The Rise of Renegade X

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  Sarah sighs, seeing I’m not impressed. “I know it doesn’t seem like much. It can only handle simple changes so far, but I’m hoping to have it up to something more complicated before prom. I’ll save money on a dress, and I won’t have to go to a salon to get my hair and nails done. But I’ve got a couple years to work on it.” She deactivates it and takes it off, reaching for another invention. “And this one—”

  “Actually, maybe you could show me later. I’m here as Damien, not Renegade X.”

  “Don’t mix business with pleasure,” Sarah says. “Got it.” She sits down on the bed with me. “You want to watch something?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Anything to make this not feel so awkward.

  A dog barks outside. “Oh, that’s Heraldo. Here”—she shoves her TV remote in my hand—“I have to let him in.”

  Sarah runs off, her footsteps echoing down the hall. I inspect her remote, but it looks store-bought, like it might actually go to her TV and not to, say, a robot in the closet who’ll bust out and try to kill me as soon as I press power. I wince as my finger pushes down on the button, but the TV flickers to life, and nothing else in the room seems to do anything. I’m safe from Sarah’s crazy inventions, for now.

  The news is on, so I flip the channels until I get to something I recognize: The Crimson Flash and the Safety Kids. They show it in the mornings, and again in the afternoons in case you miss it the first time. Strangely enough, it doesn’t make me think of my dad—it reminds me of Kat. That’s the last thing I want right now. I’m about to conduct a serious make-out session with my new girlfriend—er, lab partner—something I got involved in so I wouldn’t think about my ex. I hold up the remote to change the channel, but I hesitate, waiting to see which episode this is.

  “Today,” the Crimson Flash says, “we’re going to visit the zoo. What do we think about that, Safety Kids?”

  The camera pans to a dozen elementary-school children, ranging from ages six to ten, sitting on the floor, wearing little red capes. They wave noisemakers and shout, “Yay!” There’s no standard set of Safety Kids. It’s one of those shows where any kid can be on it if they sign up and are between the right ages.

  I hear pounding footsteps in the hall, and then a Great Dane leaps on the bed, knocking me down and causing me to throw the remote across the room. It lands in a pile of gears. The dog pins me to the bed and licks my face. Similar to what I was hoping to do with Sarah, but not even close.

  Sarah claps her hands. “Heraldo! Down, boy! Leave Damien alone.”

  Heraldo reluctantly gets off of me. He stands on the bed and walks in a circle a couple times before lying down and panting heavily in my ear. I sit up and wipe the dog slobber off my face.

  “He likes you,” Sarah says. Then she spies what’s on the TV. The Crimson Flash is standing in front of the zebra pen at the Golden City Zoo, explaining how they use their stripes to avoid predators. “Oh, I love this show!” She bounces down on the bed next to me, grinning, as if I chose this on purpose because I knew it was her favorite. Sarah grabs my hand and leans her head against my shoulder.

  Heraldo crawls forward a little, so his front legs are across mine. He puts his head down and drools.

  My face is dry now, but I can smell his spit. Gross. I’m not only stuck with him, but it looks like Sarah’s not changing the channel anytime soon. These experiments are supposed to be fun, so I decide to make the most of it.

  “Look at that—is he wearing an honorary zookeeper badge?” I scoff at the screen. “Does he think being a superhero makes him a zookeeper?”

  Sarah lifts her head and scowls. “Damien, he’s your dad.”

  “Exactly. That’s how I know he has no zoo training whatsoever.” Kat would have taken the bait. She would have snickered and made comments about spying the superhero in its natural habitat. You’ll notice, kids, that the superhero wears bright colors to trick its enemies into believing it’s poisonous. The bright colors mean, Danger, stay away! This, however, is a rare evolutionary flaw, as the bright colors serve only to attract the dreaded supervillain.

  Sarah looks at me like I’m speaking another language. “That’s why he’s only an honorary zookeeper.” She adjusts herself so she’s sitting up more and not leaning on me.

  Heraldo’s breath is hot on my knee. I’m uncomfortable, physically and emotionally, and I’m ready to go home. I wish Kat was here instead of Sarah. I’m not supposed to think that or feel that way, especially since Sarah kissed me like she really meant it earlier and invited me to her house and wants me to meet her dad, but here I am, doing it anyway. I put my arm around Sarah to appease my guilt, even though she can’t possibly know what I’m thinking. She smiles at me—a warm smile, like you’d be more likely to give a boyfriend than a lab partner—then turns her attention to the screen, taking the Crimson Flash’s zoo trip really seriously.

  I’m sitting upside down on the couch Thursday evening, my feet up where my head should be, and my head hanging off the edge of the cushions, talking on the phone.

  “I can’t believe Pete called my parents,” Kat says.

  “Pete’s a narc. What do you expect?”

  Amelia stomps through the living room, making fussing noises and straightening out the furniture. She plunks a bowl of chips down on the coffee table, steps back to get a good look, then shuffles them around until they’re all at the same level while still looking “casually tossed.” God forbid Amelia’s friends find out how much effort she’s put into making this slumber party perfect.

  “Don’t touch those. They’re for the party,” Amelia says, storming off to check that her Superhero Day streamers are straight. We get a whole day off from school for it tomorrow, hence the slumber party, especially since Amelia’s the only one of her friends with any superhero heritage. She acts like it’s her birthday. Her friends might not know Gordon’s really the Crimson Flash, but you can bet they know Amelia’s a superhero and expecting to get her H this year. Amelia’s told all her friends—and me—that she’s already applied to Heroesworth Academy for fall, since her birthday’s in October and she’d just barely miss the cutoff otherwise. She’s hoping they’ll let her in early.

  “Who’s that?” Kat asks.

  “I’m, um, staying with relatives.”

  Kat clears her throat. “Listen, Damien … I’m not too clear on everything that happened Monday night, but I know you stopped by. At Pete’s.”

  “Yeah, for about five minutes. Why?”

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  “For what? Drooling on my shirt? You can buy me a new one.”

  “What? No. I got pretty wasted and made out with one of Pete’s roommates.” I can tell by the tightness in her voice that she’s not looking forward to my response to that. “Julie brought me to the party,” she goes on, when I don’t say anything. “I didn’t know it was at Pete’s, just at Vilmore, and then I was so upset about … things that I didn’t care what I did. I wanted to have a good time.”

  “So you did. Good for you.”

  “But I didn’t. I was miserable.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So … I’m sorry. That I did that. Especially in front of you. It’s not something that’s going to happen again. I was upset, but I’m going to fix that.”

  “And you’re telling me this because …?” My tone is friendly, possibly even cheerful. Pretending I don’t know exactly why she feels the need to apologize to me.

  “Because, Damien, you’re … we … I thought you’d be mad, but forget it, okay?” She’s silent. Then, “Also, at the party, did I say anything weird?”

  “Hmm. Let’s see … Other than when you stuffed a hundred bucks down my pants and told me to take off everything but my socks? No, can’t think of anything.”

  Amelia almost falls over in shock, sloshing punch over the edges of the punch bowl she’s carrying. She makes a face at me that’s half revulsion and half wide-eyed terror. From my upside-down position, I can totally see up her nostrils
. She sets down the punch bowl and runs into the other room, shouting, “Mom! He’s not going to be here during my party, right?”

  Oh, I’m going to be here. Starting up a rousing game of Truth or Dare with a bunch of fifteen-year-old girls. Amelia wants to get to know me better, right? It’s perfect. The great things about siblings, I’m learning, is it turns out you can be as awful to them as you want, and they still have to put up with you.

  “Har-har, Damien,” Kat says. “And where did I get that kind of money?”

  “A better question is, did I give you the show of your life and you can’t remember it, or did I take the money and run?”

  “But, seriously, I didn’t say anything, did I?” She sounds awfully nervous.

  “No.”

  Gordon comes in from the bedroom, wearing a bathrobe. His hair is wet and he keeps touching it, like he’s feeling for something. He seems kind of twitchy. “Damien,” he says, “can I have a word with you?”

  I put my hand over the receiving end of the phone. “Do you mind?”

  “Did you put …?” He shuts his eyes and shudders. “Did you put worms in my shampoo?”

  I guess the worms all sunk to the bottom of the bottle. That or he’s waited four days to wash his hair, since I put them there on Sunday while everyone was at church. “I don’t know. Pushed anyone off any buildings lately?” Saving me in a fire makes up for him trying to kill me, but it doesn’t mean he’s learned his lesson. Thus he will get no sympathy or apologies from me.

  He plants his hands on his hips. “Damien, I was only trying to help you. If you’d just listen to me—”

  I tap the side of the phone impatiently. “Can you speed this up? I’ve got a hot girl on the other line, and you know how those nine-hundred numbers are. The first couple minutes are cheap, and after that, they rack up the price.”

  He looks like he wants to throttle me. His face turns red and his forehead knits up. “I know you don’t like to leave the ground. It was a little scary for me at first, too, but I think you’ll find that it’s not so bad. Even if you are afraid of heights, you’ll have control. It’ll be a very different experience for you once you realize you can’t fall.”

  I don’t acknowledge him, going back to my conversation with Kat. “Yeah, baby, tell me again what you’ll do to me.”

  “What?” Kat says.

  Gordon storms off, grumbling about “that boy.” He’s as bad as Amelia.

  “Nothing.”

  The doorbell rings and Amelia shouts, “I’ll get it!” She thunders to the door, glaring at me and motioning for me to get out.

  “Hey,” I say into the phone, getting a great idea, “do you want to come ov—” I stop myself. Kat doesn’t know I’m living with a bunch of superheroes. She’s going to find out about my X eventually—I’m going to tell her soon, I promise—but maybe now isn’t the right time for it. It might ruin the Truth or Dare session. Plus, I don’t want Amelia teasing me that Kat’s my girlfriend, because as I’ve stated a million times before, she’s not. “I mean, it’s a nice day for a white wedding.”

  “Yeah … What are you doing tomorrow night?”

  “Undressing myself at parties for money. Tonight’s my trial run.”

  Amelia’s eyes are going to burst out of her head. She drags her friend, the one with the green stripe in her hair, as fast as she can through the living room, sleeping bag and pillows in tow. “My brother’s not going to be at the party.”

  “So,” Kat says, “in other words, absolutely nothing?”

  “Well, you know, I wasn’t married to the idea.”

  Kat’s quiet for a minute. When I don’t go on, she says, “You’ll never guess what I found out. You remember my grandfather? I mean, you don’t remember him, he wasn’t alive when we were born, but … you know the stories. Anyway, I found his ring! I was shopping downtown, and I went into this little antique store with all this really cool villain stuff, and it was there. On display, like they were really proud of it. It didn’t even have a price.”

  I sit upright, all the blood draining from my head. She means Helen’s shop. “That’s … great, Kat.” I don’t sound like I mean it.

  “Tell me you want to come with me this weekend to get it back. It’s mine, right? It doesn’t belong in some antique store.”

  “It’s not even an antique.” I pace the living room. Sure, Kat should have inherited the thing, but I can’t help thinking of Helen and her losing her superpower and her one trophy that makes it all worthwhile. They both have a right to it.

  “It’s collecting dust there, like some useless trinket, and I need it.”

  “You need it, Kat?” The ring’s supposed to protect the wearer from heartbreak. Maybe she should have the ring, if it’ll help her get over me and I won’t find her drunk at any parties, trying to forget what happened between us. Maybe we can just be friends, with neither of us wishing we were together. Maybe … maybe I don’t want her mission to succeed, and not just because it means stealing from Helen’s store.

  Kat clears her throat. “I’ve been down lately. A new toy might cheer me up. Come on, Damien. Supervillaining. We’ve got our Vs, right?”

  Right. “Am I seriously going to pass up the chance to—” I was about to say “wreak havoc around town with you,” but perhaps that’s not the thing to say in a house full of superheroes, on the very eve of Superhero Day. “I’ll be there. With wedding bells on.”

  “Damien!”

  “What? You know you want to marry me.”

  She makes a choking sound, then starts sputtering. “I … That … Err! I can’t believe you.”

  “Katherine Locke. It has a nice ring to it.”

  The doorbell goes off again, and I dip one of Amelia’s chips in the punch bowl as she and her friend come barreling down the stairs. I put it in my mouth like it’s the most sumptuous food I’ve ever eaten.

  “Oh, my God,” they mutter, making disgusted faces.

  “Mmmmm,” I moan.

  “What’s that?” Kat says.

  “Nothing, just thinking of you on our wedding night.”

  The girls—there are four of them now—roll their eyes at me as they giggle past. I think I’m winning them over.

  “Damien, I want that ring. You’ll be there Friday, right?”

  “Of course. Wouldn’t miss it.”

  Sarah clings to my arm as we walk up the hill toward Lovers’ Peak Friday afternoon, leaning her head on my shoulder. She rubs her thumb against my palm and sighs.

  “Dad’s coming home from the hospital tomorrow,” she says. “He’s taking me out for pizza, once he’s feeling better. He said I could invite somebody, so I was thinking …” She lets go of me, pulling away. She sucks in her breath and stares at the ground and doesn’t ask me to come with them. That would be against the rules.

  Lovers’ Peak is where all the cool, promiscuous teenagers go to get drunk, feel each other up, and make unwanted babies. The ones with cars park at the cliff side, and the ones without them do it in the woods or hide out in the abandoned cabin.

  It’s the perfect place for a Superhero Day make-out session with my not-girlfriend—dog and Crimson Flash free. We’re wearing party hats, the conical cardboard kind with the elastic string you strap onto your head. I’m dressed all in vertical stripes, and Sarah’s going all plaid. Most kids bring beer, but I brought sugar-free sodas—for that extra level of ridiculousness—that I planned to chug and then scream, “Woooh!” at the top of my lungs to annoy all the people supposedly cooler than me, but, alas, there’s nobody here to witness it.

  That’s because I had to rearrange our plans. I was planning on bringing her here tonight, when there’d be more of an audience, but I promised Kat I’d be there for her.

  “You know,” Sarah says, “this violates rule number twenty-nine, no love on a ledge. That was your rule, you know, but I forgive you.” She smiles at me.

  “It doesn’t violate it,” I say, setting the sodas down and adjusting the elastic
of my party hat, “because we’re not going anywhere near that cliff.”

  We aren’t going to even look at it or acknowledge its presence, as far as I’m concerned.

  Sarah raises her eyebrows at me as if to say, Oh, yeah? She strides over to the edge to spite me and holds her arms out at her sides, taking in a deep breath. She looks like a giant bird about to take flight. “Wow. You can see everything from here.”

  I can’t watch. I turn away, surveying the cabin instead. People call it a cabin, but it’s more of a shack. A dirty, filthy shack that I wouldn’t want to take a black light to, if you know what I mean. The windows are broken and beer bottles spill out of the open door, like the building itself has had too much and is puking them out.

  I peek behind me and flinch. Sarah’s still on the ledge. I tell her to come back, and she leaps toward me, going, “Yes, sir!” She throws her arms around me, then gets uncomfortable about it and lets go.

  Maybe because it was obvious she meant it, like I’m more to her than a lab partner. Or maybe it’s because I didn’t hug her back. Because “being more than a lab partner” makes me think of Kat, and then I feel guilty.

  “Damien,” Sarah says, poking at a rock with her foot, “I’m really glad you came with me the other night. Even if we didn’t get Dad back right then, I’m glad I trusted you, and I’m … I had fun. With you.”

  I swallow and don’t look at her. “I don’t know—I could have done without the crazy zombies.”

  We’re silent for a minute, standing around and not touching each other. Finally Sarah asks, “Damien, is something wrong?”

  I make an effort to smile. I put my arms around her. “Nothing.”

  I can tell she doesn’t believe me, but she leans into me, resting her head against my chest, and breathes in deep. She turns her face up to kiss me.

  Katherine Locke.

  I break apart from Sarah, pretending I didn’t notice her attempt to press her lips against mine. I was joking when I said that, about me and Kat getting married. Totally not serious. It was supposed to torture her, not me. So why can’t I stop thinking about it?