The Rise of Renegade X (7 page)

“Yeah, sure.” I believe she was hurt by us breaking up. I wouldn’t have believed it then, but I do now. It’s just not enough. “That doesn’t change the fact that you ruined things, and now I’m over you.”

She covers her eyes with her hands and sobs again.

Part of me wants to put my arms around her and comfort her and tell her I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any of that, and it’s going to be okay. I could have her back, and maybe it really would turn out all right this time. But the other part of me feels like she’s getting what she deserved. She hurt me, and I didn’t see her crying about it then.

Eventually I slide my arms around her, because I can’t stand being so mean to her, but I don’t tell her it’s going to be okay. “You’re my best friend, Kat. You mean a lot to me. But we’re never going to be more than that. We could have been, but we’re not. Okay?”

Her shoulders heave harder and snot slides down from her nose and onto her lip. She nods into my shoulder, too upset to talk.

There’s a long, awkward pause. The Crimson Flash is still staring at me from the TV, only now it feels like he’s angry at me for lying to Kat. But if I told Kat the truth, that I’m actually crazy about her, and if we got back together and things didn’t work out again? I don’t know that we could stay friends. How many rounds of not talking to someone can you take before it’s really over?

“Kat, I—”
I like you. I really
, really
like you, and we should spend all our time together and make fun of superheroes and listen to dumb pop bands and go to Vilmore and be some kind of supervillain duo
. I’ll bet Kat and I would make great partners in crime. But … my throat constricts when I try to tell her that, and instead I get up from the bed. In other words, I chicken out. “I should go.”

“Wait.” Kat jumps up and catches me before I get to the door. Her face is red and blotchy and covered in tears. She picks up Mr. Wiggles from the floor and shoves him into my arms. “Don’t forget your birthday present.”

I nod. I hug her before I go—as if I hadn’t played with her feelings enough—and she clings to me, her fingers gripping my sweatshirt. There’s a wet spot on my chest when she finally steps back. “Bye, Damien,” she says. She says it like it might be the last time she’ll ever see me.

“Bye, Kat,” I tell her, feeling like I’m losing her all over again. Then Mr. Wiggles and I are out of there.

T
he next morning, I’m on the trail of the Crimson Flash. It was a little more difficult to track him down than the others, since he’s out wandering the streets of Golden City with his camera crew at half past the crack of dawn—did I mention I hate getting up early?—but I sweet-talked the secretary at the TV station into telling me what neighborhood he’s visiting this morning.

The Crimson Flash is a right, upstanding citizen, and I
so
don’t want him to be my father. Not only can he fly and not only does he do good deeds all the time, but he has to go blasting it all over television. If one of the others was my dad, I could forget about it and not have to have the shame rubbed in my face all the time.

I catch up to the Crimson Flash on the street. He’s with his film crew, getting exciting footage of rescuing a kitten from a tree in someone’s yard. Square jaw, neatly combed hair that does
not
look anything like mine—even if it is the same shade of black—and a billowing cape. When he’s not out raising money to save orphanages and helping people down from flaming apartment buildings, he’s on TV, helping lost kittens out of trees.

I cross the street, ignoring the sounds of the man in the next yard arguing on his cell phone and kicking his lawn mower, which apparently doesn’t work. I approach the film crew and act like I’m a curious bystander, edging my way closer. Then I pretend I don’t notice what’s going on and walk over to the Crimson Flash. The camera guy’s assistant sticks his arm out to block me. He doesn’t say anything, just jerks his head in the other direction, indicating I shouldn’t get too close.

Damn. This is going to be more annoying than I thought.

“Don’t worry, kids,” the Crimson Flash says, pointing straight up at the mewling kitten, “the Crimson Flash is on the job.”

“Excuse me, sir!” I say, before he can fly six feet in the air and pull the fluffball to safety.

Everyone turns and looks at me, like they think I’m nuts if I don’t realize they’re filming.

I run up to the Crimson Flash, beaming at him. “You’re all about helping people, right?”

Genuine concern wrinkles his brow. “What can I do for you, son?”

Son.
Great word choice. “I need a hair sample, if you don’t mind. It’s for school. For a project.” I’ve never been to school. That makes it harder to lie about it, but saying you’re doing a project seems to make people listen.

The Crimson Flash frowns. A breeze tugs on his cape. The kitten mewls nonstop in the tree, and the camera crew mutters angrily about how they’re not going to get out of here on time.

“A hair sample,” he says, eyeing my gloved hands with suspicion. He knows that a single hair could prove fatal for him if an enemy got ahold of it.

“Please, mister Flash, I only need one more. Everyone else in my class already has theirs.”

His mouth slips open as he ponders my request. He’s about to give in, and then he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, son, but I can’t do that.”

The camera crew breathes a collective sigh of relief now that they can get rid of me and get back to work.

“I’ll make a bet with you,” I say as the Crimson Flash readies himself to save the kitten. I nod at the tree. “If I can safely get that cat out of there without moving from this spot, will you give me the sample?”

He looks up at how high the branch is, then raises his eyebrows at me.

One of the crew mutters, “I gotta see this.”

The Crimson Flash thinks it over. Then he folds his arms, a superior smile on his face. “All right,” he says. He doesn’t think I’ll win; he’s probably a man of his word, he’ll probably give me the hair sample when I do, but I’m not taking chances. “And what if you lose?” he asks.

“I won’t.” I bend down and pick up a pebble. I squint at a branch in the tree, pinching the pebble between my forefinger and thumb, getting ready to shoot it. I take my left glove off and lick my forefinger, then hold it up to test the wind. Everyone is mesmerized. Nobody makes a sound except the cat in the tree and the neighbor in the next yard, too afraid of interrupting my calculations. Carefully, I position my hand, lining up the stone with the tree and muttering to myself about angles and carrying the one.

Then I shoot. The pebble sails through a pair of branches and over the white picket fence, beaning the neighbor on the head.

“Ow!” he shouts. “Who threw that?” He forgets about his lawn mower and glares at me.

I hold out my hand. “I need to borrow your phone. It’s an emergency!” I left mine at home. Plus, bothering this guy is more fun.

He eyes the film crew suspiciously. He doesn’t seem to notice the man in full superhero garb standing next to me. Maybe he doesn’t realize it’s a TV show about the real thing. Finally, he says, “I’ll call you back,” and hangs up, then grudgingly tosses the phone to me.

I catch it in both hands and dial a couple of numbers before going, “Oh, oops, that’s not how you work this thing. …” I bare my teeth at it and keep pressing buttons. I hear everyone around me groan, except the Crimson Flash, who stands patiently beside me. Finally I finish dialing. Before the phone stops ringing, I hold it up to my ear and start talking into it, as if there was another person on the line. “I’ve got an emergency here. You’re going to need to send a truck out right away.”

Mom answers the phone. “Hello?”

“Er, hold on. …”

“Damien? Is that you?”

I cover the receiver end with my hand and turn to the Crimson Flash. “What’s the address here?”

He scrunches his eyebrows together in distrust. “Who are you calling?”

“Just the fire department. Do you know the address or not?”

“The fire department?! Kid, you can’t—” He takes a deep breath, all flustered, and grabs the phone from me.

“Hello?” he says. “This is the Crimson Flash. I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. We don’t need any—” All the blood suddenly drains from his face. He swallows.

Damn. I shut my eyes, hoping this isn’t happening, but when I open them again, he still has the same reaction, which is more revealing than a DNA test. He stares at me, his expression completely blank. His hand goes limp and the phone slips and lands in the grass. I can hear my mother’s voice.

“That boy! I can’t believe he told you. I don’t know how he knew. I wasn’t going to say anything. I didn’t put him up to it, believe me—”

I reach down and hang up, then toss the phone back to the neighbor across the fence. The Crimson Flash probably would have kept his word about giving me the DNA sample, but I don’t want promises, I want results.

“You okay, boss?” the cameraman asks.

“Let’s take a break,” the Crimson Flash says. The camera crew shuffles off, groaning, but he paces in front of the fence, his head in his hands.

When no one’s watching, I take out a portable laser from the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt. It’s not the kind of laser jerks use to point at the screen with in the movie theater. It’s the kind of laser you carry around so you can make jokes like, “I have my mother’s eyes.” Well, if you’re me. (And then people glare at you like it’s not even a little bit hilarious.) I point it at the tree and tap the button. There’s a quick
joop
sound as the laser slices through the branch, then a yowl as kitten and branch hurtle through the air. I reach out and grab the kitten before it can hit the ground.

I turn and grin at the Crimson Flash. “Don’t worry,” I tell him. “You can keep the hair sample.”

This is a nightmare. The Crimson Flash, superhero extraordinaire,
is at my house
. Who does he think he is, coming here to confront my mom like this? And saying things like, “He’s half superhero—it’s not fair for him to only be around villains!”

Like I’d want to be around anyone else. Plus, who cares if I’m half hero? Once my
X
changes into a V—which it will, someday—we can put all this “half superhero” business behind us and never mention it again. And no cape-wearing loser is going to tell me otherwise, even if he is my father.
Shudder
.

The Crimson Flash stands all straight and tall and can’t quite look my mom in the eyes.

Mom is furious. She charges her lasers in my direction, then gets hold of herself. It’s like witnessing a bullfight. She’s about to kill someone, and he’s got the red cape. If only she had a nose ring.

“What gives you the right to come in here and demand that
my
son—”

“I’ll remind you, Marianna, he’s half
mine
. As is evident by that mark on his thumb.”

Mom cringes. “Like hell he is. You didn’t raise him! You didn’t spend sixteen years putting up with—”

“He’s half superhero! He doesn’t know anything other than villainy, but that’s not his fault—”

“If you interrupt me one more time!” Mom clenches her fists. She stomps around the living room in a big circle, shaking her finger at the Crimson Flash. “What we did was a big
mistake
. You don’t have any right to come here.”

“No right?” The Crimson Flash gestures to himself with both hands, outraged. “He’s my kid!”

I slump down in an armchair with a bag of potato chips. I pick out the folded ones and crunch on them as loud as I can.

“Maybe I didn’t tell you about him for a reason!” Mom jabs her finger into the end of the Crimson Flash’s nose.

“Aw, you don’t have to fight, guys,” I say. “There’s enough of me to go around.”

They ignore me.

“He’s only a villain because you raised him that way,” the Crimson Flash says with conviction. “He could be a real hero, deep down.”

She laughs. “Gordon, have you
met
him?”

“I resent that,” I say with a mouthful of chips. “I’m quite charming.”

Mom tugs on her hair, practically ripping it out. “You can’t take him. You can’t take my little boy.”