The Trials of Renegade X (31 page)

I call Riley. I don’t think real hard about it, I just do it.

He answers after three rings. “Hey, X.” He sounds relieved to hear from me. And worried. “Are you watching this?” The press conference is on in the background.

“
No
.” I pause. “Can you turn it off?”

He moves away from the TV, the sound getting fainter, and then I hear his door close. “So,” he says, “some party last night.”

“Are you okay?” The words just come out, before I even realize I’m going to say them.

“Me? Am
I
okay? What about you?”

“Just answer the question, Perkins.”

He sighs. “I’ve been better. But I’m all right.”

“And your shoulder?”

“Dislocated. It hurt like hell when they put it back, but it’s fine now. Kind of sore. That’s all. And what about—”

“How’s Zach?”

“He’s fine.
You’re
the one that got hauled off last night.”

I don’t say anything to that, and we’re both silent for a minute. Then my attention wanders to the sound coming from the TV downstairs. I hear a reporter ask Gordon how he could put all those kids in danger, and I feel sick.

“So,” I say, desperate to distract myself, “when do you think we’ll get pictures back?”

“Listen, X, about last night.”

“We’ll figure something out. About Sarah.” Actually,
we
won’t, because I already have a plan, one that doesn’t involve him. Because I don’t need to risk anybody else getting hurt again in all this. But I have a feeling he’d argue with me if I told him that, so I keep it to myself. And when Sarah’s back to normal and she and him are happily reunited, he’ll forgive me for not including him.

Well, probably.

“No,” Riley says, “that’s ... I mean, we will, but that’s not what I—” He swallows. “I’m sorry. God, I’m
so
sorry. I should have listened to you. You said Sarah wasn’t better, and I said we should wait. Look how that turned out! I was there with her all night, and I didn’t know she was
armed
. How did I not know that?!”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have stopped her. I saw her coming, holding a freaking gun. If I’d warned you guys, if I’d ... You
told
me she thought supervillains were sociopaths, and I brushed it off, like it wasn’t important. And maybe there wasn’t any way we could have fixed her between now and then, but if I’d been paying attention, maybe I would have noticed sooner, what she was going to do. I could have stopped it.” His voice shakes. “And if I’d realized she was going to actually
shoot
me, I could have ... I don’t know. I just should have been able to stop her.”

“Perkins, if you think Sarah doesn’t come armed to pretty much any situation, then you really haven’t been paying attention.”

He
almost
laughs at that. “I thought she was actually going to kill you.”

She was. If the blast from me losing control of my lightning hadn’t thrown her off, she wouldn’t have missed, and I’d have taken a laser to the chest. “It wasn’t her. And it’s over now. And we’re going to find a way to fix her.”

“Right.”

“It was my fault. Not yours. You know that.”

“No, X, I don’t. Maybe you started all this, but you never meant for any of that to happen. You didn’t do anything wrong last night.”

“I brought a supervillain to Heroesworth. Sarah warned me, and I did it anyway.”

“Yeah, and you also showed up in what pretty much amounts to your underwear. Both were unconventional. Neither one was a crime. And you didn’t mean to blow up the roof. If you hadn’t, you would have blown up
people
. You did what you could.”

I’m quiet, thinking that over.

I hear an outraged eruption from the crowd on the TV. Reporters snapping at Gordon. Snippets of questions make it past my blanket shield.
Who’s his mother? Did you cheat on your wife? What does it feel like to be a fraud?

“Well,” Riley says, “I guess ... I guess I should go.”

“Oh.” So much for my distraction.

“I mean, you probably have things to do.”

“Yeah. Lots of things. Very important ones.” Like cowering in my room.

“Okay. Right. I mean, unless ... You never answered me. About how you’re doing.”

“You were watching the press conference. What do you think?”

“That bad?”

I wince. “I don’t want to keep you. I’m probably the last person you want to talk to, and ... You probably have things to do, too.”

“Yeah,” he says, “really important ones. Like talk to this half-villain guy I know. He’s kind of famous right now, and I bet the tabloids would pay a lot for behind-the-scenes information.”

I smile. Just a little. “Not as much as you’d think. I already called them. It wasn’t worth it.”

He laughs. “Do you actually have anything to do?”

“Only if hiding in my bed counts.”

“Do you ... do you want to come over?”

Yes
. I want to be anywhere but here. Except ... “I don’t think I’m supposed to leave. But maybe ... maybe don’t hang up. At least, not until the press conference is over.”

“Yeah. Okay. I won’t.” There’s a pause, and then he says, “So, what do you want to talk about?”

“Anything. Tell me about all the stupid TV shows you watch.”

“They’re not stupid.”

“Sure they’re not. But, you know, now’s your chance to convince me. Pick one. And it better have a good story. And it better not be
Train Models
.”

He scoffs, and I can picture him rolling his eyes at me. “
Train Models
doesn’t have a story. It’s not that kind of show. You know that.”

“It’s just that boring, you mean.”

“You said anything.”

“Seriously, Perkins? You’re really going to tell me about an old guy fixing model trains?”

“
No
. But there’s this one I started watching this summer, about this hero and this villain who have to work together to solve crimes, and—”

“I already watch that one.”

“Oh. So then what did you think of last week’s episode?”

“I missed it. But ... spoil it for me. I want to know what happened. And I ...” I need the distraction.

He seems to get that part without me saying it, because then he says, “Right. Well, Zach hated it, but I thought it was awesome.”

“Great, that means it sucked.” As if there’s ever a bad episode.

“You don’t know that. You don’t even know what it was about yet.”

“Yeah, well, start from the beginning,” I tell him. “And don’t leave anything out.”

Chapter 23

“JESS, TAKE A LETTER.” Jess is sitting on my bed early Monday afternoon with a notebook I gave her and some crayons. I clasp my hands behind my back and pace a little, keeping to the floorboards that creak the least and skipping any that sag. Which means I can really only go a few steps before I have to turn around again. “Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Yes, I have been expelled from school, and yes, several gossip sites have speculated that I never cared much about going there. Which, as you know, isn’t true. Don’t write that part down.”

She scribbles furiously in the notebook with a green crayon.

“Blue or black only,” I tell her. “No one’s going to take green seriously.”

“Whatever,” she says.

She may have picked that one up from me. Whatever. “All right. Back to the letter. My grades at Heroesworth were not excellent. In fact, they kind of sucked. No, wait, don’t say ’sucked.’ Nobody’s going to take that seriously, either. What I should say is that my grades were less than spectacular. I’ll just assume you know how to spell that. So, yeah, not great. It could be said that I didn’t try very hard. Actually, it has been said, by several of the previously mentioned gossip sites. But they’ve also said that me blowing up part of the gym was a publicity stunt to get into Vilmore. Which it wasn’t.”

“Done,” she says, and pushes the notebook toward me.

There’s a rough drawing of what might be a mouse, or maybe a cat, with a smiley face on it. I nod my approval and turn the page for her. “And it was my choice not to be in that documentary this summer. Not Gor— Not the Crimson Flash’s. So, the fact that they’re already talking about releasing a new version, called
The Man Behind the Lie
, is just mean. And unnecessary. Maybe the first one left out a few things, but nothing important.” I turn to face her and sigh. “And I know what you’re going to say, Jess, that leaving me out of it was kind of a big thing. And maybe even somewhat important. But it didn’t hurt anything. I never meant to hurt anybody. That’s what all the websites and news articles don’t realize.”

She leans in really close to the page, scribbling in red now.

“It’s not like I
wanted
to be able to shoot lightning from my hands. I never meant to become bad-ass enough to blow up the roof of the school. Part of the roof, anyway. Plus some robots. And my bedroom wall. Whatever.”

“Whatever,” she repeats.

“Right. So. I
may
have made some less-than-spectacular choices. But I never meant to be dangerous. Or to let Kat get hurt. Or Mr. Perfect. I mean, Riley. Do
not
write down that I called him Mr. Perfect. Just white it out or something. And I didn’t mean for Sarah to get messed up. Most of all, I didn’t mean for Gordon—for my dad—to throw away his life for me. Which is why I’m going to run away and join the circus. If they’ll have me. I mean, I don’t actually know how to do any circus stuff, and I don’t do heights, so the trapeze is out. So is riding elephants. And clowns are terrifying, so I won’t be able to be in the same room with them. And I’m not actually sure how you go about joining the circus. But I’ll figure it out. I’ll fix Sarah first, and then I’ll leave. Gordon will be better off without me, and once I’m gone, all of this will blow over. He’ll rescue some orphans or something and everyone will forget that he ever had a half-villain son.”

“Clowns,” Jess mutters, frowning very seriously at her drawing.

“No,
not
clowns. I can’t emphasize that enough.” I sit down on the edge of the bed and let my hands fall between my knees. “Some people might see me running away and joining the circus as a sign of defeat. But it’s not. I know when to graciously bow out. And it’s not like I have a lot of other career options at this point. Vilmore didn’t want me, I got expelled from Heroesworth, and apparently the regular school I used to go to won’t take me back, because your mom already called them. No one will have me. So, I might as well not waste any more time here, ruining things for everyone. I’ll miss you, though,” I tell her. “You’ll probably forget about me, after a while, but maybe when you’re older, we can be friends on the internet.”

The stairs creak. That’ll be Helen, probably coming to snatch up Jess and drag her away before I accidentally electrocute her or something.

“Okay, write this down quickly. This last part is important. Because Kat’s not going to understand why I left. I mean, she will, because I’m sure she’s noticed the media exploding with stories about me. And her. And our scandalous relationship, what with my stepmother killing her grandfather and everything. But—”

There’s a knock on the door.

I ignore it. “But Kat’s going to think I wasn’t thinking about her when I made this decision. That I was maybe being selfish and possibly even a little cowardly. But I
am
thinking about her. A lot. And I’ll send her postcards from the circus. She’ll be the only one I send them to, and once everything’s blown over ... Maybe she’ll come visit me.”

The door opens. Which I guess is Jess’s cue to leave.

But then it’s not Helen who steps inside my room, but
Kat
.

“What is Kat going to think is selfish and cowardly?” she says, closing the door behind her and raising her eyebrows at me.

I kind of freeze up and just stare at her. The last time I saw her, she was lying broken on the floor of the gym. Bloody and unconscious. Because of me. “What are you doing here?”

“Hi,” Jess says. She waves at her.

Kat waves back, then looks guiltily at the floor. “I kind of broke into your house.” She can use her shapeshifting power to turn her fingers into lockpicks. It’s kind of creepy, but it works.

“My stepmom’s home. She—”

“She didn’t see me. And I know you’re probably in enough trouble as it is, and it’ll be even worse for you if I get caught here, but I figured you couldn’t leave the house, and I had to see you.” She crosses over to the bed and stands in front of me. “So, what decision did you make that I’m going to think is selfish and cowardly?”

I swallow. “It’s all in the letter Jess took down. You can read it later.”

She glances over at Jess and her scribbles, which are very obviously not any kind of writing. “Or you could tell me now.”

I stare at her. At her wrist, which isn’t swollen anymore. And her ribs, which I guess were broken. And her face. Not covered in blood.

She glares at me. “You’d better be picturing me naked.”

I am picturing her lying in a hospital bed. In horrible pain. I’m picturing her lying helpless on the floor while Sarah pointed a gun at her. I flinch and look away. “I’m joining the circus.”

“Great. I’ll come with you. I think I’d do pretty well there.”

“Yeah, probably, but you can’t come with me.”

“Why? Because I’d show you up?” She sits down on the bed and nudges me playfully with her elbow.

I turn away, angling myself so she can’t see my face. “You have Vilmore. You have options. You don’t need the circus.”

“But I want to be with you.”

“You don’t know what you’d be getting yourself into. There’s no money in it. At least, I don’t think. And there are probably going to be clowns, though we won’t talk to them. I mean,
I
won’t talk to them. You won’t be there.”

“Are you doing this because of what happened to me? Because you think I’ll be better off without you or something? Because that’s not—”

“No. We both know you won’t be better off without me—you’ll be devastated. You’ll hardly be able to go on living.”