The Betrayal of Renegade X (Renegade X, Book 3)

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  Riley shuffles his feet and leans against the wall. “She’s never actually murdered anyone. And she doesn’t hate supervillains.” Though he looks like he kind of does, what with the way he keeps glancing over his shoulder and checking the time on his phone. If I didn’t know better, I’d think being in a room full of supervillains—ones who probably don’t have that great of control over their powers and who probably also really hate superheroes—was making him nervous.

  Kat’s grandma clucks her tongue, as if Kat’s being crazy unreasonable. “Sarah’s a lovely girl. Jerry and I have spent so much time with her these past couple months, it feels like she’s part of the family.”

  So much so that she even sewed her a homemade Christmas stocking, which Kat was livid about. Apparently she only makes them for family members and really close friends. Everyone in Kat’s family has a personalized stocking from her, and it’s a big deal. And now Sarah has one, too.

  “And,” Kat’s grandma goes on, “I haven’t seen you around here in months. Sarah’s here several times a week.”

  Kat gapes at her. She’s too stunned to speak at first. And then Sarah calls for everyone to sit down because it’s time for the demonstration, and Kat’s grandma hurries off to her saved seat.

  “I have school,” Kat finally says. “I don’t even live in the city. She knows that.”

  I squeeze her hand. “And you have an amazing boyfriend you can’t help wanting to spend all your free time with. It’s not your fault if other people don’t have that.”

  “Hey,” Riley says, scowling at me.

  “What? I said other people. I didn’t say Sarah. I don’t know why you’d assume that, unless you think you’re not an amazing boyfriend and that she doesn’t want to spend time with you.”

  “Grandma kicked me out last time I was here,” Kat says. “She told me I didn’t have a good enough poker face to play with them. She said she could always tell what my cards were. It was really mean.”

  “What, and she didn’t want your money?”

  “She said I was making her look bad.”

  To be fair, her grandma’s right—Kat doesn’t have a very good poker face. But last I checked, that wasn’t a requirement for being someone’s grandkid. Not being the illegitimate offspring of a random hookup between your superhero dad and a supervillain, on the other hand, is apparently a requirement, since Gordon’s parents refused to even come to Thanksgiving because I was going to be there. They didn’t say that, exactly—they made up some excuse about going to see some relatives across the country—but it’s not like we didn’t all know the reason. Well, except for Jess, since she’s three, and Alex, since he thinks I’m too awesome to ever even consider that his—I mean, “our”—grandparents might not want to see me. And even though they’re not going anywhere for Christmas, they’ve made it really clear that they’ve only got presents for Amelia, Alex, and Jess, and that they’re the only ones they want coming over for the family get-together, other than Gordon and Helen, of course. Which, I can’t help but notice, just leaves me.

  “Okay,” Sarah says at the front of the room, commanding everyone’s attention. “If you look at your programs”—she holds up a bright orange flier—“you’ll see that first off, I’m going to tell you a little bit about my invention. Then I’m going to demonstrate it.”

  “She made programs?” I whisper to Riley. “I thought this was only going to take a couple minutes.”

  “She just wants to do a good job.”

  Sarah clears her throat. “There have been problems lately with residents losing control of their superpowers.”

  I notice Riley glance around, like he’s afraid someone might actually lose control right now and kill him.

  “The specialized safety walls might protect others from these accidental attacks, but the person who loses control isn’t so lucky. Even if someone is immune to their own power, that’s only while they’re using it, and only if secondary effects like fire or smoke inhalation don’t get them. And if they get tired or lose consciousness, then they’re in trouble. You all remember what happened to Edna.” A knowing murmur runs through the crowd, and Sarah bows her head in a moment of silence.

  Kat gives me this look while everyone’s eyes are closed and mouths What the hell?

  I shrug, since this is the first I’m hearing about it. I mouth back Not her fault. Probably not, anyway.

  “So, to address the problem,” Sarah says, when the moment of silence is over, “I made this.” She holds up what looks like some kind of rubber sports watch. A homemade one, but still, there aren’t even any wires sticking out of it. She must really care what these people think, because she’s apparently gone all out. “It simply detects when the wearer releases any kind of superpower energy and sends out an alert to the nurses. This way, if someone has an accident, it doesn’t have to be deadly. And I made it out of the same substance used in the walls, so the device itself is superpower resistant.”

  Kat bites her lip, her forehead creasing, like maybe she thinks that actually is a good idea and is annoyed that Sarah thought of it.

  “Now for a quick demonstration,” Sarah says. “I just need a volunteer from the audience.” There’s a pause, and then several hands go up. She ignores them, jerking her head toward me. “I said, I need a volunteer.”

  Oh, right. Me. I raise my hand.

  Sarah smiles and points to me. “You. The young fellow in the blue sweatshirt.”

  Young fellow? I think she’s officially been spending way too much time in this place. I start to go up to the front of the room, but Kat grabs my arm.

  “Seriously? You’re volunteering for this?”

  “I’m a plant,” I say out the side of my mouth, trying to keep quiet about it. Not that it really matters.

  Kat apparently doesn’t care if anyone hears her, though, because she says, really loudly, “Are you crazy? She almost killed you with her last invention!”

  Sarah’s face goes red. There’s some more muttering from the audience, and all eyes are on either her or us.

  “I told you,” I start to say, “that wasn’t—”

  Kat cuts me off. “It wasn’t really her. I know. But why can’t he do it?” She points to Riley. “He’s her boyfriend. If it’s not dangerous, then why isn’t he her test subject?”

  “I need a supervillain,” Sarah says. “Renegade—er, Damien’s—power is more suited to my purpose. No one’s going to invisible themselves to death. Sorry, Riley,” she adds, as if he might be offended that his power won’t accidentally kill him.

  “No problem.” He waves it off.

  “See,” I tell Kat. “It’s not dangerous. It doesn’t even explode.” Well, I hope not. I still haven’t had a chance to ask her about that.

  “I don’t care. You’re not doing it.” Kat hooks her arm around mine with no intent to let go. She tells Sarah, through clenched teeth, “Find someone else.”

  Then someone in the audience says, “I’ll do it,” and makes his way to the front before anyone can protest. It’s Kat’s grandfather.

  “Thanks, Jerry,” Sarah mutters, quickly glancing over at Kat, then away again.

  “No,” Kat says. “Someone else can—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” her grandfather says. “It’s just an alert bracelet.”

  Sarah straps it to his wrist and then stands back. “Okay. Now just use your power, and it will take care of the rest. For anyone who doesn’t know,” she tells the audience, “Jerry’s ability is fire. So it’s a good one to demonstrate with, because this is exactly the kind of situation I’m worried about. Someone with a dangerous power accidentally using it and then getting trapped in their room. Everyone else would be okay, because of the safety walls, but no one would even know the person inside needed help. Not until it was too late.”

  Kat’s grandpa holds up his arm, inspecting the alert bracelet or whatever it is. “What do you want me to light on fire?”

  “Nothing right now,” Sarah says,
as if that was a completely normal question. “Just make some flames.”

  Kat clutches my arm tighter, obviously not liking this one bit.

  Her grandpa makes fire come to life in his hands. As soon as he does, the watch face lights up and starts blinking and making a loud warning noise. A noise that’s echoed down the hall in the nurses’ station.

  It’s hard to hear, because the alarms are so loud, but I think Sarah says, “Oh, good, it works.”

  Some people from the audience start clapping, like they don’t know what else to do, and the rest cover their ears.

  “All right,” Sarah says, practically shouting to be heard above the alarms. “You can stop now.”

  Kat’s grandpa stares at his hands, which are still covered in flames.

  “You can turn your power off now!” she says again, louder this time, as if he just didn’t hear her.

  “I’m trying! It’s— This thing won’t let me! How are you supposed to stop it?” It might just be me, but it looks like the flames in his hands are getting higher. And I’m not an expert or anything, since I’m still not sure if exploding is on its list of possible actions, but I don’t think Sarah’s gadget is supposed to keep people from turning off their powers. Or whatever it’s doing.

  “You push the button!”

  “What button?”

  Sarah reaches over and presses something on the side of the watch thingy. It doesn’t turn off. Her eyebrows come together and she starts to look worried.

  “I can’t make it stop,” Kat’s grandpa says. The flames in his hands are definitely getting higher now. “I’m losing control!”

  “Oh, great,” Riley mutters, as if he knew all along something like this would happen.

  The flames blast out of Jerry’s hands and start spreading across the floor.

  Sarah has to step back, unable to keep messing with the device to turn it off, on account of her volunteer being on fire.

  “I’m fine,” Jerry assures everyone, not sounding completely convincing. “No need to worry.” That’s great for him and all, since he’s immune to his own power, but the rest of us aren’t exactly fireproof. In fact, some of the audience members have started evacuating.

  Riley swears and gets out his phone, presumably to call 911. Again.

  “I don’t understand!” Sarah clutches at her hair. “I don’t know what went wrong—the device isn’t supposed to mess with anyone’s powers, just trigger the alarm.”

  Kat glares at her, like this is all her fault, which I guess it kind of is. “It wasn’t enough for you to try and kill my boyfriend—you have to try and kill my grandpa, too?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Do something!”

  Sarah glances around the room for a solution. Then she sucks in her breath and points at the ceiling. “Renegade, zap the sprinklers!”

  Kat scowls at Sarah using my superhero name.

  “Got it, Cosine!” I say her sidekick name out of habit, before I have a chance to realize that it might piss off Kat even further. It probably does, but I have more important things to worry about.

  I zap one of the metal sprinkler heads, and then another alarm goes off, this one even more blaring, and water rains down on us. It puts out the fire and soaks everyone’s clothes. The alert bracelet stops blinking and sending out alerts or whatever, and Kat’s grandpa is finally able to turn his power off.

  “Are you okay?” Kat asks him.

  “I was all right the whole time,” he says. “I just couldn’t stop the flames.”

  Right. He certainly didn’t look okay, when he was busy freaking out.

  Kat’s grandma, also completely soaked, comes up and takes his arm. Some nurses and other retirement-home staff hurry into the room to assess the damage.

  “I’m sorry,” Sarah says, taking the bracelet back and staring at it in extreme disappointment.

  “It’s all right,” Kat’s grandpa tells her. “No harm done.”

  Kat’s grandma gives Sarah a reassuring smile. “You meant well.”

  Sarah looks to Kat. “I’m sorry. I really—”

  Kat turns her back to Sarah without saying a word and storms out of the room.

  “Kat, wait.” I glance over at Sarah and Riley, then hurry after her.

  She stops in the hallway when I put my hand on her shoulder. Her eyes are wet, like she’s about to cry. “I hate her,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself. Water pours off of her clothes and puddles on the floor.

  “It was an accident.”

  “I know. And I still hate her. And you didn’t have to call her Cosine.” She sounds especially hurt by that.

  “That’s just... I was in superhero mode. She’s my sidekick.” Sort of. She’s on a self-imposed hiatus right now, after what happened last fall.

  Kat winces. “We were supposed to be a team.”

  “We are.”

  “Not like that. Not, you know, working together.” She leans her head against the wall and sighs. “I hate that I’m never going to have that with you.” Her eyes really are watering now, and she rubs her palms against them and sniffs.

  I swallow, feeling like a jerk, even though I don’t know what I was supposed to do differently. “Kat.” I put my arms around her, and she leans into me. The water in our clothes squishes together. “We’re always going to be a team.”

  “Except that I’m a villain and you’re a hero.”

  “That doesn’t have to mean we can’t ever work together.”

  But she gives me this really skeptical look when I say that. Hopeful, but skeptical, like she knows it’s never going to happen.

  I’m on the phone with Kat Christmas morning, after the ripping-open-presents frenzy. The space under the Christmas tree seems really empty now, especially since Helen’s already gathered up all the discarded wrapping paper and shoved it in a garbage bag to recycle later. I’m sitting on the couch with my feet on the edge of the coffee table, while Alex plays with his new toys and watches some Christmas movie on TV. Jess is curled up next to me, hugging the stuffed aardvark I gave her while also watching the movie. Amelia’s in her room, Helen’s in the kitchen, on the phone with her sister, and Gordon’s outside shoveling snow out of the driveway so they can go to his parents’ house. He tried to get me to go do manual labor with him, but I pretended I was already on the phone and didn’t hear him, even though I hadn’t actually called Kat yet.

  “What did you get?” Kat asks. She already told me she got a new set of scrapbooking supplies—Vilmore edition, for all those school memories, I guess—a new set of skis (probably to encourage her to go on more trips without me), and an electric kettle, which was a gift from her aunt, and which her mom has warned her is a fire hazard no less than four times already, as if she thinks Kat will burn down her entire dorm and maybe the rest of the school, too.

  I told Kat it would be a shame if I’d saved Vilmore from Sarah’s lightning machine only to have a plastic teapot do the job instead.

  “I got the worst present ever,” I tell Kat. “Amelia got a cell phone.”

  “Wow. The gift that keeps on taking. So, your parents have completely lost it?”

  “Apparently.” Amelia’s been begging for a cell phone the whole time I’ve known her, and Gordon and Helen have always said no way, despite pretty much everyone in the universe having one, since Amelia’s glued to the phone enough as it is. I guess they changed their minds. “There was much squealing and shrieking when the wrapping paper came off.” There’s still the occasional squealing coming from her room, where she’s calling everyone she knows to brag and give them her new number. She even texted it to me, as if I care, and as if I won’t make sure she regrets it later.

  “What did you really get?” Kat asks.

  “A hooded Heroesworth sweatshirt.” A present that says, We’re so happy you’re going to hero school. Please don’t get kicked out again. At least it wasn’t an all-expenses-paid trip to psycho camp, which I was kind of dreading. I even checked the pock
ets on the sweatshirt, just to make sure there wasn’t some hidden envelope with my group therapy itinerary or anything. There wasn’t.

  “Your parents know you so well. Did you also get one of those pennant flags so you can display your school spirit on your wall? Or maybe some notebook paper and pencils, the better to get A pluses with?”

  My parents might not know me at all, but Kat sure does. “They got me a new comforter, for my bed, with matching sheets and pillow cases. I think that was meant to be a present for both of us.”

  She laughs. “Tell them I said thanks, but if it’s red and gold, I’m sending it back.”

  Red and gold are Heroesworth colors. My sweatshirt is dark red with the Heroesworth logo embroidered in gold thread over the heart. Thankfully, my new bedding isn’t from the school store. “It’s dark blue. It’s soft. You’ll like it.”

  Jess leans into me, resting her head against my upper arm. “Soft,” she says, petting her stuffed aardvark, which is, in fact, very soft. Then she jams its long snout into me, pretending it’s biting me. I can tell because she makes chomping and chewing noises while she does it.

  I’m not sure if aardvarks can bite people. Or if they even chew. I always kind of thought they sucked up ants like a vacuum cleaner. Which, now that I think about it, is probably not true. That would be like snorting ants, which sounds kind of painful.

  “Do aardvarks have teeth?” I ask Kat.

  Jess says, “Yes,” at the same time as Kat says, “Probably. The better to chew their ants with.”

  Gordon opens the front door, stomping the snow off his boots out on the mat before stepping inside. “Time to get ready,” he announces. “Alex, put your toys away. Jess, get your shoes on.” He claps his hands, indicating they should get going.

  Jess pretends the aardvark is clamped onto my arm with its teeth and has to pull really hard to get it to let go. Then she trudges off to get ready. Alex shoves his toys off toward the wall, then glances at Gordon to see if he can get away with it. Gordon gives him a stern look, and Alex sighs dramatically as he gathers up his stuff to dump it in his room.

  Gordon shouts for Amelia to come down. Then he turns to me. “Off the phone. Come on.”