The Betrayal of Renegade X (Renegade X, Book 3) (11 page)

“Nothing right now,” Sarah says, as if that was a completely normal question. “Just make some flames.”

Kat clutches my arm tighter, obviously not liking this one bit.

Her grandpa makes fire come to life in his hands. As soon as he does, the watch face lights up and starts blinking and making a loud warning noise. A noise that’s echoed down the hall in the nurses’ station.

It’s hard to hear, because the alarms are so loud, but I think Sarah says, “Oh, good, it works.”

Some people from the audience start clapping, like they don’t know what else to do, and the rest cover their ears.

“All right,” Sarah says, practically shouting to be heard above the alarms. “You can stop now.”

Kat’s grandpa stares at his hands, which are still covered in flames.

“You can turn your power off now!” she says again, louder this time, as if he just didn’t hear her.

“I’m trying! It’s— This thing won’t let me! How are you supposed to stop it?” It might just be me, but it looks like the flames in his hands are getting higher. And I’m not an expert or anything, since I’m still not sure if exploding is on its list of possible actions, but I don’t think Sarah’s gadget is supposed to keep people from turning off their powers. Or whatever it’s doing.

“You push the button!”

“What button?”

Sarah reaches over and presses something on the side of the watch thingy. It doesn’t turn off. Her eyebrows come together and she starts to look worried.

“I can’t make it stop,” Kat’s grandpa says. The flames in his hands are definitely getting higher now. “I’m losing control!”

“Oh, great,” Riley mutters, as if he knew all along something like this would happen.

The flames blast out of Jerry’s hands and start spreading across the floor.

Sarah has to step back, unable to keep messing with the device to turn it off, on account of her volunteer being on fire.

“I’m fine,” Jerry assures everyone, not sounding completely convincing. “No need to worry.” That’s great for him and all, since he’s immune to his own power, but the rest of us aren’t exactly fireproof. In fact, some of the audience members have started evacuating.

Riley swears and gets out his phone, presumably to call 911. Again.

“I don’t understand!” Sarah clutches at her hair. “I don’t know what went wrong—the device isn’t supposed to mess with anyone’s powers, just trigger the alarm.”

Kat glares at her, like this is all her fault, which I guess it kind of is. “It wasn’t enough for you to try and kill my boyfriend—you have to try and kill my grandpa, too?”

“I didn’t—”

“Do something!”

Sarah glances around the room for a solution. Then she sucks in her breath and points at the ceiling. “Renegade, zap the sprinklers!”

Kat scowls at Sarah using my superhero name.

“Got it, Cosine!” I say her sidekick name out of habit, before I have a chance to realize that it might piss off Kat even further. It probably does, but I have more important things to worry about.

I zap one of the metal sprinkler heads, and then
another
alarm goes off, this one even more blaring, and water rains down on us. It puts out the fire and soaks everyone’s clothes. The alert bracelet stops blinking and sending out alerts or whatever, and Kat’s grandpa is finally able to turn his power off.

“Are you okay?” Kat asks him.

“I was all right the whole time,” he says. “I just couldn’t stop the flames.”

Right. He certainly didn’t
look
okay, when he was busy freaking out.

Kat’s grandma, also completely soaked, comes up and takes his arm. Some nurses and other retirement-home staff hurry into the room to assess the damage.

“I’m sorry,” Sarah says, taking the bracelet back and staring at it in extreme disappointment.

“It’s all right,” Kat’s grandpa tells her. “No harm done.”

Kat’s grandma gives Sarah a reassuring smile. “You meant well.”

Sarah looks to Kat. “I’m sorry. I really—”

Kat turns her back to Sarah without saying a word and storms out of the room.

“Kat, wait.” I glance over at Sarah and Riley, then hurry after her.

She stops in the hallway when I put my hand on her shoulder. Her eyes are wet, like she’s about to cry. “I hate her,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself. Water pours off of her clothes and puddles on the floor.

“It was an accident.”

“I know. And I still hate her. And you didn’t have to call her Cosine.” She sounds especially hurt by that.

“That’s just... I was in superhero mode. She’s my sidekick.” Sort of. She’s on a self-imposed hiatus right now, after what happened last fall.

Kat winces. “We were supposed to be a team.”

“We are.”

“Not like that. Not, you know, working together.” She leans her head against the wall and sighs. “I hate that I’m never going to have that with you.” Her eyes really are watering now, and she rubs her palms against them and sniffs.

I swallow, feeling like a jerk, even though I don’t know what I was supposed to do differently. “Kat.” I put my arms around her, and she leans into me. The water in our clothes squishes together. “We’re always going to be a team.”

“Except that I’m a villain and you’re a hero.”

“That doesn’t have to mean we can’t ever work together.”

But she gives me this really skeptical look when I say that. Hopeful, but skeptical, like she knows it’s never going to happen.

I
’m on the phone with Kat Christmas morning, after the ripping-open-presents frenzy. The space under the Christmas tree seems really empty now, especially since Helen’s already gathered up all the discarded wrapping paper and shoved it in a garbage bag to recycle later. I’m sitting on the couch with my feet on the edge of the coffee table, while Alex plays with his new toys and watches some Christmas movie on TV. Jess is curled up next to me, hugging the stuffed aardvark I gave her while also watching the movie. Amelia’s in her room, Helen’s in the kitchen, on the phone with her sister, and Gordon’s outside shoveling snow out of the driveway so they can go to his parents’ house. He tried to get me to go do manual labor with him, but I pretended I was already on the phone and didn’t hear him, even though I hadn’t actually called Kat yet.

“What did you get?” Kat asks. She already told me she got a new set of scrapbooking supplies—Vilmore edition, for all those school memories, I guess—a new set of skis (probably to encourage her to go on more trips without me), and an electric kettle, which was a gift from her aunt, and which her mom has warned her is a fire hazard no less than four times already, as if she thinks Kat will burn down her entire dorm and maybe the rest of the school, too.

I told Kat it would be a shame if I’d saved Vilmore from Sarah’s lightning machine only to have a plastic teapot do the job instead.

“I got the worst present ever,” I tell Kat. “Amelia got a cell phone.”

“Wow. The gift that keeps on taking. So, your parents have completely lost it?”

“Apparently.” Amelia’s been begging for a cell phone the whole time I’ve known her, and Gordon and Helen have always said no way, despite pretty much everyone in the universe having one, since Amelia’s glued to the phone enough as it is. I guess they changed their minds. “There was much squealing and shrieking when the wrapping paper came off.” There’s still the occasional squealing coming from her room, where she’s calling everyone she knows to brag and give them her new number. She even texted it to
me
, as if I care, and as if I won’t make sure she regrets it later.

“What did you really get?” Kat asks.

“A hooded Heroesworth sweatshirt.” A present that says,
We’re so happy you’re going to hero school.
Please
don’t get kicked out again.
At least it wasn’t an all-expenses-paid trip to psycho camp, which I was kind of dreading. I even checked the pockets on the sweatshirt, just to make sure there wasn’t some hidden envelope with my group therapy itinerary or anything. There wasn’t.

“Your parents know you so well. Did you also get one of those pennant flags so you can display your school spirit on your wall? Or maybe some notebook paper and pencils, the better to get
A
pluses with?”

My parents might not know me at all, but Kat sure does. “They got me a new comforter, for my bed, with matching sheets and pillow cases. I think that was meant to be a present for both of us.”

She laughs. “Tell them I said thanks, but if it’s red and gold, I’m sending it back.”

Red and gold are Heroesworth colors. My sweatshirt is dark red with the Heroesworth logo embroidered in gold thread over the heart. Thankfully, my new bedding isn’t from the school store. “It’s dark blue. It’s soft. You’ll like it.”

Jess leans into me, resting her head against my upper arm. “Soft,” she says, petting her stuffed aardvark, which is, in fact, very soft. Then she jams its long snout into me, pretending it’s biting me. I can tell because she makes chomping and chewing noises while she does it.

I’m not sure if aardvarks can bite people. Or if they even chew. I always kind of thought they sucked up ants like a vacuum cleaner. Which, now that I think about it, is probably not true. That would be like snorting ants, which sounds kind of painful.

“Do aardvarks have teeth?” I ask Kat.

Jess says, “
Yes
,” at the same time as Kat says, “Probably. The better to chew their ants with.”

Gordon opens the front door, stomping the snow off his boots out on the mat before stepping inside. “Time to get ready,” he announces. “Alex, put your toys away. Jess, get your shoes on.” He claps his hands, indicating they should get going.

Jess pretends the aardvark is clamped onto my arm with its teeth and has to pull really hard to get it to let go. Then she trudges off to get ready. Alex shoves his toys off toward the wall, then glances at Gordon to see if he can get away with it. Gordon gives him a stern look, and Alex sighs dramatically as he gathers up his stuff to dump it in his room.

Gordon shouts for Amelia to come down. Then he turns to me. “Off the phone. Come on.”

I’m not sure who he’s talking to, so I ignore him and keep talking to Kat. “Do you want to come over and test out the new bedding?”

“What, you’re not even going to wash it first? And you should come over here, since I can’t really leave, what with it being Christmas and all. And don’t tell me you’d rather stay home alone, because that’s just sad.
And
I know it’s not true.”

“Damien.” Gordon stands in front of me, trying to get my attention. “I said get off the phone and let’s go.”

That’s not actually what he said. “Hold on,” I tell Kat. To Gordon, I say, “
What?
”

“We’re leaving. You need to get your shoes on.” He grabs my new Heroesworth sweatshirt and tosses it at me, like I’m Alex or something and incapable of getting my own coat, which I don’t even need because I’m not going anywhere.

“
You’re
leaving. I’m not.” They’re going to Gordon’s parents’ house. My supposed grandparents who made a point of inviting everyone except me.

“We’re
all
going. I don’t care what they said.” A muscle in his jaw twitches. “You’re my son. You’re part of this family, whether they like it or not.”

This from the man who could barely tell them I existed a few months ago. But today he’s decided I have to be part of the family. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I have plans.” And if I wanted to spend Christmas where I’m not wanted, I would have gone over to Mom’s house.

“You’re canceling them.” He actually grabs my phone out of my hands, says, “He’ll call you tomorrow,” and turns it off.
Off!
Seriously!

“What the hell?!”

“You can have this back in the morning, when it’s not a holiday.” He’s using his gruff “I’m your father and I know everything” voice. Which, naturally, I really, really hate.

“So you gave Amelia a phone, but now you’re taking mine?” So unfair.

“If you’d put it away when I told you to, you wouldn’t have lost it.” He says that like it’s a fact, some simple truth that’s obvious to everyone. “You need to start understanding that there are consequences to your actions.”

There’s an edge to his voice, so I know he’s not just talking about today. He’s still hung up on what I did during my final. Great. So we’re back to that again. “Uh, yeah. Have you thought about the consequences of
yours
?”

“It’s Christmas. You’re not missing Christmas dinner with the family. And... they need to know that when they invite us over, it’s all of us or none of us.”

He sounds pretty serious about that. So much so that I wonder if maybe he really
does
understand how awful this might be. “So, if they refuse to even let me through the door?”

“Then we
all
get back in the car and go home.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and sighs, like he’s worried that might be a real possibility. “Now go get your shoes on. It’s time you met your grandparents.”

G
ORDON’S PARENTS LIVE IN a white two-story house with a nice garden out front—or at least what looks like it would be a nice garden, if it wasn’t covered in snow—and a fenced-in backyard. It looks so generic and clean and non-threatening that it belongs in a magazine. One that advertises great American living. The perfect place to raise your 2.3 kids and the family dog.