The Trials of Renegade X (44 page)

“You did?”

“We haven’t actually been out on any missions yet, but we’re supposed to in the next couple weeks.”

“Let me guess. You’re doing something stupid, like rescuing cats stuck in trees or helping old ladies cross the street.”

He snorts. “This isn’t the Boy Scouts. Or that stupid poster you made. How is any of that stuff going to help us stop bad guys and not get killed? How is that even a career?”

“It’s not. It’s useless. But I thought that’s what Heroesworth was all about.”

“Seriously?” He shakes his head. “We’re supposed to be retrieving stolen goods. My group got assigned this painting that was taken from the Golden City Art Museum. The guy who stole it is this supervillain called the Cat Burglar. His superpower is not making any noise. We know it was him because he left his calling card at the museum. It even said,
Come and get me, if you dare
. And there was an address.”

“Wow.” I know who he’s talking about. It’s not somebody I know personally or anything, but I’ve at least heard of him. “So, you’re going to go after him?” That actually sounds kind of cool.

“
I
said we should, but everybody else in my group shot me down. They said it was easy enough for me to say we should go, since I can turn invisible, but they can’t. They also said it’s obviously a trap and way too dangerous for them.”

“So, in other words, they
don’t
dare.”

“Exactly. And we’re not allowed to go alone. Not that I’m crazy about going by myself or anything, because it
does
sound dangerous, but it’s not even an option.”

“How are you going to get the painting back, then?”

“Oh, there’s some art auction coming up. We
think
he’s going to try and sell it there. Well, actually,
we
don’t, but Brian does, and he convinced Brittany and David that crashing the auction is our best chance at getting it back.”

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s going to be gone by then. And that even if it’s not, there are going to be too many people at the auction. Probably a lot of supervillains. It’s unpredictable. I get that they want to do it because it sounds safer, at least on the surface. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.” He sighs. “We’re
so
going to fail this assignment.”

“So, you finally get past all the boring crap and get to do something exciting, and they just want to sit there and fail?
Lame
.”

He grins. “See, I wish you were in my group. You can’t turn invisible, but you’d still go with me to scope out the Cat Burglar’s place.”

“Yeah, I would.” I’d go even if it wasn’t an assignment. Which I guess it isn’t, at least not for me.

“So, why did you have to go and get yourself expelled?”

I glare at him. “You’re the one who told me I should quit.”

He looks away guiltily and shrugs. “I was wrong. It’s too bad you screwed up so royally.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I just mean it’s too bad you can’t come back.”

“Yeah, maybe it kind of is. But I’m a supervillain. I mean, half supervillain.”

“You’re half hero, too. And I don’t really care
what
you are. You’re braver than anybody else I know. Kind of stupid sometimes, but if you were in our group, we wouldn’t be failing this. And even if the others were on board with chasing down the Cat Burglar, I’d
still
rather have you go with me than all of them.”

Wow. “It’s too bad I screwed up so much then.”

“Yeah,” he says. “It really is.”

Chapter 32

I FIND SARAH IN the park on Sunday afternoon after trying her house first. I expect her to be walking Heraldo, but instead she’s picking up trash along the jogging trail. She looks up when I approach, her face going pale. She’s still got a big bruise on her cheek from where Kat punched her.

“Hey, Sarah.”

“What are you doing here?” she says.

I could ask her the same thing. “I had to make sure you were okay. You didn’t come see me.”

She bends down to pick up an empty water bottle and stuffs it into a big plastic bag she’s got. “I didn’t think it was a good idea. Not after what I did.”

“Sarah, it wasn’t you. It was the personality enhancer.”

“That
I
made.”

“Yeah, and that
I
broke. Everything that happened was my fault.”

She bites her lip. “Damien, I was going to use it on you. I was going to try to
change
you.”

Heraldo comes bounding up to her with a stick he must have been fetching. He gets really excited when he sees me and jams his nose in my crotch without letting go of the stick first, jabbing me in the leg, which is still sore.

“
Ow
.”

“Heraldo,
no
,” Sarah scolds.

He backs off.

“Thanks, Sarah, that—” A couple of giant dog paws hit me in the chest as Heraldo jumps on me, unable to contain his excitement after all. He knocks me over, and I land on my back in the grass with an
oof
.

Sarah makes him get off of me and go lie down. Then she looms over me and offers me her hand to help me up. “See?” she says. “Being around me is dangerous.”

I raise an eyebrow at her while I dust bits of grass and dirty paw prints off of myself. “You think you’re the dangerous one? Because I’m pretty sure that’s me.”

“I saw the news, by the way,” she says. “Congratulations.”

“Yeah, well ... thanks, I guess.” Vilmore made a big public announcement today, offering me admission. And a full-ride scholarship. I saw it on the TV this morning at the same time as Gordon, who turned around and looked at me, like ... Well, not like he was angry so much as just
hurt
. Like as soon as he heard them say the words, he knew that he’d lost me and was never going to see me again. “They just did it for the publicity.”

“It’s what you always wanted, though, right? So it doesn’t matter why they gave it to you.”

I stick my hands in my pockets. “I’m not taking it.”

She gets in my face and peers at me through her glasses. “Have you been to the doctor? Because I think all that electricity might have done more damage than you thought.”

“I’m not crazy, Sarah.”

“But you
have
to take it. No other schools want you, and it’s a big opportunity.” She shakes her head at me and bends down to pick up more garbage.

“Yeah, it is. But it doesn’t feel right.” She’s also one of the last people I thought would be congratulating me about it. “And I thought you didn’t want me to be a supervillain. You said you couldn’t be my sidekick if I got a
V
.”

“I’ve been rethinking my views on that. I was awfully villainous, and I didn’t have
any
letter. So, you were right—as long as I agree with what you’re doing, the technicalities shouldn’t matter. But I think I’m going to be too busy for the foreseeable future to be your sidekick anyway.”

She drops a candy bar wrapper as she’s stuffing garbage into her bag, and I reach down to grab it for her.

Her mouth drops open in horror. “What are you
doing
?”

“Helping you.”

“Don’t!” She snatches the wrapper out of my hand. “This is
my
punishment, Damien.”

“Punishment? For what?”

“See, you
do
have brain damage.”

“I
don’t
. Geez. I told you I’m all right.”

“No, you said you weren’t crazy, which is just what you
would
say if you were. And if you don’t have brain damage, then you know exactly why I need to be punished. After everything I did, I can’t just go back to normal and pretend nothing happened. Even if my personality enhancer changed me, I still committed crimes. I thought about turning myself in for what I did at Vilmore, since I didn’t get caught. But then I decided to sentence myself to community service for a while instead. Besides picking up litter, I’m going to volunteer at a retirement home and at an animal shelter. I’ll give it a few months, and if I’m not seeing results by then, I’ll reconsider.”

“Reconsider
what
? And what results?”

“If I don’t feel like I’m making up for what I did, I’ll reconsider turning myself in. I feel so guilty for everything, and if doing community service doesn’t make it go away, then I’ll know I need to be locked up.”

“Wow. Are you sure
you’re
not the crazy one?”

“I hurt you, Damien. A lot. I don’t even know why you’re talking to me right now. Maybe you broke the personality enhancer, but I shouldn’t have built it in the first place. And I know why you threw yourself at that lightning beam. It wasn’t just because you’re heroic, but because you were trying to protect me. You didn’t want me to be responsible for hurting those people. Killing them, I mean.”

I poke at the grass with the toe of my shoe and scratch the back of my head. “Don’t tell me you’re mad at me for doing that, too.”

She shakes her head. “I’m just glad everybody’s okay.”

“Right. Well, they
are
. We both messed up, but everybody’s fine now. So, let’s forget about it.”

“Maybe everyone else is, but you’re not. You got expelled from Heroesworth, because of what I did. If it wasn’t for me hurting Kat, you wouldn’t have lost control of your lightning.”

“It was bound to happen eventually.” Well, probably. I mean, we don’t know
for sure
that I couldn’t have kept my power in check and hidden it from everyone forever. Though I guess I can admit now that it does sound somewhat unlikely.

“But not like
that
. Even if someone found out about your power, it wouldn’t have been because you blew up the gym. It wouldn’t have been all over the news. And I can’t make up for what I did to you, but if you take the offer from Vilmore, then at least
something
good will have come out of this.”

“Sarah, you don’t need to make it up to me. I should be making it up to
you
. And what about the Crimson Flash? How’s it going to look for him if I go there?” I know how it would look for me, at least—like he was getting rid of me. Like he didn’t want me around anymore.

“He wants you to be happy, doesn’t he? Now you can still go to school. And you can be with Kat. You can’t base your whole life on how it will look for him.”

“I know, but ...” My stomach feels heavy, like there’s a rock in it. I shift my weight from one foot to the other. “Maybe I don’t want to go there anymore.”

“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t. You spent practically every waking moment with Kat this summer. And now you can essentially go live with her.”

“Yeah, and it’s not that I don’t want that. And I’m not saying it’s not hard, not getting to see her all the time. But I
do
still see her, and if I go to Vilmore, I’ll be leaving all my other friends behind. I’ll never see my family again, either.”

“You can come home on weekends.”

“I don’t see that happening.” Maybe Gordon won’t disown me, like Mom did, but I’ve only lived with them for a little over half a year. If I moved out now, especially to go to Vilmore, of all places, then Gordon’s house wouldn’t feel like my home anymore. It would feel like I was giving up on being his son. “And I don’t think never seeing you again is a good thing. I mean, is that what you want? To never see me again?”

“Of course not! But maybe it’s for the best.”

“Why? Because you think you’re evil? Look, Sarah, remember when you were trying to get criminals to turn themselves in with those mind-control messages?”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Well, it was good people who did that. And I’m not saying that the people who didn’t turn themselves in were sociopaths or whatever. But the people who did felt guilty, even about little everyday stuff they did wrong. And you feel
really bad
for what you did. You’re trying to make up for it. You wouldn’t be doing that if you were evil. You’re a good person, Sarah.”

She thinks about that for a second, her mouth falling open a little. Some of the worry disappears from her face. “I might not be evil, but I don’t see how you can forgive me. Even if you ignore all the stuff I did under the influence of the personality enhancer, I was still going to use it to change you.”

“Yeah, and that sucks, and I wish you hadn’t.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I was being a jerk, though. Not that that makes it okay to use your gadgets on me, but I get why you wanted me and Riley to get along.” Kat and Sarah are my closest friends, and it would be cool if I didn’t have to worry about them murdering each other if they’re ever in the same room. “And you were right. About us being friends once we got to know each other.”

“I was?” She grins. Just for a second. Then she looks guilty again. “I shouldn’t have tried to force you to be friends, though. It was wrong, and it wouldn’t have worked, anyway. I see that now. And I shouldn’t have tried to change you, either, Renegade. I like you how you are.”

“That’s right you do, Cosine.” I smile at her.

“But if you and Riley are friends, then that means something good
did
come out of all this. So you don’t have to go to Vilmore.”

“Great. Thanks. Glad I have your permission.”

“But if you don’t take the offer, then what are you going to do?”

“Well, Gordon told me he’s never kicking me out. So who needs school? And Kat’s allowed in the house now. I’ll just stay in the attic the rest of my life. Part of your community service can be visiting me and telling me about the outside world and stuff.”

“I’m not going to be doing community service for
that
long.”

“That’s okay. I’m pretty sure I would die of boredom after only a couple weeks of being cooped up like that, anyway.”

She calls over Heraldo, who’s lying in the grass like she told him, watching us intently. I pick up his stick and throw it for him. He actually goes chasing after it right away this time, without looking to Sarah first. Hell must have frozen over while I wasn’t looking.