The Rise of Renegade X (26 page)

“Well, you know, I wasn’t married to the idea.”

Kat’s quiet for a minute. When I don’t go on, she says, “You’ll never guess what I found out. You remember my grandfather? I mean, you don’t
remember
him, he wasn’t alive when we were born, but … you know the stories. Anyway, I found his ring! I was shopping downtown, and I went into this little antique store with all this really cool villain stuff, and it was
there
. On display, like they were really proud of it. It didn’t even have a price.”

I sit upright, all the blood draining from my head. She means Helen’s shop. “That’s … great, Kat.” I don’t sound like I mean it.

“Tell me you want to come with me this weekend to get it back. It’s mine, right? It doesn’t belong in some antique store.”

“It’s not even an antique.” I pace the living room. Sure, Kat should have inherited the thing, but I can’t help thinking of Helen and her losing her superpower and her one trophy that makes it all worthwhile. They both have a right to it.

“It’s collecting dust there, like some useless trinket, and I
need
it.”

“You need it, Kat?” The ring’s supposed to protect the wearer from heartbreak. Maybe she should have the ring, if it’ll help her get over me and I won’t find her drunk at any parties, trying to forget what happened between us. Maybe we can just be friends, with neither of us wishing we were together. Maybe … maybe I don’t want her mission to succeed, and not just because it means stealing from Helen’s store.

Kat clears her throat. “I’ve been down lately. A new toy might cheer me up. Come on, Damien.
Supervillaining
. We’ve got our
V
s, right?”

Right. “Am I seriously going to pass up the chance to—” I was about to say “wreak havoc around town with you,” but perhaps that’s not the thing to say in a house full of superheroes, on the very eve of Superhero Day. “I’ll be there. With wedding bells on.”

“Damien!”

“What? You know you want to
marry me.”

She makes a choking sound, then starts sputtering. “I … That … Err! I can’t believe you.”

“Katherine Locke. It has a nice ring to it.”

The doorbell goes off again, and I dip one of Amelia’s chips in the punch bowl as she and her friend come barreling down the stairs. I put it in my mouth like it’s the most sumptuous food I’ve ever eaten.

“Oh, my God,” they mutter, making disgusted faces.

“Mmmmm,” I moan.

“What’s that?” Kat says.

“Nothing, just thinking of you on our wedding night.”

The girls—there are four of them now—roll their eyes at me as they giggle past. I think I’m winning them over.

“Damien, I
want
that ring. You’ll be there Friday, right?”

“Of course. Wouldn’t miss it.”

Sarah clings to my arm as we walk up the hill toward Lovers’ Peak Friday afternoon, leaning her head on my shoulder. She rubs her thumb against my palm and sighs.

“Dad’s coming home from the hospital tomorrow,” she says. “He’s taking me out for pizza, once he’s feeling better. He said I could invite somebody, so I was thinking …” She lets go of me, pulling away. She sucks in her breath and stares at the ground and doesn’t ask me to come with them. That would be against the rules.

Lovers’ Peak is where all the cool, promiscuous teenagers go to get drunk, feel each other up, and make unwanted babies. The ones with cars park at the cliff side, and the ones without them do it in the woods or hide out in the abandoned cabin.

It’s the perfect place for a Superhero Day make-out session with my not-girlfriend—dog and Crimson Flash free. We’re wearing party hats, the conical cardboard kind with the elastic string you strap onto your head. I’m dressed all in vertical stripes, and Sarah’s going all plaid. Most kids bring beer, but I brought sugar-free sodas—for that extra level of ridiculousness—that I planned to chug and then scream, “Woooh!” at the top of my lungs to annoy all the people supposedly cooler than me, but, alas, there’s nobody here to witness it.

That’s because I had to rearrange our plans. I was planning on bringing her here
tonight
, when there’d be more of an audience, but I promised Kat I’d be there for her.

“You know,” Sarah says, “this violates rule number twenty-nine, no love on a ledge. That was your rule, you know, but I forgive you.” She smiles at me.

“It doesn’t violate it,” I say, setting the sodas down and adjusting the elastic of my party hat, “because we’re not going anywhere near that cliff.”

We aren’t going to even look at it or acknowledge its presence, as far as I’m concerned.

Sarah raises her eyebrows at me as if to say,
Oh, yeah?
She strides over to the edge to spite me and holds her arms out at her sides, taking in a deep breath. She looks like a giant bird about to take flight. “Wow. You can see everything from here.”

I can’t watch. I turn away, surveying the cabin instead. People call it a cabin, but it’s more of a shack. A dirty, filthy shack that I wouldn’t want to take a black light to, if you know what I mean. The windows are broken and beer bottles spill out of the open door, like the building itself has had too much and is puking them out.

I peek behind me and flinch. Sarah’s still on the ledge. I tell her to come back, and she leaps toward me, going, “Yes, sir!” She throws her arms around me, then gets uncomfortable about it and lets go.

Maybe because it was obvious she meant it, like I’m more to her than a lab partner. Or maybe it’s because I didn’t hug her back. Because “being more than a lab partner” makes me think of Kat, and then I feel guilty.

“Damien,” Sarah says, poking at a rock with her foot, “I’m really glad you came with me the other night. Even if we didn’t get Dad back right then, I’m glad I trusted you, and I’m … I had fun.
With you.”

I swallow and don’t look at her. “I don’t know—I could have done without the crazy zombies.”

We’re silent for a minute, standing around and not touching each other. Finally Sarah asks, “Damien, is something wrong?”

I make an effort to smile. I put my arms around her. “Nothing.”

I can tell she doesn’t believe me, but she leans into me, resting her head against my chest, and breathes in deep. She turns her face up to kiss me.

Katherine Locke
.

I break apart from Sarah, pretending I didn’t notice her attempt to press her lips against mine. I was joking when I said that, about me and Kat getting married. Totally not serious. It was supposed to torture her, not me. So why can’t I stop thinking about it?

Kat wasn’t joking when she said she was sorry for kissing that guy. We weren’t together, she didn’t have to apologize, but she did.

“Actually,” I say, taking my party hat off, “I think … I think I should go home. I can’t concentrate.”

Sarah’s mouth wilts into a frown. She observes all the garbage on the ground, all the cans and bottles and … other things. She kicks a used condom toward the ledge. “Will you come with us? To the pizza place? You don’t even have to say you’re my lab partner, just my friend, or my …” She marches over to me and looks me in the eyes. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a boyfriend.”

That’s not what I bargained for. But so what? I wanted a new relationship, one not so complicated and painful as mine and Kat’s, and I got what I wanted. Would it really be so bad, going to eat pizza with Sarah and her dad and having her introduce me as her significant other? No. It’d be okay, I guess. It’s not like I have anything better to do. Though I’m not crazy about watching more Crimson Flash episodes—her
favorite
show—with her shushing me every time I start laughing. And Heraldo might like me, but I don’t like his giant nose in my crotch or his hot, nasty breath in my face. He wasn’t part of the deal when Sarah and I started all this.

But seriously, what else am I going to do this weekend? Sit at home and watch
Wheel of Fortune
with Amelia? “Of course I’ll go with you,” I say, squeezing Sarah’s hand. “We still on for tonight?”

She kisses me and grins. “I’ll bring my costume.”

I smile back at her. “We’re going to be unstoppable. The bad guys won’t know what hit them.”

The bad guys, of course, being me and Kat.

I told Sarah I had a hot tip about some villians who are going to rob an antique store downtown, and stopping them is a perfect opportunity for us to begin establishing ourselves. For the record, just because I’m going out superheroing tonight, on Superhero Day, it doesn’t make me a superhero. I don’t even
want
to go, even though it was my idea. I just happen to know that Helen’s store is getting robbed tonight, by me and Kat, and maybe I don’t want us to succeed. Helen could have hated me for being her husband’s supervillain love child, but she didn’t. And that ring is all she has left that makes her life worthwhile—er, well, and her family, I guess—and it might rightfully be Kat’s, but … Maybe I don’t want Kat getting over me. So I’m playing both teams, just for tonight. It’s a foolproof plan.

Sarah waves good-bye to me and wanders over to the cliff. She kicks the condom the rest of the way over the edge and watches it go down.

I hate leaving her there, where she could fall to her doom, but everyone’s always assuring me they’re not going to fall, like I’m being so ridiculous. I set off down the hill, leaving the sugar-free sodas for the next visitors of Lovers’ Peak to chug and enjoy. I’m not even twenty feet down when I hear a bloodcurdling scream.

Crap. My heart leaps into my throat, pounding like
I’m
the one who fell off the cliff. I turn and run back the way I came. A guy wearing all black, including the ski mask on his face, shoves into me, knocking me to the ground. He keeps running. I get the feeling I should chase after him, but I have to save Sarah first.

“Damien!” Sarah’s voice is shrill and sharp with fear.

I make it up to the top of the hill. My heart slips out of my throat and weighs heavy in my chest like a stone. My legs and arms tremble as I creep toward the ledge. I see Sarah’s fingers, clamped to the rocky edge of the cliff for dear life. They’re turning white and shaking with the strain. I see her slipping.

“Sarah! I’m coming!” I catch sight of the oh-so-wonderful view from up here and feel dizzy. I sink to my knees and crawl toward her. I see one set of fingers slip all the way, then scramble to grab the edge again.

“Damien!” Her voice is full of tears and panic. She doesn’t sound like Sarah at all.

I can do this. I can
fly. What did Gordon say about having control? I
can’t
fall. My mind buys into it, but my body says no way, almost paralyzed with fear. Memories of falling off the tallest building in Golden City flash through my head. I can hardly breathe when I finally reach out and grab Sarah’s hand. Mine are sweating. My pulse races so fast, I can barely see.

I take Sarah’s other hand and pull. We work together, and she’s almost safely over the edge when she slips out of my grasp. Sarah tumbles backward, and I picture her falling really far and not getting up again. I lunge toward her before I have time to think about it. I throw my arms around her and haul her to safety.

Sarah clings to me, even after it’s over. Her glasses are gone, lost over the edge. I can see her breathing hard and trying not to cry as she takes her party hat off and throws it on the ground. I pet her poofy hair. I hold her close to me, and we cling to each other for a while, shaking and not saying anything.

Then my strength and resolve give out, and I lie flat on my back in the dirt, still trying to catch my breath. The ground reeks of stale alcohol. It’s almost a welcome scent; it’s familiar and it means we’re not dead.

Sarah lays her head on my chest and listens to my heart beating. Her hands find places to hold on to me, her fingers hooking into the belt loops on my jeans.

If somebody walked up here right now and saw us, two hot and sweaty teenagers clinging to each other on the ground, they might get the wrong idea about what just happened.

“There was a guy,” Sarah says, her voice shaking. “He …”

“He pushed you?”

“No. He tried to grab me. He pulled my arm and said I was coming with him. But then I fell, and when I screamed, he panicked and ran off.”

I’m too freaked out to think about what that means. I look around, but I don’t see anybody. “We’re safe,” I say, but I can’t make my heartbeat slow down or my mind stop racing.