The Betrayal of Renegade X (Renegade X, Book 3) (47 page)

“
What?
” I can’t believe him. Okay, I can, because it’s not like I didn’t already know he was a total douche, but still. He’s acting like Riley told off the League and joined the Truth instead of trying to save everyone from both of them.

Curtis points a finger at me. “You stay out of this.”

“Curtis, please,” Riley’s mom says.

He ignores her and goes back to lecturing Riley. “And then I find that you’ve deliberately disobeyed me and let him into the house, even after everything that’s happened. If your father were still alive, he wouldn’t stand for this. You should have seen him that day, climbing into that bus. He was terrified, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He was one of the best in the League, and I had high hopes for you, Riley. I still do. It’s up to me to make sure that Miles’s boys grow up right and follow in his footsteps, but—”

“What did you say?” Sarah takes a step forward, squinting at him.

Curtis scowls at her for interrupting. “I said it’s up to me to make sure his boys follow in his footsteps. Miles isn’t here to teach Riley and Zach what it means to be a hero, so I’ve got to do it for him.”

“Not that. You said ‘you should have seen him that day, climbing into that bus.’ But I thought you were late for work that morning. You weren’t there, right?”

“What?” Curtis looks up, then his eyes dart from side to side, like he’s thinking about something. “I meant figuratively, of course. Miles was always so brave. The situation didn’t matter, or how scared he was. He always did what needed to be done. And I’m sure that the day he died was no exception.”

“No.” Sarah puts her hands on her hips. “That’s not what you meant. You said it like
you were there
. Like
you saw him
on that bus that day.”

Everyone looks at Curtis. Zach gasps a little. Riley’s face is pale, his expression cold.

Curtis tries to laugh it off, but it sounds really fake. “You just misunderstood. You shouldn’t take things so literally.”

Riley’s mom is watching Curtis like she’s never seen him before. “We all heard you. And it sounded like...” She puts a hand to her chest. “My God. Were you
there
?”

“Win, come on, you know I wasn’t. I was just—”

“Sarah’s right.” Riley’s voice wavers, thick with emotion. “You meant what you said just now, about seeing Dad climbing into the bus, didn’t you?”

Curtis waves that away. “It’s a story. I was embellishing a little.”

“
No.
This isn’t one of your stories! You don’t get to make things up about this.”

“You were there?” Zach says. “You’ve been lying to us this whole time? Did you kill our dad?!”

“What?! No!” Curtis holds up his hands. He looks to their mom. “You have to believe me. He was my best friend! We were
partners
.”

She takes a step back, horrified.

Sarah makes eye contact with me and jerks her head toward the doorway. At first I think maybe she’s telling me we should get out of here and miss this—which is
so
not going to happen—but then I realize she wants me to get between the door and Curtis, in case he makes a run for it. I indicate Sarah’s purse and mime shooting a gun, but she shakes her head. I find it really hard to believe she’s not armed, but I do what she wants and move toward the doorway.

And as tired as I am of getting accused of shooting superheroes, I kind of hope he does run, because zapping him would be really, really satisfying.

Zach clenches his fists. “If you didn’t kill him, then why would you lie about it?”

“I—I panicked.” Curtis puts his hands to his temples, like getting found out gives him a headache. “You weren’t there! You don’t know what it was like. We had orders to stop the bus. It was coming into the city, and we had intel that there was a bomb on it. It was going to explode when it reached the convention center. We tried to flag it down, but the driver didn’t see us at first. He had to swerve and ended up in the ditch. One second we were on a routine mission, and the next, the bus was on its side. The door was against the ground, and nobody could get out. The front was smashed against a telephone pole, the power lines were down, and the gas tank was leaking. The bus caught fire, and there was a
bomb
on it. It was impossible to know how much time we had.”

“But our dad got on that bus,” Riley says. “And you, what?”

“Miles didn’t care that it was on fire. He was always like that, you know. He didn’t care about his own safety, only that there were all those helpless people trapped inside.” He shuts his eyes for a second, reliving it. “He climbed up onto the top and got a window open, then went in. He wanted me to help pull people out. I should have done it. I know that now. But I
couldn’t
. I’m not like him.”

Riley makes a disgusted sound. “No, you’re not.”

“I told him to leave them, but he wouldn’t. He had you kids to think about, and you, Win. But you know how he was. He couldn’t have lived with himself if he didn’t try.”

“And what were you doing?” their mom asks. “What were you doing while my
husband
, your
partner
, was dying?!”

Curtis winces and doesn’t look at her. “I ran. I had to get out of there. Later, of course, I heard that Miles got everyone else off the bus. The last person he helped almost didn’t get away fast enough—he was treated for burns from the explosion. I read all the interviews with them, though I couldn’t bring myself to talk to any of them in person. Not after what I did. If I’d stayed, we could have gotten them all out of there in plenty of time. But there was no way to know that when I was looking at a burning bus with a bomb on it.”

“So you lied about it?”

“I deserted my partner. No one would have ever forgotten that. And I knew that if I’d stayed, Miles wouldn’t be dead.” He pauses after he says that, like finally getting it off his chest is a huge relief. “You don’t know how awful it’s been, keeping that a secret these past few years. There were so many times I wanted to tell you the truth. You and the boys. But it was too late. Too much time had passed.”

“Get out of my house.” Her voice is full of barely subdued rage, and I’m glad she doesn’t have laser eyes like my mom, or we’d probably all be dead.

Curtis holds his hands out, pleading. “Win, listen. You’re overreacting. Can’t we talk about this?”

“I said
get out
.” She points to the door.

I step out of the way, staying just close enough to zap him a little as he walks by.

“
Ow.
” He glares at me.

“Must have been static.” I flash him a fake smile. “That happens when you build up too much douchebaggery. Or is that when you rub your feet on the carpet?”

“It’s douchebaggery,” Zach says, coming to stand next to me, “and there’s more where that came from.”

Curtis glances at their mom one last time, but she just stares him down until he finally actually leaves.

As soon as the front door closes, she puts her hands to her face and starts to cry.

“P
RETEND I’M AT YOUR house,” Riley says when I answer the phone Monday afternoon.

I just walked through the door after getting home from my first day back at Heroesworth. Which was unpleasant, to say the least. “Yeah, sure. If anyone asks, you’re at my house.” Though I’m not sure how he supposedly got here, since he can barely get out of bed. I take my coat off and put it in the hall closet. “You’re going to have a problem, though, because Amelia said she was going over to your place. Where are you really?”

“What? I’m at home.”

“If you’re at home, then who am I supposed to lie to?”

“No one. Just, for the purposes of this conversation, pretend I’m at your house, okay? Because this is important, and if I could, you know, walk and stuff, I would have come over to say it.”

“Okay, Perkins, but if you’re about to declare your love for me, you should know that my heart already belongs to Zach.”

He makes a frustrated sound. “Will you shut up and
listen to me
? This is serious.”

“All right, all right. I’m listening.” I was going to go into the kitchen and find something to eat, but he sounds like he means it, so I flop down on the couch instead. Gordon’s at work, Alex’s school doesn’t get out yet, and Helen must be at the antique shop with Jess, because the house is completely silent. It feels really awkward, like I’m not supposed to be here. I kind of wish they were all home already, just so they could stare at me and get it over with.

“You know what you said yesterday?” Riley asks.

“I said a lot of things yesterday. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“About us not being partners. You said if the reason I wanted to work with you was because you saved my life, then the answer was no. But that’s not the only reason.”

“Uh-huh. Mason turning out to be the complete and total douchebag I said he was doesn’t count, either. If that’s all you have to say, I’ve got important sandwiches to make, so—”

“This is why I wanted to be there in person. So you couldn’t hang up on me.”

“I’m not hanging up on you. But there’s nothing to talk about, okay? This whole semester, you’ve been telling me how great Mason is and why we can’t work together. And now that you finally know he sucks, you’ve conveniently realized that we should be partners again? I don’t think so.”

“I was wrong. I thought it would be easier to work with someone who followed the rules.”

“And it was. You won that award. Congratulations, by the way.” The awards ceremony was a bust, but they posted the winners online. Amelia looked them up to see if Gordon won Most Beloved Superhero again. He came in second, which isn’t too bad, considering all the scandals I’ve caused recently.

“Thanks.” Riley doesn’t sound very excited about it. “But I almost
died
. It wasn’t worth it.”

“See, it all comes back to me saving your life. You might be happy about that now, but who knows when some old BFF of yours is going to show up again, and then you won’t care anymore.”

“I won’t care about you saving my life? I think I’m always going to care about
being alive
.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the point. Not everyone who follows the rules and is ‘on the same page’ as you is going to be a douchebag.”

Riley scoffs. “I was wrong about that, too. Me and Mason were never on the same page.”

“You don’t want to be partners with a half villain who gets you in trouble all the time. Saving your life doesn’t change that. And if working with you means I’m always going to feel like you’re looking for my replacement, then I’d rather stick with Amelia.”

“Mason left me. I was hurt really bad, and he knew that, and he couldn’t get away fast enough. I wouldn’t have even gotten trapped under that rubble if he hadn’t pushed me. Some things matter more than following the rules. You didn’t leave me. And you were right—if you’d been at that museum, you would have gone chasing after the bad guy with me. I wouldn’t have gotten nominated or won that award, but that doesn’t really compare to having a partner I can count on.”

I get up from the couch and pace the living room. “Unless I zapped that guy. Then you would have lost your scholarship and gotten kicked out of school. We’ve been over this, and nothing’s any different, so let’s just drop it.”

“Curtis abandoned my dad. He chickened out and ran away when he needed him the most. Dad got killed because of him. Curtis said that you didn’t have my back, that you weren’t watching out for me, and that I couldn’t trust you. But
he’s
the one who couldn’t be trusted. You’ve always had my back, X. And, okay, maybe you don’t always follow the rules, but I trust you with my life, and that’s kind of more important. The two of
us
are the ones who are on the same page, because if we’d been there with that bus, there wouldn’t have been any question of whether or not we were going in. Neither of us would have had to worry about the other running off, no matter how bad the circumstances were. And I thought the stuff Mason did when he was overseas was really cool, but you were right. He wasn’t in any danger, and he just turned his power on. Anyone could do that. And maybe everyone here’s trying to be a hero, but like you said, we’re better at it than them.”

I smile at that, and I’m kind of glad he can’t see me, because he might think that means I’m giving in. “What about your scholarship? And the League?”

He’s quiet for a second, and then his voice wavers a little. “How can you even ask me that?”

“Uh, because you’re practically their poster boy? It’s your whole future.”

“The League tried to kill me. They’re the reason my leg had to be
screwed back together
. And they tried to kill my best friend.”

“Yeah, but you can’t really blame them. I wanted to kill Mason as soon as I met him, too.”

“I’m talking about
you
. They tried to kill you—they freaking
shot
you—and they tried to hurt Sarah. And Kat.”

“Because you guys were with me. I mean, okay, maybe they figured out Kat was a villain, and Sarah sort of pulled a gun on them. But your only crime was being seen with me. Working together’s not really going to fix that.”

“It doesn’t need to be fixed! You didn’t do anything to them. And even if last night never happened, they tried to kidnap you in the park. They were going to take you away to who knows where and do who knows what to you, just because you’re half villain. And... maybe six months ago I would have thought that was okay. I hate that I was that person, because it’s
not
. It’s
so
not okay. It makes me sick that they’re paying for me to go to Heroesworth, and maybe things will be different by the time we graduate, but I don’t know how I can join an organization who would do that to you.”

I stop pacing and just stand there, taking that in. I don’t know what to say.

“X? Are you still there?” He sounds kind of nervous, like he thinks I might have hung up on him.

“They must have you on an awful lot of painkillers.”