The Betrayal of Renegade X (Renegade X, Book 3) (26 page)

“But—”

“No
buts
. You love her, right?”

“Yeah, of course I do.”

“Then call her already!” She rolls her eyes at me. “Boys are so dumb sometimes.”

“Okay. Um. Thanks, Amelia.”

“Whatever.” She motions for me to leave again without looking up from her phone.

I
sit on my bed and dial Kat’s number. I listen to it ring, willing her to answer. She’s been avoiding me, but even if she hadn’t, it’s Friday night, and she practically lives with all of her friends. She’s probably way too busy to—

“Hey.” Kat picks up on the fourth ring. She sounds happy I called.

“Kat.” Relief washes over me, and I slump down so I’m half-lying, half-sitting on my bed. “I thought that maybe you were...”

“Hey, get chips while you’re out!” Kat shouts at someone. “Barbecue!” Then, back to me, “Sorry, Damien, Liv’s getting party supplies. What were you saying?”

“Nothing.” It comes out bitter.
Of course
she’s having a party. Instead of coming home to see me, because I totally botched everything last time she made the effort.

“Oh.” She sounds disappointed.

Neither of us says anything for a while.

Then Kat breaks the silence. “Damien, maybe I’d better go. People are starting to show up.”

“No, wait!” I can’t just let her hang up. Not without saying what I need to say. “I really missed you this week.”

She lets out a slow breath, like she was hoping I’d say that. “Me, too.”

I think about what Amelia said, about worrying that Zach will forget her. “I think about you all the time. About what you would say if you were with me. And I know you so well, it’s almost like you’re there, but you’re not. And I hate that I don’t get to see you. I
hate
it. But even worse is not getting to talk to you, Kat. And if I had to pick one person to spend my future with, it would be you. No question. Even if it meant never seeing anybody else ever again. And I know I’ve been screwing things up lately. And maybe I don’t know how to fix it, but you’re my best friend. I love you. More than anything, and—”

“Will you come over?”

“To your dorm?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“What do you mean, when?
Now.
You should come over now. I mean,” she adds, “if you’re not busy.”

“I think I can shuffle a few things. But aren’t you having a party?”

“Sort of. Some of our friends are coming over. The boys are bringing pizza, and we’re going to watch zombie movies and hang out. We do this pretty much every weekend, but me and Tasha and Liv are hosting this time, so we got to pick the movies.”

“Oh. You’re sure you want me to come?”

“Uh, yeah. I know you don’t really know anybody, but...” She swallows. “I really want to see you. And maybe you could stay the night?”

“I’ll be there.”

“I love you, Damien. I’m sorry about this week.”

“Don’t be. I’ll see you in an hour.”

“I’ll tell them not to start the movie until you get here.”

We say good-bye and hang up. I change into my high-voltage T-shirt, throw a change of clothes in my backpack, then head downstairs. Gordon and Helen are watching a sitcom on TV. They barely glance over at me as I get my toothbrush from the bathroom, then grab a hooded sweatshirt from the closet, even though I have to walk past them twice. I come stand in the living room, ready to tell them I’m spending the night at Riley’s when they ask. Which I know they will, because it’s pretty obvious I’m leaving.

They don’t ask, though. I stand there for what feels like forever, and they don’t say anything. I clear my throat. “I’m going out.”

Gordon gives me that weird “I hardly know my own son” look he’s had ever since he found out I knew about the Truth. I think for a second that he’s going to say I have to stay home, that everybody in Golden City hates me and it’s not safe to be out at night, or that we need to talk more about what happened. But he just says, “Okay,” as if he could care less where I’m going or what I’m doing.

“I’m going to Riley’s,” I tell him, even though he didn’t ask. “I’m spending the night.” I hold up my backpack as proof.

Gordon nods in acknowledgment, then goes back to staring at the TV.

“I’ll be back tomorrow, if anyone cares.” I hesitate, giving him one last chance to tell me not to leave. Not because I don’t want to go, but because his indifference makes me feel like someone just punched me in the stomach. But nobody says anything. So I leave.

“P
ARK PLACE, WITH TWO hotels on it.” I hold my hand out to Tasha, one of Kat’s suitemates. “Pay up.”

“Not again,” she mutters, counting out her Monopoly money.

“I also accept properties if you don’t have the cash. I’m flexible like that.”

She glances over at her property cards, then sorts through her bills again.

There are six of us playing: me, Kat, Tasha, Jordan, some girl named June, and Cameron. He’s the one Kat told me about, the one who wasn’t going to ski because he makes things warm all the time. What she didn’t mention is that his last name is actually
Frost
, which I think is kind of an important detail, what with it being so ironic. A couple of guys—Nathan and Blake—are playing video games on the couch and slowly finishing off the last of the pizza. Liv’s in her room with
Tristan
, of all people, because he’s apparently her boyfriend now. Ugh. And how convenient that he’s going out with someone who lives with Kat, so he can be over all the time. He glared at me when I first got here, his mouth twisting up in a sneer, but then he gave me a half-assed shrug and said, “Hey.”

Which was weird, because he hates my guts and I hate his, and I could tell he wasn’t exactly happy that I’d shown up. But maybe he’s actually, like, respecting the fact that Kat chose me and not him. Or maybe he really has moved on and doesn’t care about our feud anymore. I find either of those options hard to believe—he obviously still hates me and he seems like the type to hold a grudge—but whatever.

Tasha finally pays up, handing over almost all of her money. I’ve got piles of it, all four railroads, the electric company, several high-end properties, including Park Place and Boardwalk, plus a few others of varying value. All of them have at least one hotel. It’s too bad this game isn’t played with real money, because I’m totally killing it.

“Ugh,” Jordon says, stretching his arms behind his back. “Can we just admit that you won and stop playing?”

Kat shakes her head, grinning. “Don’t give in to him. We’ll never hear the end of it.”

“I just don’t see the point of going back and forth for a couple more hours when we already know how it’s going to end.”

“We don’t know that,” June says. “Not for sure.” But she looks down at her three property cards and meager stack of cash and doesn’t look too convinced.

Cameron throws his cards in the middle of the board. “I’m out. Jordan’s right—there’s no point. Besides, if we’re going to watch another movie”—he checks the time on his phone and yawns—“we should do it now.”

“We’re waiting for Liv.” Tasha glances over toward the bedrooms. “She said she wanted to watch it.”

“I think she’s kind of
busy
.”

“Someone go knock,” June says, her voice hushed, as if she’s afraid Liv might hear her from the other room.

No one volunteers.

Kat gets out her phone. “I’ll text her. And if she doesn’t answer, we’ll watch it without her.”

Tasha starts putting away all the Monopoly pieces. Cameron holds his hand out to me. “Good game.”

“Thanks.” I shake with him. He doesn’t hesitate or flinch or anything. Like he’s not even considering the fact that I could electrocute him. Like he trusts that I’m not some evil psychopath out to get him.

And his hand
is
really warm.

It’s refreshing. The trusting me thing, I mean—not the warm hand thing. It’s also a relief. Nobody here tonight has looked at me like I’m the scum of the earth, or like I shouldn’t exist. Like I don’t
deserve
to. And I know it shouldn’t feel weird to be treated like a real person, but a weight lifts from my chest that I didn’t even know was there.

Cameron wanders over to the couch and tells the guys he’ll play winner if there’s time. Kat’s texting furiously with Liv, which probably means Liv’s skipping the movie.

Tasha finishes putting the game back in the box and shoves the lid on. “This goes on the top shelf.” She glances between me and Jordan. “One of you boys gets to put it away, because I can’t reach.”

Jordan wiggles his eyebrows at her. “Get Nathan to lift you up.”

“Shut
up
!” She smacks him on the arm and then glances over to the couch real quick, where Nathan’s playing video games. He doesn’t look like he heard.

June comes and stands next to me. She looks really nervous, and I figure she’s about to say something unpleasant, like that being half hero makes me not good enough for Kat or how dare I show up for this party and kick ass at Monopoly when everyone knows I’m that traitor who goes to Heroesworth. She doesn’t
seem
like the type to say something like that, but I can’t think of what else it would be.

“Hey, um, Damien?”

For someone about to tell me off, she doesn’t sound too sure of herself. Maybe she just wants to see the
X
on my thumb but thinks it’s rude to ask. I decide now’s as good a time as any to go find the bathroom and avoid this situation altogether. I’m about to make an excuse to leave when she says, “I just wanted to thank you.”

“I don’t— Wait, what?” My mind races, trying to come up with what I did that’s worth thanking me for. “You
wanted
me to obliterate you in Monopoly?”

Her cheeks turn a little red and she sucks in a deep breath before launching into her explanation. “I know it couldn’t have been easy for you, because Katie says you live with your dad, and he’s a... you know. Hero. A famous one, and everybody’s always watching you. So I know it was probably really hard for you to say all that stuff. But...” Her voice gets tight and her bottom lip trembles a little. “My mom wasn’t in that video, but she got taken by the League last year. For being out at night and ‘looking suspicious.’ That’s what they said, anyway. She has telepathy. That’s her power, but it only works on heroes, and I think they knew that. Like they’d been studying her or something. They wanted—” She breaks off all of a sudden, her eyes going wide, like she just realized where she was and who she was talking to. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to hear about it. You’re, like, famous.”

I swallow. Me, too famous to talk to her. Like her mom getting abducted by the League is too small potatoes to even listen to. “What did they do to her?”

“They were afraid she’d use her powers on them. She’d never done anything before—she’s a
veterinarian
. She didn’t even go to Vilmore. But they thought that even if she wasn’t planning to spy on heroes, other villains might get her to help them, or that maybe they already had. Of course my mom wouldn’t do that. She’d been approached before and said no. But the heroes didn’t care. She could hear their thoughts, and she knew they were too scared of her to let her go.” June’s quiet for a few breaths, and I can tell it’s hard for her to keep going. “They falsified reports that said she’d tried to attack them, that she’d pulled out a raygun when they approached her on the street ‘just to talk.’ That’s how they justified bringing her in, at least on paper. Then they tortured her, to find out what she knew about them already.”

“Did she...?” I can’t bring myself to ask if she escaped, or if something worse happened.

“She got away. She’s okay now. Mostly.” June clenches her fists and looks up at me. “But I wanted to thank you. For standing up for us. It means a lot, especially since everyone knows who you are. My mom cried when she saw that broadcast, exposing what heroes
really
do. So, just... thanks.” She looks embarrassed, like she’s taken up too much of my time.

“Yeah,” I tell her, trying not to look as stunned as I feel. “No problem.”

M
e and Kat don’t even make it halfway through the second movie before sneaking off together. Kat loves zombie movies, but she loves me more, and when she pinches my arm and turns her head toward her room, I squeeze her hand in silent approval. We slink away down the hall, and I’m already kissing her and running my hands under her shirt when she presses her door closed and locks it behind us. It’s only been a couple weeks since we last did this, but after everything that’s happened between then and now, it feels more like months.