The Trials of Renegade X (36 page)

I shake my head. “Going to Heroesworth was my idea.”

She raises an eyebrow. “It was? You’re sure
someone
didn’t pressure you into it?”

“
Someone
meaning Gordon? Yeah, I’m sure. I mean, he was happy about it, but he also tried to talk me out of it, and I didn’t listen.”

“Well, call your grandfather and tell him that.”

“Why? So he can hate me, too?” Yeah, right. Not that I want him unjustly thinking about electrocuting Gordon every time he comes on TV or anything, but is it so bad if I have
one
relative who doesn’t think I’m the scum of the earth?

“You think I hate you?” Mom says, her voice going funny and her forehead wrinkling and her mouth dropping open a little.

“I meant Gordon, but now that you mention it, I know I’m not exactly your favorite person or anything.” Certainly not her favorite son. I mean, I used to be her
only
son, so I guess I was the best and worst by default, but not anymore. “And what the hell’s up with Xavier? He’s way older than I thought he would be.”

“Never you mind about Xavier. He’s fine.”

“He’s
walking
.” I rest my elbows on the lab table and put my chin in my hands.

“And someday, when you’re older and have children of your own, you’ll understand how wonderful that is.”

“Uh, no, I don’t think I will.”

“Well, you’ll at least understand why I wanted to get through certain phases of his development more quickly than others. I’d forgotten just how much work newborns are. I wasn’t getting any sleep.”

I sit up. “Wait, what are you saying? Mom, did you give him
more
of that formula?!”

She holds up a hand. “Calm down. Like I said, you’ll understand when you’re older.”

“You’re saying if I have kids someday, I’ll understand why you didn’t want him to have a childhood?” Yeah,
that
sounds right. “How’s he supposed to learn stuff?”

“Ah.” She gets this proud smile on her face. “I’ve already thought of that. Everything he needs to know, that he’d normally take months to learn, I feed into his brain at night through music with subliminal messaging. I wish I could take credit for it, but these supervillains in Switzerland created the system. It’s all very well done. Information isn’t just pumped in, but it’s delivered through memories fabricated to have the right results. I’m thinking of making him think he crashed his bicycle and was nearly thrown into traffic—those things can be dangerous, and I don’t want him getting run over.”

I stare at her. Like she’s crazy. Which she obviously is.

“Now, Damien, don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to do it until he’s older. He’s too young to ride a bicycle right now.”

“I had a bike and I’m not dead.”

“But I
worried
. You were always so daring, and every time you went out with your friends, I worried about you getting hurt. But with Xavier, I don’t have to go through that again.”

“You’re just going to make him afraid of everything?”

“Not everything. I enjoy ice skating. I thought we could do that together.”

Wow. “That’s messed up.”

She grits her teeth. “I did not bring you into my lab to be criticized. I love little Xavier, just like I ...” She trails off, unable to say it.

I make it easier for her. “Just like you
used
to love me?”

She shuts her eyes for a moment, then opens them again. “I’m your mother, Damien. I still love you.”

I go back to inspecting Damien II again, noticing how there’s hardly any fur left across his stomach. “Yeah, sure you do. That’s why you kicked me out of the house. That’s why you replaced me and never want to see me again.”

“I never said I didn’t want to see you again.”

“You didn’t have to. I was your son for sixteen years, and I thought I mattered to you. But then I did one thing you didn’t like—”

“You became a
superhero
. I was always afraid that you ... with
his
genes, and ... You made it clear which of us you take after.”

“I blew up part of Heroesworth. I have a villain power. I got expelled and arrested and millions of people have watched it all online. I did all that, and Gordon took the fall for me. He took me in when you decided you were done with me, and now he’s ruined his life, trying to protect me. It’s more than I deserve, and I kind of wish he hadn’t done it, because he hates me now, but ... Look, don’t try and tell me you’re better than him.”

“You never went against my plans before you met him. That day at the Banking and Finances building, when you pulled that raygun on me, and after I saved your life, I just ... I didn’t know who I was seeing anymore. You’d changed so much. And you could
fly
.” She sounds disgusted, and I can’t help feeling a twinge of self-loathing. “But, despite your mistakes, I never stopped loving you, Damien. And I’m sure your father hasn’t, either.”

I shake my head. “Five minutes in a subway bathroom with him doesn’t mean you know him.” She hasn’t seen the way he looks at me. Or, more accurately, the way he
doesn’t
look at me. “Millions of people hate him now. He’s never going to forgive me.”

“You were protecting Kat.”

“And endangering lots of other people. Everything that happened that night was my fault. And it doesn’t matter why I did it, because he’s still the most hated superhero in Golden City because of me. Because everyone thinks it was his fault instead of mine. They’re even talking about canceling his show.”

“So,” she says, speaking slowly, “a lot of people think things that aren’t true because of something you did.”

I roll my eyes at her. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“That it wouldn’t be the first time?”

“Yeah, but this is different. It wasn’t something I did on purpose, and it’s
a lot
of people. The whole city. Maybe even the whole country.”

“Damien, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but you’re very good at getting people to believe what you want them to. Like that time last year when you convinced that family down the street to move because you didn’t like their kids.”

“
Nobody
liked them. They were so obnoxious.” Always shrieking and playing right outside our house. “And I know one of them peed in our yard that one time, even if I couldn’t prove it. Plus, they kept trampling Mrs. Murdy’s flower beds.” Mrs. Murdy is an old lady who lives across the street. She’s really cranky and mean, but she likes me because I’m the only person she knows who’s not afraid to argue with her. And I happen to know it’s not easy for her to work in her garden these days—not with her arthritis—but those stupid kids were messing up her plants like it didn’t matter.

“You made them think their house was haunted.”

I grin. “They’re lucky that’s all I did. I was considering making them think there was a sewage leak.” I had several backup plans, actually. I went with haunting because they couldn’t prove it was true or not.

“My point is that you can be very persuasive, when you put your mind to it.”

“You think I can convince Gordon not to hate me?” That seems unlikely. I mean, if it was that easy, I would have done it already.

“I think you can make people believe what you want them to, whether that’s a family down the street or the entire city.”

“Nothing I say can change what happened. The Crimson Flash still has a half-villain son who blew up part of Heroesworth with his scary lightning power. I don’t think I can spin that.”

“Well, I think you underestimate yourself.” She smiles a little. Then she sighs and looks at the personality enhancer again. “This is going to be a lot of work, you know that?”

“But you can fix it?”

“Most likely. It’s going to take me a while, though.”

“How long?”

She takes a deep breath, looking it over. “Your friend Sarah has a very
interesting
method of construction. It’s too bad she wasn’t born a villain—she’d do well at Vilmore.”

I laugh. “I’m
not
telling her you said that.” Not until I fix her, anyway.

“Give me a couple of days on this. You can come get it Friday morning. I’m afraid we’re going to have to see each one more time, after all.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it doesn’t have to be the
absolute
last time. I mean, I’m not forgiving you for what happened or anything, but maybe ...”

“Maybe you could come over for dinner once in a while?”

“I’ve had your cooking, so ... no. But something like that.” Not that I’m allowed to leave the house or anything, or go hang out with supervillains, so I probably won’t actually ever come over. But the idea of it doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world anymore, at least.

“I’d like that,” she says. “And maybe it wouldn’t kill you to call me once in a while? Especially if you end up on the evening news again.”

“Deal. And same goes for you. If you, like, have another kid or something, you should probably call me. Not that you should have another kid or ever have sex again or anything, but if something life-changing happens, then I guess I want to know about it.”

“All right,” she says. “Then we’re agreed.”

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I guess we are.”

Chapter 27

I KNOW KAT’S CLASSES are over at three today, and I kind of expect her to call me and tell me she’s crazy for even thinking of going to Homecoming with anyone else but me, and that if I won’t go, she’s going to lock herself in her dorm room all night and listen to really emo music and not go to the dance at all, not even to take pictures with her dad, no matter how much he begs her. And probably cry. A lot.

Okay, so I don’t really expect her to do any of that. But I do expect her to call and try to get me to change my mind again. So after I get home from Mom’s house, I sit on my bed, staring at my phone, waiting for it to ring. Like someone who has no life. Though I do text Riley to tell him about Mom fixing the personality enhancer, but that doesn’t really count. And when it gets around three thirty and Kat still hasn’t called or texted or anything, I figure she’s either mad at me, or that she realized how serious I was about not going. Probably both, I guess. I think about calling her, but I don’t really want to hear in her voice that she’s still hurt over the fact that I can pretty much never see her in person again. Which, I admit, really sucks and kind of puts a damper on our plans to spend the rest of our lives together.

But since I can’t do anything to change that at the moment, I decide to take a more pro-active approach and get online to stalk Tristan. If the douchebag is going to take my girlfriend to Homecoming, he’s going to have to face the consequences. And murdering a supervillain doesn’t count as trouble, does it? Maybe if I kill him, the public will think that I’m more hero than villain after all and stop hating the Crimson Flash, since his son is obviously so much better than they thought. I mean, Riley said the League Treaty prohibits causing unnecessary bodily harm to your enemies, but clearly killing Tristan is necessary. I would be following the rules
and
enjoying what I’m doing. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. Well, everyone except Tristan.

He’s not hard to find, since he’s friends with Kat on Facebook. He even posted on her wall earlier today, saying,
Can’t wait for Friday!
It has three likes. One of them is him. He liked his
own
stupid message to her. Douchebag. I almost add my own comment that says,
Can’t wait to electrocute you!
but I stop myself. That might alert him to the fact that I intend to murder him, which might make it more difficult. I mean, he should know already that I’m going to kill him, since he’s taking Kat to the dance, but obviously he’s underestimating me.

I go to his profile and see that he has two brothers and a sister. He also likes field hockey, whatever the hell that is, and listens to a strange mixture of stupid pop bands and metal. Thankfully, he doesn’t like Superstar, and I don’t have to kill myself for having something in common with him. Most of the shows he watches are reality shows. I notice the most recent movie he added to his favorites is
Pirate Zombies from Hell
, like that’s going to impress Kat or something and make up for all his bad taste, especially since most of the other movies he likes are weird indie films I’ve never heard of.

I have several options here. One, I could convince Kat that she should go with all her friends to the movies again, since I won’t be able to make it. Like, ever. Except I’ll make it to that one, secretly, and then zap Tristan when he goes to the bathroom or something. That option might take a while, since it involves a movie coming out that everyone wants to see, plus there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to get him alone, and I don’t want to murder any more of Kat’s friends than I have to.

Option two, I create a fake profile and make him fall in love with me. Which has the added bonus of him getting distracted from Kat and leaving her alone. Then I ask him to finally meet me somewhere—somewhere very private, where there will be no witnesses—and kill him. I like this plan even less, though, because it involves actually interacting with him and leaving a trail online that could be traced back to me. You know, if anyone ever actually missed him enough to try and figure out what happened.

And, unfortunately, neither of those options involves killing him before Friday evening.

I sigh, going back to the drawing board, when there’s a knock on my door.

“Go away, Amelia! I’m busy!”

“Oh, okay,” Zach’s voice says. “I’ll come back later!”

“Wait!” I get up from the bed and open the door.

Zach’s standing in the hallway. “Me and Amelia are going to play
Villains vs. Heroes
,” he says. “I thought you might want me to kick your ass again, but if you’re too busy ...”

I wave my hand in front of his face. I don’t understand why he’s here, or why he’s still talking to me. “Did I accidentally zap your brain and erase your memories? You saw me blow up part of Heroesworth last week. With my villain power.”