Rogue (6 page)

CHAPTER 11

THE KID LEADS US TO A NARROWER PATH OFF THE MAIN TRAIL
that ends in a clearing. The pine needle floor gives way to a bed of ashes surrounded by the charred trunks of young trees and a canopy of dead, bare branches, all black against the cloudless sky. The kid stops about ten feet from the ash and holds out his tattooed arm, keeping us behind him.

I suck in my breath. “Wow! A forest fire.” I've never seen one this close up. Sometimes when the band traveled, we'd pass sections of forest that had burned. But then, we were going sixty-five miles an hour. Now I'm standing right in the middle of one. I step toward the ash.

“Get away from there,” the kid says. “It's full of poison.”

“What happened?” I ask. It doesn't smell like poison. Or a fire. Instead of the rotting-leaves odor of the rest of the woods, it doesn't smell like anything.

“You don't know?”

“N-no.” It occurs to me that those bottles I didn't even know I was carrying might also be full of poison.

Sweat beads on Chad's face and his throat moves up and down, like he's about to throw up.

The kid folds his arms across his chest. I stare at his LIVESTRONG tattoo. His muscles. His tattoo again. “Six months ago, some loser was riding through the neighborhood on his mountain bike with a bunch of chemicals in two-liter bottles. Like yours.”

“Wasn't me. I just moved here,” Chad says.

“Didn't say it was. It was an older dude. Cops chased him in here. He crashed, a bottle busted open, and . . .
kaboom
!” The kid spreads his arms wide.

“Can t-these b-b-bottles b-b-blow up?” I ask.

“Yea-uh. Loser ended up in the hospital. Then in jail.”

“You idiot.” Chad glares at me. “Can you shut up? For once?”

“Don't talk to her like that.” The kid pokes his finger into Chad's chest. Chad steps backward and almost trips on a root.

“She's retarded. She has nothing to do with this,” he says, hands out in front of him as if to protect his already-bruised face.

I nod. “He told me he wanted to see the mountain bike trail. So I brought him here. He didn't tell me he had this . . . this
shake 'n' bake,
or whatever you call it, in the bags.”

The kid approaches me, blocking my view of the ruined clearing. “What grade are you in?” he asks.

Was
in. “Eighth,” I answer.

He turns and looks Chad up and down. “And you?”

“Seventh.” Chad stands up straight and pushes his shoulders back, as if trying to make himself taller.

“Okay, I get it,” the kid says. “No one would think twice about kids on bikes. Cops wouldn't stop you.”

“You're n-not g-going t-to call them?” A bead of sweat rolls down the side of Chad's face. And my knees are knocking together. It was bad enough when I got suspended from school. What will Dad say if I get arrested? Will I end up in reform school because I've already been in trouble?

A scream rushes up my throat. “Don't!”

The kid takes a step back and holds out his hands. “Whoa. Calm down.”

But panic has seized my voice. “I can't go to juvie!”

“Why would
you
go to juvie?” The kid nods at Chad. “This little turd put you up to it. And whoever he works for.”

“Don't call the cops, okay,” Chad says quickly. “We'll leave.”

“Wait a minute.” He squints at me. I notice my UVM lanyard, twisted around my index finger, cutting off the circulation. My finger is swollen and red.

I shake my finger loose and rub it with my other hand.

“That a UVM thing around your neck?” the kid asks.

“Yeah,” I mumble, eyes fixed on the ridges the lanyard cut into my skin. I wish he'd let us go because, like Chad said, we'll never come here again.

“Lemme see.” The kid holds out his hand and adds, “I'm starting there this fall.”

I take the lanyard from around my neck, key dangling from the end, and hand it to him. Now he knows I'm a latchkey kid wandering the town, getting into trouble . . .

But then he says, “Hey, I know you. You're Max's sister.”

CHAPTER 12

NOW I'M REALLY IN TROUBLE. MY LUNGS DEFLATE; HOT AIR
rushes past my lips. I can barely get out the words. “Don't tell Max about this.”

“Why would I?” the kid says. “Max would just love to hear that his little sister blew herself up doing something stupid.”

“He . . . would?” My voice cracks. Of course. I'm the accident. The one who shouldn't have been born.

“No.” The kid cuts off a laugh. “Big brothers don't like their younger sisters to blow up.”

He gives me a funny expression. A smirk, which is supposed to mean he's joking about big brothers and younger sisters. But he hasn't told me whether or not he's going to rat me out to Max. Maybe if I'm extra nice to him, he'll let me go.

“So which of his friends are you?” I ask after a long moment. I don't recognize faces and have no memory for them, though I have a photographic memory of everything I read.

“Antonio. Trail name's Wheezer.” He pulls an inhaler from the pocket of his cargo shorts. “For this, not the band.”

“I'm Kiara,” I say, my manners on automatic.

“Yeah, I know. Sure didn't expect I'd run into you like this.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and dig my toe into the ground, defeated. Busted. I have nothing more to say. My gaze jumps to Antonio's wavy hair that falls over his forehead, to his brown leather necklace with a tooth pendant at his throat, to his shirt, unbuttoned to the middle of his chest, and lower, where he's tucked it into his jeans. His body is solid, pure muscle. The body of Wolverine. His gloved hands like Wolverine's retractable claws.

“How'd you get mixed up with”—Antonio jerks his thumb toward Chad—“that loser?”

Chad hides his face behind his hands.

“His family moved in across—”

“Don't tell him where I live, Kiara,” Chad interrupts.

Antonio shoves his gloved hands into the pockets of his shorts. “Kid, what you and your people do is your business. Long as you don't mess up my backyard. But she's my amigo's baby sister, and I gotta look out for her.”

“He told me he was my friend,” I continue, trying to explain to Antonio how Chad and I ended up here together with four bottles' worth of chemical reactions.

Antonio touches his thumb to his own chest. The bare part, below the tooth pendant. “
I'm
your friend. He's trouble.” He starts walking toward where we've left the bikes, staying close to me and far away from Chad. “You know, Max helped build this trail. It took about a dozen of us for the mountain bike trail and another dozen for the BMX track.”

“I ride BMX,” Chad calls out.

Antonio whirls around. “Did I ask you, dirtbag?”

Chad shrinks back, head lowered.

“It'd be cool if you could come here after school and work with us on the trail, Kiara. Keep up the family tradition,” Antonio says. “I won't say anything to Max about the . . . the other thing, but I'll tell him you're helping out.”

“Promise?” My muscles unclench as I see my way out. I'd never thought of my brothers' friends becoming my friends. They were just a bunch of guys who would hang out in our living room talking and laughing, and crowding our backyard with their bikes.

“I promise,” Antonio says.

I survey the path we take back to our bikes. This part is wide, but splitting off from it are narrow tracks carved out of the side of the hill. I can see why Max liked riding here and why Antonio got so mad at that guy who caused the explosion.

When we get to the tree where I left my bike, Antonio lifts the two bottles from my saddlebags. He holds one in each hand by its neck and moves in slow motion toward Chad's bike. There, he rearranges the bottles to fit upright rather than lying on their sides. He rolls my bike away from the tree and holds it out for me.

“You need to stay at least a hundred feet behind him.” Antonio pats the seat. “In case he falls or runs into something and this stuff blows up.”

“It only blows up if you open the cap,” Chad mumbles.

“Yeah, right. Now get out of here and don't come back.” Antonio picks up the chain saw and waves it in Chad's direction. “And keep away from Kiara. She doesn't need to be involved in your garbage.”

I give Chad a head start and stay a hundred feet from him, as Antonio told me to do. Even though this part of the trail is a gentle uphill wide enough for two bikes, I worry with every little bump that Chad will wipe out and blow us both up. My sweaty palms make it hard to grip the handlebars. My mind returns to the bottles Antonio pulled from Chad's saddlebag and mine. Chad had promised to leave me out of his family's business, and he broke his promise. Like Gambit in the
X-Men
movie, he turned evil. He couldn't get away from his family's criminal activities even though he promised Rogue he would be her friend and join the X-Men. That's why I've always liked the comic books better than the movie. In the comics, Gambit was Rogue's friend and he was good.

I don't think Antonio will tell anyone about the bottles. And I believe him when he said he's my friend and Chad's trouble.
I'm done with Chad,
I tell myself. It's the first time I've ever dumped a New Kid. Antonio will be proud of me for doing it. But I'll have to figure out how to make Max's old bike get me all the way to College Park. I'll have to scrape off the rust so the bike looks nice, straighten out the brakes so they don't rub against the tires, and tighten the derailleurs so the gears shift like they're supposed to.

Antonio will be a better friend than Chad. He's way older, like Wolverine. He's the kind of friend who'll protect me when other kids pick on me or take advantage of me. He won't make me do things that are wrong and dangerous.

Chad's bike wobbles on the uphill part of the trail. Right before the spot where the trail meets the road, he stops.

I don't want to stop for him. I don't want to ride anywhere near him. Cruising past him, I call out, “Meet me at the park for your bike.”

He doesn't answer. Maybe he didn't hear me. I circle back to where he has stopped to rest.

“At the park. I'll give you back your bike.”

Chad's head was lowered, but now he looks up at me. And then he screams, drowning out the birds in the trees, the distant whine of a leaf blower, the crunch of my bike tires.

He tugs at his hair. Strands cling to his fingers and fly loose into the air. I've never seen a boy pull out his hair before.

I spit out the words. “Why are
you
flipping out? You're the one that lied to me.”

“Think I want to do this?” He gulps. “Our house stinks. Brandon's not getting better, and all they care about is their batches.”

“But you said you wouldn't use me.”

Chad covers his face with his hands. His entire body stiffens when he touches the bruise that I made worse yesterday. “Dad made me ride with you today. So I could carry more.”

My stomach twists. I remember what he said yesterday right before I beat him up—about his parents and the people they work with, what they'll do if we try to stop them.
Don't you dare! We'll kill you and your dad.
They might hurt Antonio too.

Once again, I'm trapped. In a dungeon with no special powers to help me escape. Not knowing if beside me is evil Gambit or good Gambit.

“You're carrying four now just fine.” He really isn't. He's wobbly and out of breath, but he shouldn't have lied to me and broken his promise.

“Yeah, I thought about leaving you behind and not telling him. But I wanted to ride the trail you told me about on Sunday. And see the BMX track 'cause I do freestyle.”

“Freestyle?”

“BMX tricks. There was a big skate park where we used to live.”

I point to his saddlebags. “You weren't going to do BMX tricks carrying this.”

“Not today. I have another bike for BMX.”

“So you brought me when you didn't have to so you could see bike trails?”

“Not exactly. You asked me to be your friend. So I was your friend. We were supposed to do fun things together.”

“That wasn't fun. It was scary.” Now I have to do what Antonio told me to do. I scrape the toe of my sneaker along the ground. “I can't ride with you anymore. I guess that means we can't be friends.”

I turn the front wheel in the direction of the road, to leave Beresford Estates and Chad with his four bottles of chemicals.

“Kiara, don't go! Listen to me.”

I try to push Chad's childlike voice from my mind. My tires bump onto the road.

“Please!” Chad's shout reaches me.

Maybe he really does want to be my friend. Nobody has ever begged to be friends with me. I let him catch up, even though I'm supposed to ride a hundred feet from him.

“You know what it's like,” he says, voice small and choked. “Watching other people have fun and you can't.”

“Because you're too weird,” I add.

“Or your family makes you do things.”

“Gambit's family.”

This time, Chad doesn't warn me not to talk about the X-Men. Because he really is Gambit, and he needs me to help him escape.

If I agree to be Chad's friend and ride with him, he'll have to carry all four bottles by himself and my saddlebags will be empty. That's not the way friends are supposed to do things.

But if Antonio's really my friend, maybe he can help both of us, like Wolverine swooping in to rescue Gambit and Rogue from the families of criminals and the evil mutants.

CHAPTER 13

EXPECTING DAD TO BE IN THE KITCHEN OR IN HIS LITTLE
recording studio, I unlock the front door and tiptoe upstairs to my room. On the way, I listen for his music and sniff for the aroma of dinner. Nothing. I go into my room and bounce a few times on the bed before turning on the computer, making enough of a mess that he'll think I was in my room all along.

My stomach rumbles. All the bike riding and scary stuff have made me hungry. After finishing a page of social studies homework and watching the sunset from my window, I go downstairs.

The kitchen counter is bare. Dad leans against the back door, talking on his cell phone. I strain to hear what he says and if he's talking to Mami. It's Tuesday night, her usual night to call, but she already called on Sunday night this week. She didn't say she was coming home.

“If I can get off work, I'll come to New York . . . I'd like to get something started again.” Definitely not Mami. He turns his back. I expect him to say something about me. “Money's tight. I have to get paid . . . Twenty bucks playing in the subway isn't going to cut it.”

Nothing about me. He doesn't even notice me. And he didn't mention me, only that he's trying to
get off work
to go to New York. What does he plan to do with me? Take me to New York to pass around a bucket on the subway while he plays?

Dad snaps his cell phone shut. I wait for him to turn around, but he stands frozen by the door, staring through the dark windowpane into the backyard. I know he can't see anything with the kitchen light on except his own reflection. That's what I see from the other end of the room—his reflection and above his shoulder, a tiny me.

“Where's dinner?” I ask, breaking the silence.

He jumps. “Oh, hi there.” Not exactly the
where were you?
I expected.

“I'm hungry.”

He opens the refrigerator to reveal a bag of wilted lettuce, a carton of milk, and mostly empty shelves.

“That's it?”
Don't push it,
I tell myself.
You were the one who disappeared all afternoon. Doing bad stuff too.
But this time I can't stop myself. My blood thumps in my ears. “Are we so poor we can't afford groceries? Or you just don't care?”

His eyes slice through me. I look away. “Maybe we should order a pizza,” he says.

“Mexican. We had pizza last night. You picked it up in Manchester after work.” I tap my fist on the edge of the counter, in time to the beat inside my skull. “The pizza in Willingham stinks.”

He flips open his cell phone. “Garcia's doesn't deliver, and I'm too tired to drive there.”

“I want Mexican!” I pound my fist on the counter as I repeat the words. The countertop is shaking—or is it me? I want to bang my head against the counter like I used to do when I was younger, because maybe if I bang my head hard enough, I'll set free the thought that Chad tricked me into doing something evil and scary and my father didn't even notice I had gone. And that when I came to the kitchen wanting dinner, he didn't see me because I was invisible and the person on the phone was real.

• • •

“You're too old to be throwing tantrums,” Dad says in his truck on the way to Garcia's in College Park.

“I know. I'm sorry,” I mumble. I'm also too old to play with X-Men figures and kindergartners and to cry every time someone's mean to me or things don't go my way. But so far, Mr. Internet hasn't given me any rules on how to stop.

“Think about what made you melt down tonight,” Dad says. “I'm sure it wasn't the bad local pizza.”

I rub my aching hand. “You forgot about me. You always tell me not to interrupt, so I didn't interrupt and you acted like I didn't exist.”

I examine the pink mark on my fist that will be a bruise tomorrow, but out of the corner of my eye, I see him nod. “I should have noticed sooner. And praised you for not interrupting. But it was an important call.”

My stomach twists.
Important call
usually means change, and not in a good way. “Who were you talking to?”

“He's an old friend in New York City. Someone I used to play with. We're trying to get into some summer festivals.”

“What'll you do with me?”

He hesitates for a long moment. “Bring you along. And your brothers too, if they're free.” His eyes are on the road. Not on me.

I sniff. “Just don't leave me with them.”

“Why? You've stayed with Eli and Max before.”

“I'm scared of Eli.”

Dad's hands tighten on the steering wheel. “What happened?”

“I heard Eli say something to Max . . .”

“You know they don't mean it when they call you the accident.”

“Except that I was.” I clench my uninjured fist. The other will only bend partway. “Why did you and Mami have me when you knew I'd be . . .” I spit out the last word. “Defective?”

He reaches toward me. I shrink away, press myself against the door. Rogue cannot touch or be touched. “You're not defective, Kiara. You lost your temper and got into trouble at school. Ms. Latimer and I think it's . . .” He takes a deep breath. “Nigel's death. Dee moving away. Your mother leaving. Too much . . . stress for you.”

“That's not what Mrs. Mac said.” I can't believe it was only a week ago, when she told him the same things I'm telling him and he made the same excuses. “She gave me that book by someone who's like me.”

“I agree that Dee's trying to help, but—”

“What about in kindergarten, when I didn't talk for six months? That's one of the signs, you know.” Before then, I'd sing entire songs from TV in English and Spanish, and everybody thought I was a genius. But when I started talking again, my voice was funny. Off-key. Flat. And I had trouble pronouncing all the big words I knew. “What about . . . ?” I stop.

Suddenly, I don't want to talk about it. The teasing. The kids who beat me up and the ones I beat up. Katie Lyon in kindergarten. Sammy Ortiz in second grade. Jason Karl in fifth. Emily Stein in sixth. Melanie Prince-Parker in March. And Chad yesterday. My face feels hot and damp, but when I think of some of the kids I gave it back to, I smile.

Then I remember the last birthday party I went to, and my smile fades.

• • •

Fourth grade. Emily Stein.

We weren't friends, but her mother took Spanish lessons from Mami. Mami bought me a new puffy-sleeved dress with seams that stuck out on the inside, and it itched like crazy. In the car, I chewed on one of the sleeves to take my mind off the itching.

At Emily's house, I sat in a corner of the living room and kept chewing because none of the girls talked to me. When they lined up for Pin the Tail on the Donkey, I got in line too because the winner was supposed to get a prize.

“The back of the line is that way, Kiara.” Emily pointed to where I'd been sitting.

“No, it's not,” I said, because I hadn't cut in line. I saw no one in back of me.

“Emily's right,” one of her friends said.

Another girl joined in. “You have to wait your turn. Like the teacher always says.”

“You're just making me sit down again. You don't want me to play.” They never did. At school they always said they had enough people when I tried to get into the jump rope line or their kickball games.

Emily whispered to her friend, but loud enough that everyone could hear her. Including me. “I didn't want to invite her. But I had to. On account of her mom teaching my mom Spanish.”

My eyes watered, and my cheeks stung.

“Look, she's crying again,” someone said.

Quickly I wiped my face on my sleeve. My upper arm felt damp, and I didn't have to look to know why.

“Hey, there's a big hole in her sleeve.”

“She was chewing her dress.”

“Yuck!”

“Like a billy goat.”

One of them poked her finger through the hole and touched my arm. I trembled, then let out a scream. The film over my eyes cleared, and I saw not the girls but the table where the birthday cake sat. It had green icing and a maypole with little figures dancing around it. All the figures in one happy circle. No one left out.

I ran to the table with the maypole cake and flipped it over.

Never invite Crybaby Kiara to your birthday party, or you'll be really, really sorry.
For the next two years, Emily and her friends told everyone so and the reason why. Because of her I never got invited to another party again. Which was why I had to yank out a handful of her frizzy brown hair and bloody her lip one morning before school, while all her mean friends tried to pull me away.

• • •

Dad's no longer driving. He turned off the road somewhere and cut the engine, and now he holds me in the still, dark truck cab, his arms squeezing my shoulders, his soft beard against my forehead.

“You got cured, but there's no cure for what I have,” I say.

And I finally tell him what Mr. Internet told me about Asperger's syndrome, that it's not something you can take a pill for. “It's probably genetic. You weren't supposed to have any more kids.”

In my mind, my genes are a giant twisty ladder—two parallel strands connected by crosstrees—the way Mr. Internet showed me. Sometimes they're red, blue, green, and yellow—colorful and pretty. Sometimes they're dark and ugly. Mine are always broken—strands bent and crosstrees knocked out. That's what poison chemicals do. Dad's broken genes making broken copies.

“What exactly did your brothers say?” Dad's voice is hard, like he plans to get both of them in trouble.

“Just Eli.” I don't want Max in trouble for nothing. Especially now that I know he's Antonio's friend. “He learned about it in one of his classes. That the chemicals they gave you to get rid of the cancer cause genetic mutations.”

A couple of cars pass by our parked truck, their headlights turning everything inside shadow and silver. “I'm sure Eli thinks he knows everything now that he's in that premed program. But there's no proof that what they gave me causes birth defects.” Dad's chest rises and falls against my upper arm. “At least once the treatments are done.”

I swallow the knot in my throat. Eli had a special class about all this stuff. He should know. Dad quit college in his sophomore year and said he cut most of his classes before then to play music or do what he called
solidarity work.
Mami's smart, but she probably couldn't understand the doctor because she doesn't speak much English. “Whatever. At least you guys wanted me.” I swallow again. “Just don't change your mind on account of what you got.”

Dad squeezes me tighter. Any more, and my eyes will pop out. “Never.”

“What about Mami?”

“Your mother loves you.”

“Then why did she leave me?”

Dad releases me from his death grip. “She has to make a living, which she can do in Montreal but can't do here. More than anything, she misses you.”

I fold my arms against my chest. “If she misses me so much, she should come home.”

• • •

I wish Dad wouldn't keep talking about Mami at dinner, but he does, even if what he mainly talks about is how Garcia's isn't real Mexican food and how Mexican food is different from Salvadoran food. It makes me miss Mami's
pupusas,
thick tortillas filled with beans or cheese and served with tomato sauce and pickled cabbage called
curtido.

“You still love Mami, right?” I ask him on the way home.

He nods but doesn't say anything.

“And she still loves you, right?” When they first met, he didn't speak Spanish, and she barely spoke English, and they didn't seem to learn much of each other's language over the years. Sometimes when Mami got mad at Dad, she'd yell at him in Spanish and English and he'd sit there quietly as if he didn't understand either language. But whenever they played music together, I could tell right away that they loved each other. They didn't need words—the music said everything.

“If your mother could be here with us, she would,” Dad finally says.

I don't think he wants to hear me tell him how in
X-treme X-Men,
Rogue left Gambit even though they loved each other because she had to kill the evil Vargas, who had attacked them. Gambit almost died while Rogue was gone, but she got back just in time to save him. Once right after Mami left, he yelled at me because I talked about nothing but X-Men, so I imagined myself writing a sticky note saying,
Never talk to Dad about X-Men
and slapping it inside my brain.