“You could still stop it. You don’t have to—”
“It’s already set to go off. At seven thirty tonight, everyone at the gala will be knocked out cold, and we’ll be ready.”
Tears prickle the backs of my eyes, though I refuse to let them water in front of him, let alone cry. “And what, you thought I was just going to go along with this if I came to the rally? You knew that at least my dad would be at the gala—he’s there every year—and you thought I’d have anything to do with this?”
“No, I didn’t. That’s what the bracelet was for. I just didn’t think I’d have to use it this early.”
Chapter 28
IF BEING WITH KAT at her dorm was the best moment of my life, I think this is probably the worst. Grandpa takes my phone—not that I could reach it to call anyone, anyway—and handcuffs me to the radiator in the corner of the living room. He winds the chain through as many of the bars on the radiator as will fit, so my hands can’t reach each other, and then leaves for the rally. I’m forced to sit on the floor, unable to really move. At least he turned the heat off.
I lean forward, trying to get at the alert bracelet with my teeth, but of course it’s too far. Not that I think I could actually chew through it or unbuckle it or anything. But at least trying gives me something to do besides freak the hell out. It’s taking all my concentration not to let my lightning spark up, since Grandpa made it extremely clear that if I do, I’ll die of exhaustion. But, you know, only if accidentally lighting the house on fire while I’m trapped here doesn’t kill me first.
This can’t be happening. I let my head fall forward against the radiator with a metallic thump. A ball of fear and frustration gnaws at my stomach. Riley, and Sarah, and Zach, and Amelia, and Gordon, and probably the rest of my family are going to be at that gala. Riley’s going to be waiting to see if he won, thinking it’s his big night. They all are. And he’s going to think I ditched him after all. That I didn’t care enough to show up. And then Grandpa’s machine is going to go off, and...
I never even got to say I’m sorry. Because even if I still think I did the right thing, stopping that fake kidnapper during our final, Riley’s right—I wasn’t thinking about what it would mean for him. I wasn’t listening. We were supposed to be partners, and I acted like I was working alone. And, okay, I’m not sure what I’d do differently if it happened again, but maybe we could figure it out together somehow.
Though, just for the record, I’m not sorry I gave him crap about choosing Mason over me.
Not that any of it matters now, because Grandpa’s going to...
I swallow down a lump in my throat. He’s going to knock them all out. They won’t feel a thing. I know what that sounds like, and even if all he intends to do is capture a few people, there’s no way that all those angry villains from the rally attacking all those knocked-out heroes ends well. He must know that, because there’s a reason he locked me up and didn’t want me anywhere near the gala. And I’m the one who made that commercial for him, encouraging people to show up tonight. They’re at that rally because of me. Grandpa might have used me to lie to everyone, but I’m the reason they believe in the Truth.
Now my friends and family are going to get hurt—probably worse—because of what I did, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it, or even to warn them.
I shut my eyes. Maybe I should risk it. Turn on my lightning and hope Grandpa was wrong and it doesn’t kill me. Except I know he wasn’t wrong. And me dying isn’t going to save anybody, and—
“Yoohoo?” Mom calls from the other room, opening the front door. “Is anybody home?”
Oh. My. God. I never thought I’d be so happy for her to show up. She can’t see me yet, since the front room is around the corner from the living room, and I’m on the far edge, but all she has to do is come a little farther into the house. “Mom!” I scream. “Over here!”
“Oh, thank God someone’s home,” Mom shouts, still by the front door. “I thought you’d all be gone, because of the rally. Do you hear that, sweetiekins? Damien’s going to watch you. And he’s going to turn on the heat, because brrr, it’s freezing in here. We don’t want my little baby to catch a little cold.”
Ugh, she must be talking to Xavier. “Mom!” My voice is raw with desperation. She has to hear that, right? “Come in here!”
“I really can’t, Damien.” I hear her hurrying to set down Xavier’s stuff, practically throwing it onto the floor. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll just be a few hours! I have a few errands to run, and then Taylor and I are going to dinner. We’ve got a bottle of wine at home, and who knows where that might lead? I swear, we never have a moment to ourselves. But we still love our little Xavier sweetiekins, the bestest boy in the whole wide world, yes we do.”
Gag. It’s bad enough that practically everyone I know is going to freaking die tonight if I don’t get out of here, but now I have to listen to this, too? “Mom! You have to help me!”
“I hate to rush off, but if we’re going to make our reservations tonight, then I’ve just got to get out of here.”
“No! Mom!” I rattle the handcuff chain against the radiator, trying to get her attention.
“Whatever it is, I’m sure my two boys can figure it out! You behave for your brother, sweetie.” She kisses Xavier, really loudly, and then practically slams the front door.
“Mom!” I shout again, even though I know it’s useless.
Xavier peers around the corner. “Mommy left, so she and Daddy can be newlyweds. That means you have to watch me.”
“Yeah, sure, just get over here.” I would have preferred Mom, since she’s a lot more capable, and, knowing her, she probably has an extra set of handcuff keys on her. But I guess Xavier is better than chewing my own arm off.
He comes closer, stopping just short of the radiator and staring at me. “What are you doing?”
Trying really hard not to freak out and get us killed. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m stuck. You have to help me.”
“I don’t.”
“Uh, yeah, you do.”
“Nuh-uh. Because I’m not talking to you.”
“You don’t have to talk to me—you just have to do what I tell you.”
“Because I’m mad at you.” He pauses, presumably giving me a chance to ask him why, which I don’t. “Because you were mean.”
“I wasn’t. So just get over here and take this bracelet off my arm.”
“No!” His voice is a high-pitched screech, and I wish my hands were free so I could cover my ears. Or murder him. “You were mean. You said Mommy didn’t throw me any birthday parties, but she said you lied.”
“She what?” I take a deep breath in through my nose, trying to stay calm. It doesn’t matter what Mom said. Not if getting pissed about it is going to get me killed. “Look, Xavier, we can talk about it later. After you unbuckle this alert bracelet.”
“I might do it. I might think about it. If you said you were sorry.”
“I’m sorry, okay? So now—”
“You didn’t mean it!” He stomps his foot, his nostrils flaring. “You have to say it for reals.”
“I...” I brace myself, trying to make this sound genuine. “I’m sorry I was mean to you.”
He bites his lip, thinking that over. “Now say you’re sorry you lied.”
“Look, I apologized for hurting your feelings or whatever. That’s going to have to be enough, because I didn’t lie. Mom’s the one who faked all your birthdays.” Worse than that, she stole them from me.
Xavier’s face starts turning red, and he sucks in a bunch of air, getting ready to scream. “That’s not true!”
Too bad the neighbors are probably used to hearing him wailing and screeching all the time by now and won’t hear the noise and, like, come rescue me.
“Fine. I’m sorry I lied. Happy now?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t believe you. You didn’t—”
“Mean it? Yeah, and I’m never going to, because I di
dn’t do it.”
“Yes, you did! Mommy always tells me the truth, because I’m her special little miracle. And if you aren’t sorry about lying to me, then you’re not sorry about being mean to me, either.”
I really, really hate him. “If I’m the liar, then where are all these friends you supposedly have, huh? And why do they have the same names as the friends I had when I was a kid?”
“Because you’re just saying that to make me feel bad. Because Mommy loves me more than you, and you’re jealous that I’m growing up so big and strong.”
I clench my jaw until my teeth grind together. I have to concentrate really hard on keeping my lightning from sparking. “That is the last thing I’m jealous of. And I don’t care if Mom loves you more, because at least my childhood was real.”
“She told me I’m her second chance, and now she’s doing everything right.”
“She... she what?”
Xavier gets this snotty grin on his face. “Mommy said a precious little angel like me only comes around once, and she’s got to make sure nothing happens to me. And that we have big parties for all my birthdays, and I get lots of presents and everybody loves me.”
I’m trying really hard not to lose it. Really, really hard. “Great. That’s—”
“And I asked Mommy if someday I’d have to leave and go live somewhere else, like you did, but she said no way. She said she would never give me up, not in a million, billion years. That’s a lot.”
Give him up? As opposed to me? Because Mom actually thinks of it that way, that she gave me up?
A surge of emotions rushes through me, and I can’t stop it this time. The sparks that have been building beneath my skin suddenly zap across my arms.
A jolt of adrenaline hits me in the instant before the bracelet kicks on and kills us both. Ice water floods my veins. And I think, this is it, I’m going to die. I’m not getting out of here, I’m not going to get the chance to warn my friends or to stop Grandpa. Everything ends now, and I didn’t even get to say good-bye to Kat, and—
And nothing happens.
Okay, not nothing. The bracelet makes a zzzzt noise and stops my power from working, just like Sarah intended it to.
I take a deep breath, still not completely convinced I’m not dead. Maybe this is what being dead feels like.
Except that it feels an awful lot like being chained to a radiator in my grandparents’ living room, so probably not.
Xavier wrinkles his eyebrows at me, like he thinks I’m acting crazy.
Grandpa was wrong about the bracelet. Or he lied about it.
Maybe the guys at the retirement home didn’t betray Sarah. Maybe they actually did what they said they were going to do and fixed it. So either they lied to Grandpa, which doesn’t seem likely—they didn’t have to donate the bracelet, after all—or he lied to me. Which wouldn’t be the first time.
Maybe he thought I could create a big enough burst of power in that split second before the bracelet kicked in to actually get away. He probably could, though I’m pretty sure that’s still way beyond my level. Or maybe he just wanted to scare me that much, to keep me too worried about burning the house down to think of a way to escape.
Whatever his reasoning, it’s a relief that he didn’t leave me here to accidentally get myself killed. Even if it doesn’t make up for everything else he’s doing tonight.
“Well?” Xavier asks. “Are you sorry yet?”
“Yeah.” Sorry he was ever born. “And as far as I’m concerned, we’re even.” I might have been mean to him before, when Mom was the one I should have been mad at, but he didn’t have to say all that stuff about her loving him more and never giving him up. He didn’t have to rub it in, and he really didn’t have to look so happy when he did it. “So take this bracelet off me right now, and then stand the hell back.”
“Can’t this thing go any faster?!” I ask Kat. We’re in her car, racing to the gala. Only racing isn’t really the right word when we’re barely going the speed limit.
“This thing has a name.” Kat pats the top of her dashboard. “And no, Ol’ Bluebell here is already at top speed.”
“Slow down!” Xavier screeches from the back seat. Because, unfortunately, we couldn’t just leave him alone at the house. I mean, we could have, but I don’t trust that he wouldn’t burn the place down just for spite. Or trash my stuff or pee in my bed. “You’re going to make me throw up!”
Kat glares at him in the rearview mirror. “If you throw up in here, you’re dead.”
I fidget with Sarah’s alert bracelet, which is in my sweatshirt pocket—I didn’t exactly want to leave it out of my sight after getting attacked with it earlier—and check the time on my phone, which I snagged from Grandpa’s office after I used my lightning to bust free. “It’s almost seven.” Everyone must already be at the gala, because they all have their phones turned off. I know because I’ve tried calling them all a million times. Amelia’s was the only one that went through, but she didn’t answer, and when I tried to call back, it went straight to voicemail. So I guess she’s not over the whole me running away from home thing.
At least Kat answered when I called her. And was home from Vilmore this weekend.
“We’ll make it,” Kat says. “We’re almost there. We’ll have plenty of time.”
I nod, even though I’m not sure that’s true. I have to get into the gala, find my friends, and somehow evacuate the entire building, all before seven thirty. And hope nobody recognizes me and hands me over to the League.
“When we get to the hotel, just drop me off at the front entrance.”
“What? No.” She glances over at me, then back at the road. “You’re not going in alone.”
Xavier kicks my seat. “You can’t leave me here! You have to watch me!”
“I wish I could just murder him and get it over with,” I tell her, ignoring Xavier’s screech of protest as I say that. “But we can’t leave him in the car alone.”
“You think I want to be stuck in here with him? You can’t do that to me. And you can’t go into that gala on your own. How are you even going to get in? And don’t say you have a ticket, because we both know that’s not going to work. Plus, it’s black tie, right? You’re wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.”
“I...” Fine, so maybe I haven’t thought this through. “I’ll think of something. But pretty much everyone I care about is going to be in danger. I don’t need to add you to that list. Because it’s bad enough all my friends might get killed tonight, but if something happened to you, too... I couldn’t handle that.”
Kat slams on her brakes as the light in front of us turns red.
“You’re not being gentle!” Xavier screams.
We both ignore him.
“Damien,” Kat says, “you don’t even know how you’ll get in. You might get captured by the League before you get a chance to warn everybody. You need me. And I couldn’t handle losing you, either, so don’t even try to tell me to wait in the car while you go get yourself killed!”
“And what are we supposed to do with him?” I jerk my head toward the backseat. “Bring him with us?” Having to drag Xavier along on a rescue mission, one where I’m trying not to draw attention to myself, sounds like the worst idea ever.
Kat sighs. “I guess we have to.”
“And how are we supposed to get in?”
“Leave that to me,” she says. “I think I know what to do.”
Chapter 29
KAT TRIES TO PARK illegally, so we can be as close to the gala as possible, but there are so many people here, even the illegal spots are taken. We end up having to park in a nearby parking garage, which is still pretty close, but it costs twenty bucks, and Kat seems a little disappointed that she didn’t get to park in some badass way, like in the movies.
But still. We ditch the car and make a run for it. It’s 7:03 by the time we get there. Twenty-seven minutes to stop Grandpa and save everyone I know.
Even though the ceremony started at sev
en, there are still people milling around outside the entrance. Some of them are obviously reporters, though some of them are guests who just showed up late. I pull the hood of my sweatshirt up as we approach, because I really don’t need someone from the press recognizing me and telling the whole world I’m here. Not before I get inside and warn everybody, anyway. Thankfully, it’s pretty dark out, and none of the people just getting here seem to be celebrities, so no one’s paying too much attention.
No one except the two guys standing in front of the door, checking tickets, or the security guys wandering around outside, keeping an eye on the crowd. They’re all wearing official badges from the League, even if they’re not in costume. I’ve never been to one of these things, and it might just be because I’m trying to sneak in, but it seems like a lot of security.
“Be ready,” Kat whispers. “I’m going to cause a distraction. You go in while no one’s looking. I’ll meet you inside.”
“A distraction? That’s your plan?”
“Yep. And don’t give me that look—this is going to work.” She grabs Xavier’s hand, trying not to make a disgusted face, but totally failing.
I raise my eyebrows at her in a silent question.
She mouths, Play along. Then, out loud, to Xavier, “Your mom’s in there. We’re going to go surprise her.”
He squints at her, not quite buying it. “Mommy’s on a date, being newlyweds.”
“Right. But this is where she’s on her date.”
“I thought we were going to the Heroes’ Gala.” He glances up at me for confirmation.
“Don’t look at me. I can’t keep up with Mom’s plans. All I know is that she, uh, texted me to say she’d be here, and she really wants—er, needs—to see you.”
Xavier frowns, thinking about that, and Kat motions for me to keep talking.
“Because... she thought she could go a few hours without seeing her special”—I practically choke on the words—“angel miracle, but she was wrong. And she wants to set the record straight about our—your—birthdays.”
The Betrayal of Renegade X (Renegade X, Book 3) Page 29
