But Amelia’s made me stay in the air way longer than this. Not this high up, but I didn’t fall any of those times, and I’m not falling now. I try to just focus on the routine, like we practiced, and then I’m moving again. My breathing’s still a little tight, but I’m moving through the rest of the hoops like nothing happened.
I get through all of them, and then I turn around and do it all again. The whole time, I pretty much feel like I’m going to die, but some part of me also feels like I’ve got this. And I’m so close to the end. All I have to do is make it through a few more excruciating moments, and then I’m home free and I never, ever have to fly again.
And okay, maybe I rush a teeny tiny bit through the last hoop, but just a little, and then I make myself slow down and do it right. And I’m extra careful not to touch the sides, because I think I pretty much would die if I made it this far and then screwed up on something so stupid. But I make it through the hoop, and then I tuck my arms in as I make my descent back to the floor. And even though this part was really hard to practice, since we didn’t have the actual setup from the gym, I land exactly on the line of tape, right where I started from.
I take a moment to catch my breath and to bask in the fact that I just did that. This is the part where I should be taking a bow or something, but instead I look up at Ted. I expect him to be shocked and probably really pissed, because I just totally showed him up. But he doesn’t seem like either of those things.
He’s frowning at his clipboard, looking concerned. And maybe still kind of bored.
Like I didn’t just do the most amazing thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. Like I didn’t just prove that not only can I fly, but I can do his stupid routine, just like anybody else. Well, maybe not just like anybody else—I’m not going to win the Olympics anytime soon or be invited to compete in the Golden City Annual Flying Idiots Brigade or whatever—but he could at least admit that I nailed it.
I walk over to him. “Well? Were you even watching?”
He doesn’t look up. “I was.”
“And?”
“It was… not what I was expecting.”
What? What does that mean? “I did the routine. What else did you expect?” Besides for me to totally fail.
“It seems that you can fly. You were better than I imagined, I’ll give you that.”
I glare at him. “I did the routine.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. But the point wasn’t to learn a routine. The point was to show that you have a handle on your ability and are ready to move on to the next level of coursework here at Heroesworth.”
“I… I did that. I do have a handle on it.”
He finally looks up from his clipboard. “I’ve seen students like you before, students who only study the test. It always shows in their performance. You did the routine in the most mechanical way possible.”
“But…” He never said I had to do more than learn the routine. “You’re just saying this because you hate me. You want me to fail, so you’re making up an excuse!”
He sighs. “This is my job. I can’t in good conscience pass someone who so obviously doesn’t know how to actually use his superpower.”
I clench my fists. Lightning burns a little beneath my skin. “I can use it. I just showed you I can!”
“Fly up to the ceiling and back as fast as you can.”
“What?”
“Or spin in the air. If you can really fly, if you really deserve to pass this test, you should be able to do a few simple aerial tasks on command. Can you do that?”
I look up at the ceiling, at the hoops I trained so hard to be able to zigzag through. Moving sideways through the air was a big enough deal for me, and I had to practice a lot first. I thought I had this, but when I think about spinning in the air, my throat goes dry and my stomach twists up. I know I could fly up to the ceiling and back, but not fast, like he wants, and not with any more skill than I already did. The idea of doing crazy flying stuff I’ve never tried before, on command, makes me want to shrivel up into a little ball and never speak to anyone again.
“That’s what I thought,” Ted says when I don’t answer him. And the worst part isn’t even that he was right about me. It’s the way he sounds like he actually feels sorry for me, like he could tell how much I really tried and is actually just doing his job.
Chapter 31
ME AND RILEY MEET up with Kat and Tristan that afternoon, outside the abandoned Heroes Hideout across from the tire factory, which is in a semi-industrial section of Golden City. I’m not sure if the Heroes Hideout was abandoned because it was built so close to a tire factory, or if the tire factory came later, but neither one is really doing anything to relieve the creepiness factor of this whole area.
I was kind of hoping maybe Tristan wouldn’t show up, since he made it clear he was against coming here. Not that he’s not still whining about it, though. “Come on, Katie. Look at this place. It’s…” He makes a face at the boarded-up windows and all the graffiti painted across the front of the building. “I don’t know what we’re even doing here. This is not the kind of place where someone hides priceless paintings.”
He kind of has a point. I don’t know what I was expecting, because abandoned pizza place doesn’t really scream great place to keep treasure, but I thought when we got here it would make more sense. Like maybe it only used to be an abandoned Heroes Hideout but was now a swanky, state-of-the-art vault or something. Not that I know how we’d break into one of those, but it would at least mean we were on the right track.
Kat looks over at me. “Damien? What do you think? Because if you wanted to leave, and maybe do this another time—”
“Or not at all,” Tristan says.
“—then we’re all totally cool with that.” Her eyes search mine as she says it, and I can tell she’s thinking about how I failed my flying test.
I called and told her about it as soon as it was over. She said the important thing was that I’d tried really hard and that whatever the outcome, even attempting the test was a huge deal for me, let alone actually getting through it. And I know she’s right, but I also know she was disappointed, or maybe just worried about me, and the whole situation still makes me feel like crap.
And then, after that, I had to call Riley and tell him the same thing. He said it wasn’t my fault. He said he knew I’d tried really hard—that I must have if I was willing to work with Amelia—and that he wasn’t upset. Or, at least, not upset at me, because it was super obvious he wasn’t thrilled with the news.
He said he’d understand if I wanted to call off our mission today. He said maybe it doesn’t even matter now if we find that painting or not, since I’m dropping out of school and he won’t have a partner for Advanced Heroism anymore, which means he’ll be back on the alternative assignment anyway.
When he mentioned me dropping out of school, I felt sick all over, because I guess now it’s actually happening. I didn’t want to think about it, so I said there was no way I wasn’t finishing this assignment with him. Because all those things I said before about us needing to find out if this is still who we are haven’t changed. And because I didn’t want anyone to think I couldn’t handle it, like that maybe I’m not hero material after all and the school is right to hold me back.
And now Kat’s asking me if I want to leave, trying to give me a chance to back out without having to admit to everyone that today really, really sucked and I can’t take it. Which is kind of cool of her, but I also hate thinking that she feels sorry for me.
“We’re already here,” I tell her. “And you guys had to come all the way from Vilmore.”
“It’s okay, though,” she says. “We knew there was a chance this would be a bust, and I was going to come home this weekend, anyway.”
“But we’re here. Someone wrote that note for a reason.”
“A reason that probably has nothing to do with Frank,” Tristan says. “It could have been about anything.”
“It’s still
the only lead we’ve got.” And at least if I’m here, potentially dodging serial killers in an abandoned pizza place, I won’t be at home, thinking about how my life is falling apart. “I say we at least check it out.”
The inside of the abandoned Heroes Hideout looks, well, abandoned. There’s dust on everything, and cobwebs, and the whole place smells kind of damp. The old animatronic animals—a horse in a cowboy hat with a big H on it and his two sidekicks, a dog and a cow wearing matching mini-capes, also with Hs—aren’t as creepy as I expected. I mean, they are creepy, don’t get me wrong, but they also just seem really sad.
And that’s sad as in, “Gee, it’s really sad that people used to have fun here and now it’s just empty and dirty,” not sad as in, “Don’t look now, but I think those animatronic animals have feelings and are going to murder us as soon as our backs are turned.”
“Well, we’ve seen it,” Tristan says. “Happy now? Can we go home already? Because some of us have homework to do.”
“This is our homework,” Kat says.
“Only if it has anything to do with that painting, and I don’t see any paintings here, do you?”
There’s totally a painting of a water barrel and some cowboy boots on the wall right in front of him. Not that that does anything to help us. “Maybe the note was talking about downstairs.” I gesture to the super creepy opening in the floor where there’s an even creepier-looking staircase descending into darkness.
Everyone looks at me like I’ve gone insane.
“Seriously?” Riley says. “You want to go down there?”
Want might be a strong word. But going down those stairs into some terrifying basement full of who knows what still sounds less scary than going home and facing my future. “It could be a storage room. And if we don’t at least check it out, we’re going to always wonder if we missed out on something.”
“Like, missed out on getting murdered?”
I make a couple of sparks twitch across my fingers. “We won’t get murdered.”
“So, you’re going to murder somebody?”
“No. I’m just saying that we’re not going in unarmed. Besides, we’ll make Tristan go first.”
Tristan glares at me.
“Wait,” Kat says. “What if you’re right and that really is where Frank’s keeping the painting? Would he really leave it open like that? What if he’s inside?”
“Well…”
“I’ll go first,” Tristan says. Not in a boastful way, like he’s showing me up, but more like he thinks we really have to do this.
I consider the possibilities of what might be down there. Maybe old toys and games from when this place was running, or maybe rotten pizza toppings that never got used. Or deranged clowns who are also serial killers who are somehow immune to both lightning and fire and will actually succeed in murdering us all. Or, more likely—hopefully more likely, anyway—is that one of the robbers from the gallery had some business here. And since it doesn’t seem like they’d be robbing this place, it was probably a meeting. Or the note really was related to the gallery job and was a reminder of where to take the goods they stole.
Which means the jewelry we sort of let them take might be down there. The painting that Riley, Kat, and Tristan’s grades kind of depend on might be down there.
Frank might even be down there. And I know Grandpa said no one’s ever seen him and lived, but…
But he’s probably not here. Frank probably has better things to do on his Saturday afternoons than lurk in a basement, waiting to scare teenagers. Or murder them. Whatever.
And if we don’t go down in that basement, we go home, which means facing everyone I’ve let down. It means answering a lot of questions I don’t have the answers to, like if I’m really dropping out now, or what I’m going to do with my life, or what I could have done differently to make this not happen.
“I’ll go first,” I tell them. I hold up my hands, letting electricity wash over them—both for light and in case of bad guys—and make my way down the stairs.
Chapter 32
IT TURNS OUT I don’t need my lightning after all. There’s a light switch in the basement that actually works, lighting up the whole hallway. I also figure that if there were bad guys down here, they would have had the lights on. I mean, unless they’re asleep or psychotic and just pretending not to need light so we’d think no one was here and that it was safe and we’d let our guards down.
But either way, I can see that at least this hallway is clear. And that there are some really classy paintings on the wall, plus a fancy vase on a pedestal.
“Whoa,” Kat says, gaping at one of the paintings.
It’s not the one we’ve been looking for—unfortunately, because how cool would that be if we instantly found it based on my somewhat questionable decision to explore the creepy basement?—but it does look way too nice to have been part of the Heroes Hideout decor. Plus, all the Heroes Hideout stuff is cowboy themed, and this painting is of a sailboat, floating serenely in a patch of sunlight, while a bunch of sea monsters wait just beyond the shadows, churning up the water and showing their teeth.
But that’s not the part Kat’s looking at. She’s pointing at the signature in the corner. Harriet Hooper.
“No way,” Tristan says, even though I’m pretty sure Kat was talking to me.
“Who’s Harriet Hooper?” Riley asks.
“The Director of Damage,” I tell him. “She was a famous villain who died, like, ten years ago.”
“Never heard of her.”
Tristan snorts. “I bet you haven’t. Typical letterist.”
Me and Kat both glare at him.
“So,” Riley says, looking a little confused, “she was a painter?”
Kat shakes her head. “No. Well, yes. She was an inventor and a painter. The League confiscated most of her inventions when she died, but there was some stuff that was never accounted for. Nobody ever knew what happened to it, or if it was even real, but…” She grins at the painting.
“But some people think there was a secret stash of her stuff,” I add. “And I guess there is. I guess coming down to this basement was in fact a great idea. A great idea that happened to be mine, if anyone from the press asks or anything once we tell them we found this place and become, like, famous and stuff.”
Riley looks unimpressed. “You’re already famous.”
Tristan snickers. “Not in a good way.”
“We’re not going to be famous,” Kat says, though I can hear the excitement in her voice. “It’s probably nothing. I mean, just because we found one of her works of art—”
“Two, no, at least three,” Tristan says, moving down the hall to look at the other paintings.
“—in a really weird place that no one would have ever suspected was some secret villain lair—”
“A villain’s hideout,” I add.
“—doesn’t mean we’ve found her long-lost stash that no one else in the world was ever able to find and that would totally be, like, really, really amazing.”
“But someone else had to have found it first,” Riley says, still not sounding that impressed. “I mean, the staircase was open.”
“True,” Kat admits.
I shrug. “Maybe Frank found it, or maybe he stole this stuff in the first place and has been keeping it here the whole time. And… and maybe the painting we’re supposed to find really will be here.”
“You’re still going on about that painting?” Tristan says. “Who cares about our assignment when we’ve found this?”
Riley scowls. “And let me guess, now that you’ve found it, you’re going to turn it in to Vilmore?”
“Only if we get extra credit.” Tristan grins, way full of himself. “And what’s your suggestion? Turn it in to the League?”
“No. I just don’t think—”
Tristan ignores him and turns to Kat. “Do you think they’ll let us keep something? I’m calling dibs on the bacon painting.”
One of the paintings
is two stylized strips of bacon sizzling in a pan, only when you look closer, you realize the pan looks kind of like space, so I guess it’s a statement about life or something. It’s not the Director of Damage’s best work, in my opinion.
“We’re not keeping anything,” I tell him, even though I kind of have my eye on the sea monsters painting. “We don’t even know what we’ve found yet.”
“Oh, right. We should wait until we’ve seen all of the goods before we start deciding who gets what.”
“That’s not what he meant,” Kat says, giving Tristan a disgusted look.
“Whatever.” Tristan rolls his eyes and wanders off down the hall.
Kat turns and whispers to me, “I really want that sea monsters painting, though, if it comes up.”
“Me, too. Rock paper scissors?”
“Joint custody. But it stays at my place, because you have a tendency to…”
“Blast holes through the wall?”
“Yep. That.”
Riley still looks confused. “Is this really a thing? I mean, I don’t even get what we’ve found.”
“Whoa!” Tristan calls from down the hall. “You have to see this!”
We hurry over and follow him through a doorway into a room full of what must be priceless artifacts that, like, totally puts the hallway to shame. There are shelves lining some of the walls, full of books and little gadgets. There are more paintings, too—a whole wall of paintings in intricately carved wooden frames—and a statue in one corner, and, in the middle of the room, sitting on a pedestal, is the coolest-looking raygun I’ve ever seen.
Except I don’t even know if it’s a raygun, but it looks kind of like one, only it’s got weird blue tubes coming out of it, and a canister on the back full of some purple sludge.
The Phobia of Renegade X Page 22