The Trials of Renegade X (22 page)

And then Kat’s dad reaches out and grabs my arm, hauling me back onto solid ground. His blue eyes are wide as he stares at me with a mixture of anger and disbelief. “What the hell were you thinking?!”

“Me? You were the one pushing me off a building!”

He throws his hands up. “I wasn’t actually going to do it!”

Now he tells me. “Try being less convincing next time.” Or, you know, not doing it at all.

He puts a palm to his forehead and leans his head back, looking pretty freaked out. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“You started it.”

“I was trying to scare you.” He tilts his head, giving me this stern look, like I’m the one in the wrong here for not knowing better. Right. “I didn’t think you’d throw
yourself
off.”

“I’m not breaking up with her.”

“Yeah, I think you made that clear.”

“You can’t force me to. And I’m better than you think.”

He sighs, not agreeing with me, but not denying it, either. “It’ll never work.” That’s what he says, but he sounds way less sure about it this time.

“You don’t know that.” He doesn’t. I gesture over my shoulder at the ledge, where I would have relived my worst nightmare rather than lie and say I’d do what he wanted. “I might not have a
V
, and I might not go to Vilmore, but none of that stuff matters, because I would do
anything
for her.” I pause, letting that sink in. And then, even though all I really want to do right now is crumple to the floor and die, I look him in the eyes and say, “That’s kind of more important, don’t you think?”

Chapter 16

THERE’S A KNOCK ON my door at a little after ten, and then Gordon’s voice says, “Damien? Are you awake?”

I’m in bed in my pajamas, but my light is on and I am definitely still awake. I can’t stop thinking about almost falling off a building. Or all that crap Kat’s dad said about me not being good enough for her. I consider pretending to be asleep so Gordon will go away, but then I think maybe I could use the distraction. So I tell him to come in.

He opens the door and looks me over as he crosses the room, the floorboards creaking loudly under his weight and making me wince. “How are you feeling?” he says, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“Terrible,” I tell him, and it’s not even a lie, though it’s not for the reason he thinks. But it’s still kind of comforting when I tell him that and he gives me this concerned look, like he wishes he could do something to make me feel better.

“I brought you this,” he says, handing me a photo of the band whose signatures I asked for. They’re called The Bottlers, whatever that means, and, sure enough, they all signed it.

I sit up to look it over and smile. My plan would have worked perfectly, had it not been for the Invisible Douche screwing it up. Not that I doubted it. Well, okay, maybe part of me wasn’t sure if they’d
really
stay that long, even if I was sick. I kind of figured Jess would get cranky around nine or so and they’d decide I could just live with the disappointment and come home early. “Thanks.”

“You know, they weren’t too bad. I was surprised.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “You think I have bad taste in music?” I have no idea what this band sounds like.

“I didn’t think I liked folk bands.”

That’s funny, because I would have pegged him for the type to like them a lot. “Neither did I.”

He smiles a little at that, then says, “Can I get you anything?”

I try to think if there’s anything I want, especially since I won’t have to go down the stairs myself to get it. And while I’m still pretty shaken up after almost falling off a building, I’m also pretty hungry from taking out those robots.

“What about some cereal?” he offers. “Amelia always likes that when she’s sick.”

I make a face. I can’t help it. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m not Amelia.”

“I know. And you’re not Alex or Jess, either.” He pauses, and then his face suddenly lights up, like he just thought of something. “Hey, what about tomato soup? I know it sounds a little strange, but—”

“Did Mom tell you that?” I scowl, not liking the idea that she’s told him things about me. Not that I really think she did, but I don’t know who else would have.

“What? Damien, when would she have told me anything?”

“I don’t know, but how else would you know I like tomato soup when I’m sick?”

He laughs. “I don’t. I said that because it’s what
I
like. None of the other kids do, though.”

“Oh.” Great. Now he knows we have something really stupid in common, and I’m never going to hear the end of it.

“Do you want me to make you some?” He looks so hopeful, so eager to share this with me.

I swallow and stare down at my bed. I don’t know why, but I just can’t give him the satisfaction. “I’d rather have a sandwich or something.”

“All right,” he says, sounding only a little disappointed, like he’s still too happy that we have this weird thing in common to let my rejection get him down. “I’ll see what we have.” He pats my knee, still smiling about the stupid soup thing, then hesitates before getting up to leave. “You know, I’ve been thinking. One of these days, we ought to go down to the DMV and get you your learner’s permit. When you’re feeling better, of course.”

“My learner’s permit? What, like, to learn how to drive?” I thought I was supposed to be the sick one, so how come he’s delirious?

“You’re sixteen. Closer to seventeen. You’re plenty old enough to have your license already.”

“So?”

“So, Amelia’s going to have hers soon. Don’t your friends your age have theirs?”

Kat does. Sarah’s still working on it. She would have gotten hers this summer if she hadn’t accidentally run a stop sign because she thought she saw some guy stealing an old lady’s purse. It turned out she was wrong, but the guy testing her was going to be lenient about it, at least until she said she’d been planning to run down the supposed purse thief with her car. “Are you trying to peer pressure me into this?”

“No, son.”

“So ... it’s some kind of punishment? Or a really weird reward?” I’m not sure what I’ve done either way to make him decide to do this.

“My father taught me, and I thought it was something we could do together.”

“You would seriously get in a car with me behind the wheel?” I raise my eyebrows at him.

“I trust you.”

Wow. “Is this because I’m going to Heroesworth?” Now that I’m supposedly following in his footsteps, he thinks I’m someone I’m not.

He sighs. “I just want to spend time with you. It has nothing to do with what school you’re going to.”

“Okay, but don’t say you trust me when you don’t.”

“Damien, I
do
trust you.”

“But I’m pretty sure I’m going to suck at driving. And I’ll probably crash the car.”

“That’s ridiculous. You won’t. Plus, we’ll start out with the basics first.”

“But if I did ...” I let out a deep breath. “You’d be mad.”

“I wouldn’t. I might be upset at first, but I wouldn’t be
mad
.”

I give him a skeptical look. “You’re always mad at me. I’m always doing things that piss you off. And I’m pretty sure crashing the car falls into that category. So ... no.”

“I’m not always mad at you.”

“Yes, you are. Like when you had to pick me up from patrolling with Sarah.” Well, maybe he wasn’t that mad then, but he certainly wasn’t happy with me.

“Damien, I was upset because you didn’t tell me about it. You’re always ...” He hesitates, searching for the right words. “I get mad when you don’t tell me the truth. When you keep things from me.”

Keep things from him? Like, say, having a lightning power he doesn’t know about?

“Or when you outright lie to me.”

Like pretending to be sick so I can stay home and have my girlfriend over who’s not allowed in the house? “I don’t lie to you.”

I think I say that with a pretty straight face, but he laughs anyway. “I know you have trouble trusting me with things, but I never know what’s the truth and what isn’t with you. I’d like to get to know you. Not who you think I want you to be, but the
real
you. And yes, I get mad when I find out you’ve lied to me. But accidentally making a mistake is different. You’re my son, and I want to teach you how to drive.”

“So, if I crash the car, you
won’t
hate me forever?” Because I’m still having trouble with that part. It’s one thing for him to want to get to know me, but it’s another if getting to know me means he’s going to hate me. Because if that’s the case, I’d rather just lie to him the rest of my life. After all, if I’d lied to Mom, she wouldn’t have kicked me out. And I’ve learned from my mistakes—I might have ruined things with her, but I’m not going to ruin them with him, too.

“Of course I won’t.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “I know we don’t always see eye to eye on things, but, Damien, I could never hate you. You’re my son.”

I nod, because it feels really good to hear him say that, even though I’m not sure I believe it.
He
might, but I don’t.

“And you’re a smart kid. I know it’s scary at first, but you’ll do better than you think. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

I’ve heard
that
before. “This driving thing ... It doesn’t secretly involve you pushing me off of any buildings, does it?”

“I promise you that it doesn’t. So, what do you say?” He squeezes my shoulder and smiles at me, like he really does want to get to know me and spend time with me and stuff. And not because I’m going to Heroesworth or because I’ve made him think I’m better than I am, but just because I’m his kid.

“I ...” I take a deep breath. Me being his kid doesn’t mean he’s going to automatically like spending time with me. And maybe he only gets upset when I lie to him, but it’s not like I’m going to tell him the truth about me anytime soon. “I have to think about it.”

“Okay.” He nods, sounding relieved that I didn’t just flat out tell him no. Like getting me to think about it at all is a victory. “It’s your choice. Just let me know what you decide.”

Chapter 17

RILEY ANSWERS THE DOOR on Sunday afternoon, not even having the decency to look ashamed of himself. Or surprised to see me. In fact, if anything, I would say he looks smug.

“You’re dead, Perkins.” And not just because of what happened last night. “Where is it?”

“It’s inside. And I was going to tell you about it.”

“Sure you were. That’s why you got up at the crack of dawn and went to Sarah’s house to steal it out from under me.” I push past him into the house, not waiting to be invited. I glance around the living room, but I don’t see the personality enhancer anywhere.

“You’re just mad that I beat you to it,” he says, sounding pretty proud about that, even though he would be a chopped-up pile of robot-leavings right now if it wasn’t for me. “As if I was going to let
you
get your hands on it. And anyway, I didn’t steal it. I asked her for it, and she gave it to me.”

Sarah doesn’t know she owes her new-found vigilante status to her own device. Plus, according to what she told me, it’s not exactly in working order. I went to her house earlier, intending to grab the device myself and use it on her before she knew what was happening. Riley must have had the same idea, because she said he’d already stopped by and that she’d given it to him. She didn’t seem to think it was weird that he was still talking to her after what she did to him or anything. She also seemed pretty pleased with herself and kept checking the news, as if she expected to hear that all the bad guys of the world had turned themselves in already, her mission in life accomplished.

I didn’t mention that I knew about her plan or that I had to go and rescue Mr. Perfect last night after she abandoned him.

“Sarah said it’s not working,” I tell him. A slight problem in my plans to have turned her back to normal already.

Riley glares at me. “Only because
you
touched it.”

“Careful, Perkins. Don’t make me regret saving your sorry ass any more than I already do.”

Now at least he has the decency to look a little guilty, though then the next words out of his mouth are, “But if you hadn’t broken Sarah’s personality enhancer in the first place—or if you’d at least told me about it—none of us would have even been in that mess. Or in the one we’re in now.”

God, I hate him. “What I did was an accident. Everything you did was on purpose.
You
were going to use the personality enhancer on me.
You
went with Sarah and broke into Kat’s dad’s company”—his eyes go wide at that and he glances around, like he’s worried someone might hear, then motions for me to be quiet, which I most certainly will not—“and
you
interrupted my much-needed alone time with my girlfriend and begged me to help you and then almost got me killed!”

“Dude,” he whispers, looking panicked. “Shut up. My
mom
is home. She’ll kill me if she finds out where I was last night.”

“What’s that?” I cup a hand to my ear and speak extra loudly. “You’re super grateful to me, a no-good supervillain, for saving your life when you went on that really dangerous supposed superhero mission? And you’d do
anything
to repay me?”

He folds his arms. “Okay, X. You made your point.”

I gasp and talk even louder. “What?! You want to do
what
with me?! And, no, I don’t think Sarah will understand, no matter how grateful you are! When you said
anything
, I didn’t think you meant—”

He shoves me toward the hallway, his face going completely red. “Come
on
.”

There are two doors at the end of the hall—an open one that must be his, and a closed one across from it with a sign that reads, ZACH’S ROOM—KEEP OUT!

Riley pushes me through the open door and shuts it behind him. Then he leans against it, looking really pissed off.

“This is how rumors start, you know,” I point out. “I mean, seriously, I say all that and
then
you drag me to your room? What’s your mom
supposed
to think?”