And I know I said all that stuff to Riley about not wanting to jeopardize his scholarship, but he was right—I was just being stupid. Or at least I hope I was, because I’m still not convinced I won’t accidentally get him in trouble if we keep working together. But the alternative of not working together, especially when we finally got rid of the rest of our annoying group, seems pretty stupid.
I’m hoping I won’t have to actually say out loud that he was right and I was wrong. A real friend would let me sit down next to him like I never said anything dumb and just assume we’re working together because we make such a great team, right?
Admitting I was wrong can be my backup plan.
But when I walk into class, it’s obvious that that’s not going to work, because someone’s already sitting in my seat. All the desks are these tables that seat two people. Perfect for a class where everyone’s working in pairs. And there’s Riley, sitting at one of them, flipping through his notebook, and next to him is some guy I don’t know. He’s got sandy-blond hair and a black T-shirt for a band I’ve never heard of. And his backpack’s got patches that look like flags from around the world stuck all over it with safety pins.
I don’t have any idea who this guy is, but he’s sitting in my spot, and that can’t mean anything good.
The table next to Riley is still empty, so I walk over there and sit down, really casually, like I didn’t notice that I’ve been replaced. And okay, maybe I haven’t been. Maybe I should give Riley the benefit of the doubt. Except that I can tell, just by looking at them, that I’m not wrong.
Riley jumps when I sit down at the next table over.
“Thanks for saving me a seat, Perkins.” I drop my bag on the floor, but I don’t start getting out my stuff yet.
He clears his throat. “This is Mason. He just moved back to town. We used to be friends, back in junior high, before he left.”
Mason leans forward to peer past Riley at me. Some of his hair flops into his face, and he smooths it back with his hand.
“Mason, this is Damien,” Riley says.
“Hey,” Mason says, nodding his head. And I don’t know if he’s been living in a cave or what, but there isn’t that usual I know I know you from somewhere look I’ve seen on countless strangers’ faces ever since that video of me blowing up part of the school went viral last September. He gets up and goes out to the hall to refill his water bottle, which is stainless steel and has a bunch of pretentious stickers on it encouraging people to be eco-friendly and take care of the Earth.
“You can catch up later,” I tell Riley, once Mason is gone. “Class is about to start.” I jerk my head toward the empty seat next to me, indicating he should come sit where he belongs.
“Actually...” Riley leans down to retie his shoe, even though it wasn’t undone. “I thought you didn’t want to work with me.”
Great. I can already tell where this is going. “You convinced me I was being stupid. And I did want to work with you—I do, I mean. I just thought—”
“Maybe you were right. About my scholarship being in danger. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it over the past couple weeks.”
“But you were right. About us making a good team. Do you really want to go on dangerous missions with that guy?”
Riley glances over at Mason’s empty seat and his douchey backpack with the flags on it. “We were pretty good friends before. We always thought we’d work together, when we got to Heroesworth.”
“You didn’t even know he was coming back to town, did you?” They couldn’t have been that close.
“His family traveled a lot. We lost touch.” He shrugs. “But he’s here now, and he doesn’t really know anyone else.”
Oh, right, and I’m so popular, I’ll just pair up with one of my many other friends. “Come on, Perkins. You can’t bail on me now. We had plans.”
“I can’t lose my scholarship. If I do...” He presses his hands against the desk and shakes his head. “That’s my whole future. This, I mean. Heroesworth, and then the League. What would my mom say? If I lost it? I can’t do that to her.”
What would Curtis say, I think he means. And okay, yeah, maybe his mom would be plenty upset, too. She’d probably say she was disappointed or something, or maybe not say anything at all and just start crying because her eldest son ruined his entire future in one fell stroke. One fell stroke of being friends with a half villain. Which, personally, I don’t think the League should punish him for, but nobody consults me on these things. What with being a half villain and not part of the League and all.
“You were so sure I wouldn’t screw things up for you,” I remind him.
He scratches the side of his face, looking guilty. “I had more time to think about it. And we can work together again after this semester, when I’m not on probation anymore.”
“Next semester is next year.” And no, we won’t be able to work together then. I know how this goes. He partners up with Mason now, and then that’s it, they’re a team for the next year and a half. Longer, probably, since they’ll both join the League after they graduate. Just like they probably planned back in junior high, when they were BFFs.
“If I get in trouble again, I get kicked out of school. I can’t let that happen, and Mason, he’s...”
“What?”
“More like me. We’re on the same page.”
“You haven’t spoken to him in years. And now you’re going to go on dangerous missions with him, no questions asked?” Maybe I can’t promise I won’t break the rules and get Riley in trouble again, but I can promise that I’m watching out for him. I don’t know what Mason’s power is, but I know he can’t zap bad guys.
“It’s one semester.”
“Great.” So not great. “You’re ditching me, and now what? Who the hell else am I supposed to work with?”
I glance around the room, surveying my prospects. Even if I didn’t hate everyone else at this school, it looks like everybody already has a partner anyway. The only seat not taken is the one next to me. It’s against the rules to work alone, and there’s a moment where I wonder if the teacher will force me to be a third wheel in somebody else’s group, and if Riley and Mason will even volunteer to have me, since I’m obviously not on the “same page” as them. But then, right on cue, Amelia hurries into the classroom. Her face is flushed and she’s huffing and puffing, like she ran here. She hesitates in the doorway, taking everything in. Probably looking for a seat that’s still open.
Then she spots me. She looks really relieved to see someone she knows who doesn’t have a partner, even if it’s me. Then she forces a scowl onto her face as she stomps over and flops down in the empty chair, sealing my fate.
Mason’s power is light. He actually said, in this really pretentious tone, that he considers himself “a light in the darkness. Literally.” This was supposed to be impressive or something. Riley nodded on in approval, like anyone calling himself that isn’t a complete and total douche. This is what I have to put up with at lunch, not just today, but for the foreseeable future, since apparently Mason not really knowing anyone else means he also has to eat with us.
His lunch is all vegan and organic. He makes a big point of telling us that. He even offers me some of his quinoa and tofu, which I decline, despite his spiel about how good for me it is.
If he actually cares about what’s good for me, he shouldn’t have stolen my partner for Advanced Heroism. A situation he should enjoy while he can, before he gets what’s coming to him. Mainly me, forging his paperwork and getting him transferred to the other class. Then Riley will be partner-less and I can ditch Amelia.
“And after Paris and Berlin,” Mason says, “we spent some time traveling around Africa, helping to build schools in a bunch of different villages.” Did I mention that he spent the past couple years traveling around the world with his family? His tone says it’s no big deal, but there’s this smugness to his eyes and the way his mouth curves a little that says he knows better and is not-so-
secretly bragging. Ugh. “One night, when we were on the Cote d’Ivoire—that’s the Ivory Coast,” he adds, looking directly at me, as if he’s assuming I won’t know what he’s talking about, or that I even care, “the lighthouse went out. But luckily I was there. I used my power to light it up even brighter than if it had been working. I saved lives.”
Like we’ve never saved a life before. This is hero school, after all. “Riley and I save people all the time.” Him being a human lighthouse is no big deal.
“Sure,” Mason says, as if he doesn’t believe me. Or like he doesn’t believe I have a real part in it. Like it’s just Riley doing all the hero work while I stand around and look stupid.
“Wow.” Riley stares in admiration at Mason and all his supposedly amazing work overseas. “Nothing we do at Heroesworth really compares to that.”
“Right, it’s all just hum-drum, everyday rescues over here. Just fighting bad guys and putting ourselves in harm’s way. I know that can’t compare to safely standing in one spot and turning on your power, but it’s all we have.” I sigh and give Mason a fake apologetic look. “You’re going to be bored out of your mind.” So he should probably just transfer now, or go back to backpacking around the world with his parents or something.
“It’s different,” Riley says. “What we’re doing here at school... It’s what everybody’s doing.”
“No, it’s what everybody’s trying to do. We’re better at it than them.”
“But there are plenty of other heroes in Golden City. If we don’t stop some criminal, somebody else will. Mason was the only one around who could do what he did. I mean,” he adds, glancing up at Mason, “it’s got to be pretty different, coming back to town after all that.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, “civilization is the worst.”
“It’s fine,” Mason says. “There’s still plenty of good to do around here.”
Riley shakes his head, like he thinks Mason is only being nice and doesn’t mean it. “I just wish we could do something like that. Something that really mattered.”
“Geez, Perkins. I had no idea our work catching fake kidnappers meant so little to you.”
“You know what I mean.”
I’m about to tell him that no, I don’t know what he means, when Amelia comes up to our table. She clears her throat really loudly, as if we didn’t all turn to look at her already. “I need to talk to you,” she says, taking the seat next to me, uninvited.
“You can talk to me at home. Or, better yet, never.”
“It’s about Advanced Heroism.” She stops there, waiting for me to say something.
“And?”
She glances over at Riley and Mason, then back at me. “Can we talk alone?”
“You heard her,” I tell Mason. “This is a private conversation.” Apparently.
Riley gets to his feet, even though I didn’t say he had to leave. “Come on, Mase. I was going to give you a tour of the school before lunch is over anyway.”
Mase?
“Yeah, okay.” Mason grabs his stupid backpack with the flags all over it. He nods at Amelia, saying hello and good-bye in one douchey head bob.
Amelia watches them leave.
“Can we get this over with?” I check the non-existent watch on my wrist. “I have places to be, you know.”
“I just wanted to say... About Advanced Heroism. I thought, maybe...” She picks at a spot of crud stuck to the table, which is kind of gross, since who knows where it came from.
“Let me guess. You don’t want to work with me? Don’t worry. The feeling’s mutual.”
Her mouth drops open a little. Then she shakes her head. “Fine. Never mind.”
“Okay. Great. Conversation ov—”
“I saw you picking up transfer papers. At the office, right after class.”
“I didn’t see any point in wasting time.” The sooner I get rid of Mason, the better.
“I know you don’t want to be my partner.”
She says that like it’s some big secret, as if we aren’t both annoyed at being stuck with each other. “Yeah, and I’m sure I was your first choice, too.”
“I’m not that good at fieldwork.” She winces, like it’s physically painful to admit she’s not perfect at everything.
“You don’t say.”
“And I don’t want to get murdered by a supervillain. In a dark alley. Or in some underground lair, or wherever. And you zapped that guy on your last mission, like it wasn’t even a big deal, so...”
“So you think I’m going to murder you?”
“Not you.” She gives me this frustrated look, like she can’t believe how stupid I am. “But somebody else might. A criminal or a supervillain or something. Somebody I’m supposed to catch. And I know you’re going to transfer, and I know you really don’t want to work with me, but you’re my brother, and I thought, maybe, if I asked you...” She pauses and stares really hard at the table. “But never mind, okay? Just forget I said anything.”
I stare at her in disbelief. “You want to work with me?”
“I didn’t say that. And I don’t care what you do. Transfer to the other class. It doesn’t matter.”
“Except that you might get murdered by bad guys. If I’m not there to zap them.”
Her face turns a little red and she bites her lip. “I don’t need your help.”
Right.
“I was just being nice,” she adds, though I’m not sure what part of that she thought counted as “being nice.” “Working with you would probably mess up my GPA anyway. It’s probably a good thing you’re transferring.”
She doesn’t actually look at me while she says any of that, which kind of makes it unconvincing. “I’m not the one who was getting a B last semester.”
Her nostrils flare. “You might have had a better grade than me, but then you went and screwed it all up. I can see why Riley doesn’t want to work with you anymore.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“You might be better at fieldwork than me”—she shrugs, I guess to emphasize how unimportant it is that I’m better than her at something—“but I can’t trust you not to suddenly do something crazy, like zap somebody, and get us both in trouble. Just like you did to Riley.”
“I didn’t do anything to him.”
“You got him in trouble.”
“Not on purpose. And a minute ago, you wanted to work with me because I zapped somebody. Because you’re afraid of getting murdered by supervillains. So which is it?”
“I don’t know.” She sighs and rests her chin in her hands. “But if your own best friend can’t trust you, then how am I supposed to?”
Chapter 9
SARAH STARES AT HER plate of Justice Fries and Hero Sauce, not making eye contact with me. It’s been like this all night. Me, her, and Riley are sitting in a booth at one of the superhero-themed diners downtown. It’s Friday night, but it’s after nine so it’s not too crowded. She and Riley are sitting across from me, and I feel kind of like a third wheel, especially when Sarah won’t even look at me. And I’m still mad at Riley for choosing Mason.
And because I would never have chosen to eat at a place like this in a million years. Well, except for that one time me and Kat came here and I made the waiter—who was sweating in his polyester superhero costume, complete with its own cape—translate the theme names of every item on the menu. When he said, in a really exasperated voice, that the Liberty Burger was just a hamburger, I gasped and asked if that meant it was still all-American.
“Sarah. It’s fine.” I try not to sound too frustrated when I say that. I take a drink from my milkshake—the Golden City Salted-Caramel Swirl—so she doesn’t see how annoyed I am.
She shakes her head. “It’s not fine. You’re mad.”
“I’m not mad.” I’m not. Or, at least, not at her.
She gives me this skeptical look. “I almost burnt down the retirement home. I thought I was better, and I wasn’t. And then... I just made things worse with Kat
. I shouldn’t have called you Renegade.”
“I think saying you almost burnt down the retirement home is giving yourself too much credit. Jerry was the only one on fire, and he’s fireproof.” Or at least while he’s using his power. “No real harm done.”
“A couple of the guys at the home said they’d take a look at my alert bracelet. They used to be in R&D before they retired. I don’t usually accept outside help—”
“When do you even get offers for that?”
“—but this is for the good of the retirement home. It’s going to save lives.”
“Right. And, anyway, I called you Cosine, which was...” Worse than her calling me Renegade? A mistake? Neither of those things, as far as I’m concerned, but Kat was obviously pretty upset about it. “If you’ve been picking up on any anger vibes coming from me, you should know they’re aimed at your boyfriend. Not you.” I glare at Riley, just to hit it home.
“Seriously?” Riley sets down his all-American Liberty Burger. “It’s been a week.”
“Yes, seriously.” I don’t know why he expects me to have forgotten already that he betrayed me. “And it’s been four days.”
“But I told you why. And this isn’t permanent, X. I thought you understood.”
“Riiiiight.”
Sarah glances back and forth between us. I’m sure she’s heard all about it already. “If you’re not mad, then why have you been avoiding me?”
“I was busy,” I mutter. “With school.”
“During break, I mean.”
Now it’s my turn to look away. I play with the straw wrapper from my milkshake, rolling it up into a little ball and then untangling it again. Obviously I spent my time with Kat, while she was still home. And obviously she wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of hanging out with Sarah again. And maybe I could have called, but I didn’t want to have to tell Sarah no if she invited me over or something. It would seem like I was mad at her, which I’m not, plus she’s my friend. And if I didn’t tell her no and went over to hang out, then Kat would be pissed at me. And not telling Kat about it would feel like lying to her, so there’s no way I wouldn’t have told her. So, yeah. Maybe I was avoiding Sarah.
The Betrayal of Renegade X (Renegade X, Book 3) Page 10
