazed and silently cursing Gordon for getting me into this mess. I feel the heat from the fire, making me sweat as I get closer. He’d better not be dead. I haven’t paid him back enough for the whole flying-lesson thing. It’s only been a couple days—he hasn’t even discovered the worms in his shampoo yet.

  I push my way to the front of the crowd. I try to move past, but a policeman holds his hand up, signaling for me not to come any closer. “Sorry, kid. You’d better stay back.”

  “I’m with the Crimson Flash.” The words fall out of my mouth before I have time to remember I’m ashamed to be associated with him. “He’s my dad.”

  The policeman looks me over. I can tell he’s about to say no anyway, when Gordon bursts out of a third-story window, carrying two small children. His face is smudged with ash and his cape’s a little tattered, but he’s alive. He sets the kids down, and a couple of paramedics rush to their aid. I picture what it would be like to be trapped high up in a fire, with no way to get down, and nothing to do but wait for the flames to kill you. My palms clam up and an overwhelming burst of terror jolts me into action. I push past the policeman and make a run for it. He moves to come after me, but Gordon motions that it’s okay.
/>   The guy with the freeze breath is up on the ladder now, blowing ice into the second-story windows. He looks dizzy, like he’s been taking too many deep breaths. As I’m thinking that, he loses his balance and topples to the ground. He lands with a heavy thud. I imagine falling and feel like I’m going to throw up.

  “Okay,” I tell Gordon, “I’m here.” He should be happy I got out of the car, and he didn’t even have to nag me about it. I’m doing what he brought me here for, unasked. “What do you want me to—”

  He doesn’t stick around to tell me what to do, or even to say, “Oops, sorry I scared you, son, what with rushing into that burning building and all.”

  As Gordon flies back into the building, I feel abandoned and alone. I’m standing in the middle of a bunch of commotion, because the Crimson Flash told a police officer it was okay for me to be past the line of ordinary citizens. He shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have brought me here to help and then run off without telling me what to do. I stand here, getting in the way, utterly useless and totally overwhelmed by all of this. The flames crackle, and the crowd makes “ooh” and “aah” noises every time a superhero uses their power or drags a victim out of the burning building.

  The freeze guy gets off the ground and climbs back up the ladder. One of his arms is bleeding and is bent funny. He doesn’t look any steadier than he did before, but that’s not stopping him.

  There’s a loud crash, and then two more superheroes come running out of the apartment building. They’re empty-handed. They stop to catch their breath. Gordon zooms outside again, a cat clinging to his shoulder with all its claws, the end of his cape catching on fire as flames bust out another window. I guess he’s lucky if all he has to worry about is his cape and getting mauled by a housecat. He’s about to go in for more when a fireman stops him. I run over to them and hear something about the structure not being sound and it getting too dangerous. Gordon nods and joins the other superheroes. I trail after him like a lost puppy. I don’t know if he remembers I’m here.