The Trials of Renegade X (27 page)

Sarah stops walking, startling Heraldo when he gets to the end of his leash. She scowls at me. “You really think that’s a good idea?”

“No, I’m pretty sure I won’t like the kind of stares she gets”—and will spend the whole night trying not to fry everyone with my electricity—“but it will be worth it, since we’ll definitely be the most interesting couple there. No offense.”

“That’s
not
what I meant. I already told you, you can’t bring a supervillain to Heroesworth.”

“Yeah, but that’s when you were—” I don’t finish that sentence, since Sarah doesn’t need to know she was messed up, due to me accidentally changing her personality. “It won’t hurt anybody.” Well, except for anyone who gets mad because their date is staring at either of us a little too hard. But that’s not exactly my problem.

Sarah bites her lip. She looks up into my eyes, studying me, searching for something. “You don’t see anything wrong with that? You don’t feel ... guilty?”

“She’s my girlfriend. I can bring her to a school dance if I want to.” I stick my hands in the pockets of my sweatshirt and look down at my feet, not liking the way Sarah’s staring at me.

“And you’re not worried about going to Vilmore? You’re half superhero. What if everyone finds out?” She puts a hand on my arm, she’s so concerned about this, like any of it is actually a big deal.

“Geez, Sarah, What do you think’s going to happen? You think I can’t cut it at Vilmore for even one night?”

“They’re supervillains. If they find out, who knows what they’ll do.”

“What, you think they’re going to beat me up or something?”

“Or worse.”

I laugh. And she thinks
I’m
the ridiculous one? “You think I can’t handle them?”

“Not all of them, not all at once. And they won’t feel bad about hurting you. That’s what my mind-control experiment taught me. I was a fool to think I could catch any of them with it, because supervillains don’t feel guilty for their crimes. They’re
sociopaths
.”

“
What?
” I jerk my arm away from her, taking a step back. “You don’t mean that, Sarah.”

“Yes, I do. You just can’t see it because you’re ...” She trails off and suddenly gets real interested in watching the leaves fall.

“Whoa. You did
not
just say that.” Well, technically she didn’t, but we both know what she was going to say. That I can’t see that all supervillains are sociopaths because I
am
one.

She swallows, still not looking at me. “You’re half villain. You were raised as one. It’s only natural that your judgment would be clouded on this.”

I scowl at her. “My judgment’s not the one being clouded here. You’re the one who’s talking like you were when you ...”

“When I what?”

When she was under the influence of the personality enhancer, on the “worse” setting. An uneasy feeling settles in my stomach. “Being a supervillain doesn’t make someone a sociopath. You know that.”

She shakes her head. “Supervillains were the only ones not affected by my mind-control signals. Superheroes turned themselves in for stupid, everyday stuff, but supervillains who’d committed real crimes didn’t do
anything
.”

“You don’t know who heard those messages or not. Plus, you’ve committed crimes, and you don’t feel guilty for them.”

“I only committed crimes because I
had
to. To catch bad guys. It was for a good cause. And I know your mom almost took over the city last year, and she didn’t feel bad about it, did she? She killed your best friend—”

“
Ex
-best friend. And only to save my life.”

“—and didn’t care. She was going to enslave all the superheroes, and that seemed like a good idea to her.” Sarah tilts her head and puts a hand on her hip.

“She had her reasons.” Selfish reasons, but not insane ones. “And you don’t know she didn’t care about what she did to Pete. What she
had
to do.”

“You mean she had to kill him because he was a villain and a sociopath? One who would have killed you and me and Kat without even a second thought? And you don’t know how she felt about it, either, because you haven’t talked to her. Because her crimes were so terrible, you never wanted to speak to her again. I can’t believe you’re attempting to defend her.”

“She might have made mistakes, but she’s not a psychopath.”

“
Sociopath
. All villains have at least some sociopathic tendencies. I made a chart. I can show you later. And even without the chart, you have to admit that it’s true. After all, you’ve done plenty of things you should feel guilty for, and yet you don’t. And you’re only half villain. I’m kind of worried about you.”

I glare at her. “Same goes for you.”

“I was hoping your superhero side would be enough to counteract it. But the fact that you don’t think there’s anything wrong with bringing a supervillain to Heroesworth and endangering hundreds of lives is just proof that it isn’t.”

“God, Sarah. You
know
Kat’s not dangerous!” Electricity races up my spine and crackles in my palms, reminding me that
I’m
the dangerous one, and I clench my fists. The last thing I need is for Sarah to find out I have a villain power, now that she thinks all villains are criminally insane. And, okay, maybe Riley was right. Maybe shooting her with the personality enhancer last weekend didn’t work. Or at least I hope it didn’t, because even if I have no idea how to fix her now that the device is broken again, I don’t want to believe this is really
her
. The real Sarah might have a tendency to judge bad guys too harshly, but she doesn’t think all supervillains are evil. Or insane. Or whatever it is she’s saying they are.

And she certainly doesn’t think
I
am.

Sarah gives me a pitying look. Like it’s so sad I can’t see the truth. “She’s going to Vilmore. Where they learn how to kill superheroes.”

“Now, wait, that’s not—”

“You can’t trust her anymore. How do you know her going to Homecoming with you isn’t just some recon mission? How do you know she’s not going to go back to school on Monday and report everything she saw? And knowing you, you’d probably
give her
information.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” Just directions to the records office. That’s all. And Sarah doesn’t even know about that.

“You would. Because she’s got you wrapped around her finger. And because, at the end of the day, you identify more with supervillains than with superheroes.” She shrugs.

“That’s not—” Okay, maybe that’s a little true. “So what if I do? You can’t expect sixteen years of being a supervillain to just go away overnight.”

She sighs. “No, I can’t. Which is why you probably shouldn’t even be going to Heroesworth. It’s obvious you can’t be trusted.”

“Come on, Sarah. You trust me with your life.” And I trust her with mine. Or at least I did, before I screwed her up. “You’re not serious.”

“If you think you belong at Heroesworth, then prove it. Come to the dance Saturday night and hang out with us.
Without
Kat.”

“Yeah, sure, and why don’t you leave Mr. Perfect at home, too.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “I’m warning you, Damien.
Don’t
bring her.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“You’re half hero and half villain. You have to make a choice.” She takes the leaf I gave her out of her hair and holds it in her palm, like she’s considering crushing it. “And if you bring her to the dance, then I’ll
know
what side you’re on.”

I open the front door Thursday afternoon to see Zach, who I invited, and Riley, who I did not.

“Hello, Zach,” I say, purposely ignoring Riley. “Why don’t you come in?”

He glances around warily, probably making sure Amelia isn’t lurking anywhere, waiting to strike. She’s up in her room, but he doesn’t know that, and otherwise we’re the only ones home. When he sees that it’s safe, he takes a deep breath and steps inside. Riley tries to follow him, but I put up a hand to block him.

“What are you doing here, Perkins? I distinctly remember messaging Zach, not you.”

“Ah, but we’re
such good friends
, X, that I assumed the invitation was for both of us. Besides, he didn’t want to come here alone after what happened last time. And I don’t blame him.” He goes invisible and sidesteps me, then reappears again.

“Fine, I suppose you can come in.” But only because I need Zach here. And to not freak out or run away screaming when he finds out Amelia’s home.

“So, what am I beating you at today?” Zach says. “I mean,” he adds, grinning, “what are we playing?”

I turn on the TV and grab the controllers, tossing one to Zach. I turn on the system and put in the best game I have, which is a fighting game simply but appropriately titled
Villains vs. Heroes
. Alex is the only one who will play it with me—well, besides Kat, who isn’t allowed in the house—and Gordon and Helen don’t exactly look favorably on it. Even though it’s just a game and you can pick any characters you want—you don’t have to have heroes and villains fighting each other. But they don’t really have anything to worry about, anyway, because Alex always gets distracted with making his character fly all over and do crazy jumps—he
always
picks the superhero who can fly—and doesn’t actually care about the fighting part. Which means, realistically, that I don’t have
anyone
to play it with.

Riley shakes his head at me as the game starts up. “
Heroes vs. Villains
? Let me guess—you’re playing a villain?”

“It doesn’t matter which character I play—I’ll still kick your ass.” I grab the remote and turn up the volume on the TV until it’s annoyingly loud. Just loud enough that it will attract the attention of the noise police upstairs.

“Does it have to be so loud?” Riley says, slumping down on the couch next to me.

“Yes, to drown out your whining.”

Zach smirks at that and starts flipping through the characters, trying to decide who he’s going to be.

I automatically select the villain with lightning power—the one I always play, or at least that I
used
to—and then think better of it and hit cancel.

“Great choice,” Riley mutters, though it’s hard to hear him over the blaring TV.

Zach picks a bad-ass-looking superhero girl with freeze breath. He notices I’m having a hard time choosing and says, “You can fly, right? You should pick the guy who can do that.”

“He can’t actually fly,” Riley says.

“Shut up, Perkins. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I thought Sarah said you could fly,” Zach says to me. “What other power would you have?”

Riley folds his arms and sinks back into the couch, looking real smug. “Yeah, what other power would you have?”

“Flying power is lame,” I say. Even if it maybe comes in handy sometimes, like when people throw me off of buildings. I end up picking the supervillain guy with laser eyes, because I know all his moves, and try to ignore the fact that it reminds me of my mom.

“Freeze breath vs. laser eyes,” Zach says. “I like it.”

“Flying isn’t lame,” Riley corrects me. Like he’s the superpower police. He’s as bad as Amelia. “You’re just saying that because you don’t actually have it.”

“Like I said before, I don’t have to prove anything to you.” The fight starts up and our characters appear in the middle of a tall building under construction. A place where flying power might actually be useful, though I regret nothing.

Zach immediately shoots me with freeze breath and then spin kicks me and jumps away. I recover from being frozen and laser him. Besides the game music, which is kind of blaring, there are a lot of sound effects from us kicking and punching and shooting our superpowers at each other. So I’m not surprised that the fight isn’t even halfway over before I hear Amelia’s door open and then her angry, tromping footsteps on the stairs.

“You’d
better
turn that down,” Amelia shouts, coming into the living room, “or I’ll—” She stops short, noticing I have guests over. Well, noticing I have one guest over in particular.

Zach glances nervously at her, looking away from the screen and giving me a chance to push him off the edge of the building. Something I would
never
do in real life.

“Go away, Amelia,” I tell her. “Can’t you see we’re busy?”

She makes a
hmph
noise and picks up the remote from the coffee table and turns the TV down. “I can be here if I want. You don’t own the living room.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not up to me.
Zach
doesn’t want you here.”

Zach gasps, looking over at me like he can’t believe I just spoke for him, then sort of ducks his head and hunches his shoulders.

Amelia’s mouth hangs open, mortified that it might be true.

“Right, Zach?” I say, kicking his character as he climbs back up the building. “You want her to leave, don’t you?”

“Well, um ...” He glances over at her guiltily, then at the screen.

“See, Amelia? He doesn’t want you here. He’s just too polite to say it.”