The Rivalry of Renegade X

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  “So you’re working yourself to death in retaliation? I know the diner sucks, but that’s kind of a long game you’re playing there.”

  He rolls his eyes at me. “I’m fine. And when I’m at work, I feel like I’m still useful. Like I have a role, you know?”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “Yeah, maybe. That doesn’t make it not true.”

  “I’ll tell you what your role is, Perkins. It’s to be part of our group. If you need more responsibility, you can be treasurer. I’ll talk to Sarah, pull some strings.”

  “Do we even have a treasury?”

  I shrug. “Probably not. Actually, I think we all owe Sarah ten bucks for lunch two weeks ago.”

  “You mean you do. Me and Kat paid her back.”

  “Someone claiming to be my interdimensional doppleganger is out there wreaking havoc, and you’re just going to miss it?”

  “He doesn’t sound like he’s wreaking havoc.”

  “He wears body spray while looking like me. That’s havoc enough. And if all this isn’t a good enough reason to drop your horrible job and actually do cool superhero stuff with us, I don’t know what is.”

  “I’ll think about it. Maybe.”

  “Well, think about it a little faster. Your mom said I get another twenty if I actually convince you.”

  Chapter 10

  “HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT what I said about being on the show?” Gordon asks me, sounding super eager about it, even though it’s the middle of the night—way past his bedtime, if you ask me, though I guess it is the weekend—and wearing his pajamas and a bathrobe.

  Kat’s waiting for me upstairs, now that she’s back from visiting her grandparents, and I lost the coin toss to come down to the kitchen and grab us some snacks before we watch a movie, sans Amelia, and not just because Amelia’s been being kind of a bitch to me lately. More like because by “watch a movie,” I actually mean “take off all our clothes and see what happens.” And, spoiler alert, by “see what happens,” I mean “have sex.”

  And then restart the movie so we can watch all the parts we missed, because I do really want to see Hell Pirates from Space, the sequel to Pirate Zombies from Hell, though I hear it’s more of a companion than a true sequel, and it did come straight to video, but still.

  I grab a couple of cheese slices from the fridge, then give him a look like he must be insane, because clearly he is. “Are you serious?”

  “I saw the news tonight.” He can barely contain the excitement in his voice. “What you did at the water park.”

  “That wasn’t—” I sigh. “Dad, come on. It’s after midnight. I have company. Do we really have to have this discussion now?”

  “You’re a hero, Damien. I always knew it, and now you can’t hide it anymore.” He sounds so disgustingly happy about that. And maybe kind of righteous, too.

  I stare at him. I was considering making popcorn, but that’s going to be another couple minutes of possibly standing around with him, having to listen to this. I grab an apple instead. “I thought you understood that all that hero stuff isn’t me.” I say that kind of slowly, watching his reaction.

  His smile falters a little, but he doesn’t seem that upset about it. “I did, but things have changed. You’ve changed. You’re finally following in my footsteps.”

  “I know you think that, but—”

  He holds up his hands, chuckling a little to himself over my denial. “I know you probably don’t want to follow in them exactly. You have your own life to live, your own path to forge. I get that.”

  “Do you?”

  “Being my sidekick on TV doesn’t mean you can’t be yourself. Even if you do choose to take over for me one day, there’s only one Crimson Flash. You’ll figure it out.”

  I press my palm to my forehead. “It’s not me.”

  “Okay, okay.” He chuckles again, like he thinks me denying it is cute or something.

  Ugh. I’d tell him that Kat’s waiting for me upstairs and that I’m about to go up there and do unspeakable things with her—we’ll see how cute he thinks I am then—but telling him I’m about to go sleep with a supervillain isn’t exactly not following in his footsteps, either. “I thought you were okay with me being half villain.”

  “I am, Damien. Of course I am.”

  “But you’re a lot happier now that you think I’m acting all heroic and douchey and stuff.”

  “Douchey?” He shakes his head, like he doesn’t know where I’m even getting that from. “I know being half villain will always be a part of you, and we just have to accept that. But seeing you on the news, saving those people, not being able to deny your hero side any longer… I just can’t tell you how much it means to me. I’m so proud that you’re finally embracing what I’ve always tried to teach you.”

  A cold feeling slithers through my stomach. “But if that wasn’t me, if I was the same as I’ve always been, you’d still be proud of me, right?”

  He pats my shoulder like he thinks I’m kidding. “You don’t have to worry about that, Damien. You saved those people. That was a good—”

  A scream from upstairs interrupts him. Two screams, actually, both of them terrified.

  One of them was definitely Kat. And the other…

  The other one sounded a lot like me.

  Gordon beats me to the attic. I mean, of course he does. But I still make it up the stairs in record time.

  Adrenaline floods my veins and sparks race along my back. The door to my room is open, and Kat’s standing there, looking freaked, and other me—I mean, the impostor—is there, too, only he has his arms folded and is staring at the floor. His face is super red. So is Kat’s.

  Gordon gapes at him. “Damien?”

  He looks up. “Dad?”

  Electricity surges beneath my skin. “Are you okay, Kat? Did he do anything to you?”

  “Do anything to her?” other me says. And fine, maybe I am calling him that, even though he’s definitely not me. “She’s the one who assaulted me!”

  Kat’s face goes even more red. “I didn’t know! I thought he was you!”

  “You thought he was me?!”

  “Just for a split second! It was dark. I was, um…” She glances up at Gordon, then away again. She swallows. “I knew right away it wasn’t you, but it was too late.”

  “What… what’s going on?” Gordon asks.

  I hear Amelia’s door open, suspiciously late, considering she’s practically the drama police. You’d think people screaming in terror in the next room over would have gotten her attention. “What happened?” she says, surveying the scene, her eyes wide.

  A little too wide, if you ask me. And the gasp she gives when she sees that there’s two of me sounds anything but genuine. I glare at her, sparks running along my arms now. “You knew! You knew he was here!”

  “Whaaat? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Leave her alone,” other me snaps.

  And then Amelia gets this little smirk on her face that tells me I was right and makes me want to murder her.

  Gordon’s still staring at all of us. “Will someone just tell me what the hell is going on?!”

  Other me points at Kat. “She assaulted me! Sexually!”

  Amelia gasps—for reals this time.

  Kat cringes and wraps her arms around herself. “I thought he was you,” she repeats.

  My blood runs cold.

  Gordon looks like he’s sorry he asked. “That’s not what I…” He glances between other me and Kat, like he’s not sure which situation takes priority—finding out why there are two of me or sorting out other me’s claims of Kat sexually assaulting him. Eventually he settles on me, giving me an accusing look. “You want to tell me what all this is about?”

  As if I care about answering him right now. “Kat, what happened?” I put my arms around her. “Are you okay?”

  She nods. “I sort of, um…” She glances over at Gordon and Amelia, like she doesn’t want to say this in f
ront of them.

  “She stuck her hands down my pants,” other me says.

  I feel Kat cringe. “I thought he was you!”

  Helen appears in the doorway in her pajamas. “What’s going…” She stops there, gaping at us.

  “She stuck her hands down my pants,” other me says, sounding fed up about the whole situation.

  “For the last time,” Kat shouts, “I thought you were Damien!”

  “I am Damien!”

  “No, I’m Damien,” I correct him. “You’re… Other Damien. And you’re the one who was sneaking into my room and pretending to be me!” Lightning sparks beneath my skin again, and I have to let go of Kat so I don’t zap her.

  “I’m not pretending to be anybody!”

  I take a step toward him, electricity crackling along my arms.

  “Wow,” Amelia says, her voice oozing with sarcasm, “it’s like I can’t even tell them apart.”

  Other me swallows, his face going pale, but he stands his ground. “I came into your room to borrow more clothes, okay? I didn’t know anyone was in here. I sure as hell wasn’t expecting a naked girl to stick her hands down my jeans.”

  Everyone looks at Kat, who must secretly be naked and is just shapeshifted to look like she’s fully dressed, then at the pile of her clothes on the floor.

  “Oh, my God,” she mutters, covering her face with her hands.

  I glance down at other me. “Those look like my jeans. And my shoes!”

  “Mine have a rock in them. I couldn’t get it out.”

  “What happened to ‘staying with a friend?’”

  “I am.” He gestures to Amelia, who could compete in the smug Olympics right now, she looks so pleased with herself. “Amelia’s my best friend back home.”

  “What? Are you serious?” I let my lightning die down and take a step back, because even though I hate this guy, he suddenly seems too pathetic to attack. “Your best friend is your sister?”

  “Uh-huh,” he says, as if that’s a totally normal thing to admit to.

  “I told you there are better people to hang out with than you,” Amelia says.

  “Can someone please explain all this?” Gordon asks, putting a hand to his temple, like the whole situation is giving him a headache.

  I take a deep breath. “You remember when I kept telling you that that guy who was on the news wasn’t me? Well, big surprise, he wasn’t. This is Damien Tines, a crappy version of me from another dimension.”

  Chapter 11

  OTHER ME STARES AT the Superstar poster on my wall and then lets out this big sigh, like everything about my existence is really putting him out. “Please tell me you have this as a joke.”

  It’s late, past one, and Gordon and Helen just left for bed a few minutes ago, after we filled them in on what’s been going on, or at least what we know of it, since other me hasn’t exactly explained very much. Now it’s just me, him, Kat, and—unfortunately—Amelia, who I tried to banish back to the depths of her room, but who other me seems to actually want around for some reason.

  I glare at him and move to stand in front of my poster. “If you don’t like it, don’t look at it.”

  He glares right back. “You actually like them?”

  “Yep. Favorite band.” I fold my arms across my chest and grin at him, savoring his disgust at my horrible taste. I mean, I don’t think it’s horrible, but at least we don’t like the same things. Because even if there are some similarities between us, we’re basically opposites with nothing in common.

  “Damn it,” he says. “They’re my favorite, too.”

  The grin fades from my face. My mouth slips open. “You take that back.”

  He lifts an eyebrow and gives me this look, and if I didn’t know better—which I guess I don’t—I’d say he was enjoying my misery. “Their new album’s the best. Freeze Ray Me? It just came out last week, but I’ve listened to it a hundred times already.”

  “Yeah… we don’t have that one here.”

  “They broke up a few months ago,” Kat says. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, right beneath the slanting wall, but she’s shorter than me and can do that without banging her head.

  Panic floods his face. “They what?!”

  I look past him at Kat. “You don’t have to sound so cheerful every time you say it. And we’ve talked about this. They didn’t break up. They’re just on hiatus.”

  She sighs. “Didn’t we also talk about how you’re in denial? They’re all doing solo stuff now.”

  Amelia’s sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. She gets this nasty smirk on her face. “That means they’re over.”

  “And she’s seriously your best friend?” I ask other me.

  “You mean the only person sticking up for me? Yes.”

  “That’s so not what’s happening, but whatever. We have more important things to discuss, like how the hell you actually got here, so we can figure out how to send you back.”

  He sighs and paces across the room, not even watching out for the creaky floorboards. I cringe inwardly every time he steps on one.

  At least, I think it’s inwardly, but then he gives me a weird, questioning look.

  Which I totally ignore, because I’m not about to explain my fear of heights to him. One he obviously doesn’t have, probably because he didn’t grow up with my mom. She didn’t implant fake fears into his brain, and he probably spent his whole life looking forward to being able to fly.

  Other Damien makes eye contact with Amelia, like he’s asking her permission for something. “Can I trust him?”

  The corners of her mouth curl into a grin. “Welllll…”

  “Amelia!” I shout.

  “Fine.” She rolls her eyes. “I guess you can trust him. And Kat, too.”

  “You mean the supervillain who stuck her hands down my pants?”

  Lightning flickers along my spine. I clench my fists. “Will you shut up about it already?”

  “She’s cool,” Amelia says. “We’re friends. And I guess her and Damien hang out sometimes.”

  “Are you kidding me?!” I run a hand through my hair, then move to sit down on the bed next to Kat, being careful about the floorboards, unlike some interdimensional dopplegangers I know. “We don’t ‘hang out sometimes.’ Kat’s my girlfriend, and you only know her because of me, so don’t act like it’s the other way around.”

  “And you don’t have to worry, because I’m keeping my hands to myself from now on,” Kat mutters, picking a piece of fuzz off my bedspread.

  “Uh, I think we need to discuss that before you make any final decisions. I happen to think you keeping your hands to yourself would be a great tragedy. One I’d probably never recover from.”

  Amelia and Other Damien make disgusted faces at that.

  Kat snorts. “We need a system. Some way to tell that you’re you.”

  “How about we just get rid of him?” I jerk my thumb toward other me. “Then there’s no problem.”

  “And you actually trust these people?” he asks Amelia, sounding skeptical.

  She nods.

  “Look,” I tell him, “it doesn’t matter if you trust us or not, because you said yourself that you’re stuck here. If you want to get unstuck, we’re what you’ve got.”

  “And Sarah.” He swallows.

  “Yeah, and Riley and Zach. But first you have to tell us what happened.”

  He takes a deep breath, then sits against the wall, next to Amelia. “It started when Sarah invented her interdimensional portal device.”

  “Don’t tell me you let her test it on you?”

  Kat elbows me. “Maybe he accidentally zapped it and made it go off.”

  Other Damien’s voice oozes with so much disdain and self-righteousness, it makes me want to punch him. “I didn’t zap anything, because I’m not the one with the villain power.” He looks over at me. “I’m surprised you still have an X when you’ve obviously already made your choice.”

  “That’s n
ot…” I shake my head and take a deep breath, deciding to let it go. “Just tell us how you got here.”

  “Sarah invented her device, but it didn’t work.”

  I exchange a look with Kat, but we both stay silent.

  “She published some articles about it, though, claiming interdimensional travel was possible. It got a lot of attention in certain circles, and then the Mistress of Mayhem tracked her down, probably through me somehow, and stole it.”

  “Yeah, that happened here, too. Except it was Sarah’s hypno device, and Mom tracked her down before me and Sarah even knew each other.”

  He cringes on the word Mom. But then some of the worry disappears from his face, replaced with curiosity. “The same thing happened here?”

  “Like, almost a year and a half ago, but yeah. Sarah couldn’t get her device to work, but Mom stole it and figured it out.”

  “That’s what happened in my world, too, with the portal device. The Mistress of Mayhem stole it from Sarah. She did something to it and got it to work, only I didn’t know that when I went to steal it back.”

  “Wow,” Amelia says. “You really did that?”

  “Don’t sound so impressed,” I tell her. “He basically just said he went over to Mom’s house. I do that all the time.”

  “Uh, no,” Amelia says in her snottiest voice, “because the Mistress of Mayhem is really scary in his world. She’s, like, really powerful and stuff. Not like she is here. It’s different.”