Amelia slips as she steps backward onto the third landing, like she lost track and wasn’t expecting the ground to be flat. It throws me off balance, and I lose my footing. A jolt of adrenaline rushes through me, and before I can stop it, a burst of lightning races across my skin.
Amelia cries out in pain, but she doesn’t let go.
I can feel myself falling backward. Then Amelia recovers and pulls me up.
We’re at the top, both of us out of breath and kind of freaked out. Now that we’re safe, she drops my arm and rubs her hand. She checks her phone. “We made good time. You almost went up the stairs like a normal person. Faster than if we waited for the stupid elevator, and who knows if it would have even come straight up.”
“You’re not useless, Amelia. You know that?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” She rolls her eyes at me, but her cheeks turn a little pink at the compliment.
Chapter 33
THE FIFTH FLOOR LOOKS like a war zone. Or at least what we can see of it. There’s a cave-in a little ways down the hall. It looks like a beam from the roof collapsed, along with the wall next to it. There’s debris all over and dust in the air. Whatever happened, the superheroes must be stuck on the other side, because there’s no sign of them, and they didn’t follow Mason down the stairs.
But there’s no sign of Riley, either.
“Oh, my God,” Amelia says, gasping at all the rubble. “Do you think—”
“No. Don’t even say it.” He has to be okay. He has to be here, and he has to be okay. Because if he was on the other side, with those superheroes, or if he was under the beam when it collapsed...
Something flickers on the floor by the cave-in. There’s a body—no, a person—propped against the wall, trying and failing to stay invisible. “Perkins?!” I rush over to him and kneel down on the floor.
“X?” His voice is faint, and he says it like he doesn’t believe it, like he might just be delirious and imagining anyone else is here. His right leg is pinned under a giant chunk of debris.
“What happened?”
“My leg hurts. I can’t move.” His face is really pale, and it’s obviously taking a lot of effort to talk. “Did you find the machine?”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Everything’s going to be okay.” Except for the fact that Kat and Sarah are trapped in a fight with some superheroes and haven’t turned the lasers off yet and the Truth is still on its way. But other than that, everything’s just fine.
“The superheroes were shooting at us, and then the ceiling was coming down. Mason pushed me to get past. I fell, and then I was on the ground and my leg hurt. The superheroes couldn’t get through—I think they went to find another way down. But I couldn’t move, and Mason left. He just left.”
“I know. We ran into him.” I should have killed him.
“He pushed you?” Amelia says, her eyes wide.
“He panicked.” Riley coughs from all the dust and then winces.
“Not as much as he’s going to panic the next time I see him.” I half expect Riley to argue against that, to try and defend Mason even after what he did, but thankfully he doesn’t.
“What are we going to do?” Amelia gets out her phone and frowns at the time. “The villains will be here any minute.”
“What?” Riley asks. “What about the lasers?”
“Sarah and Kat are trapped in a hotel room,” Amelia says. “They haven’t gotten to the lasers yet.”
I glare at her. “Amelia. Shut up.”
“What? It’s true.”
I jerk my head toward Riley, trying to silently communicate to her that he doesn’t need to hear all that.
“They’re what?” Riley sucks in a breath in surprise and ends up coughing again. His eyes water from the pain. “X, you have to get out of here.”
“I’m not abandoning you.” Those superheroes will be back, plus Riley doesn’t look too good. I move to inspect the debris that’s on his leg. There’s a big chunk from the ceiling, but thankfully the beam missed him, and the chunk’s not too big.
Okay, it’s kind of really big, and it looks really heavy, and I don’t have super strength.
“Amelia. You’re going to have to use your power to move this thing.”
“That?” Amelia gapes at the chunk of rubble. “I can’t call that!”
“Yes, you can.”
She’s shaking her head. “I can only summon up small things. I tried to use my power to call a dining chair into the kitchen the other day, so I could reach the top shelf in the cupboard, but it just shuddered really hard and fell. I can’t—”
“Amelia, you have to! Just concentrate, okay?”
“It’s bigger than a chair. And it looks a lot heavier. I’m still working my way up to that. The biggest thing I’ve moved so far was Tiffany’s lamp that’s shaped like a turtle, and it was mostly hollow. If I do this, Riley’s just going to get hurt worse. Because of me!”
“You have to try! We can’t leave him like that, and we don’t have time to argue! Please, Amelia. If I could do it, I would, but I can’t lift it, and I don’t have your power. So, please—”
“Okay, I guess, if I have to... I’ll do what I can.” She sets her mouth into a grim line and presses her hand to the chunk of debris. Then she stands back. She takes a deep breath and holds her hands out face down, moving them closer to the floor, so the chunk won’t have as far to drop if she succeeds.
When. I mean when she succeeds.
I kneel down next to Riley. “This is going to hurt like hell, Perkins.” More than it already does. “So, just... I don’t know. I don’t know what else to do, but I’m going to be right here, and I’m not going anywhere.” I grab his hand, because I really don’t know what else to do.
Riley nods. He looks absolutely terrified. “I’m sorry, X. I’m sorry we weren’t partners this semester.”
“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter now.”
“But if we don’t make it out of here—”
“We’re going to make it! All of us! So don’t start apologizing to me like we’re never going to see each other again. Amelia, call it! Do it now!”
I glance over my shoulder at her. Her face twists up in concentration. “Nothing’s happening. I don’t—”
“You can do this! It doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t done in the past—this is now, and right now, you can do this.”
She takes a deep breath and focuses again.
A scream tears through Riley as the chunk of debris disappears from on top of his leg and crashes down in front of Amelia. He squeezes my hand so hard, I feel like my fingers are going to break.
“Oh, my God! I did it!” Amelia looks shocked, like she really didn’t think it was going to happen.
“Yeah, you did. Now get over here and help me get him off the floor. Perkins, put your arm around my shoulders. I’m going to support you on this side, with your bad leg. Amelia’s going to get the other one.”
“No.” Tears drip down Riley’s face. He almost can’t get the words out, he’s crying so hard. “I can’t. I can’t do this. Just leave me here!”
I motion for Amelia to get into place. “I don’t suppose you’ve touched any painkillers you can call up?”
She looks sick. “Maybe we shouldn’t move him. It’s going to hurt a lot.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, everything’s gone to hell tonight. Those superheroes are going to come back. They already did this.” I indicate the cave-in and Riley’s injury. “I don’t even want to know what else they’re going to do if they find him again. So, come on, and help me already!”
Amelia doesn’t look completely convinced, but she does what I say and gets Riley’s other arm around her. I count off again and we stand up, hauling Riley up between us. He screams and starts muttering incoherently. I try to keep most of his weight on me. It’s not easy. All of my muscles strain just to keep us standing.
“Where are we taking him?” Amelia asks. She s
ounds a little out of breath already. “We don’t have much time, and we still have to help Sarah and Kat.”
“This way.” I indicate the closest hotel room. “We just have to get him inside, and then you’re going to stay with him.”
“Me?! But what if the superheroes come back?”
Right as she says that, the stairwell door bangs open, and a security guard from the League steps into the hallway. He holds out his hand like a weapon and says, “Nobody move!”
And I know I have to zap him. Even before he reaches for the walkie-talkie on his belt to call for backup, I know. Because we don’t have time for this. The Truth is going to be here any minute. Those lasers are still hooked up, and I promised Grandpa I could do this. And I don’t know if the lasers are only in the ballroom, where the awards ceremony is, or if they’re all over the hotel, but I don’t really want to find out. I have villain DNA, and so does Kat, and I kind of want both of us to stay alive.
Not to mention that Riley’s in a hell of a lot of pain right now, and me and Amelia can’t keep holding him up like this.
And now some superhero douchebag thinks he can show up here, point his stupid hand at us, and we’ll just do whatever he says? Because tonight hasn’t been awful enough.
Electricity crackles in my palm, and I don’t think I could stop it even if I wanted to. I have to force myself to hold back, because I just need to incapacitate this guy, not kill him. Grandpa’s right, I need to learn something in between barely touching someone and totally obliterating them, but right now it’s all I can do to avoid that second option.
The superhero charges up his own power—a burning ray of destruction. My electricity hits him before he fires, knocking him off balance, so that his blast hits the ceiling instead. More debris rains down on us, but at least we’re not dead.
And I must have held back more than I thought, because the superhero’s on the ground but still moving. He shouts into his walkie-talkie, “I found them! You’ve got to get up here—”
I zap him again, and this time he loses consciousness.
“If anybody asks, you guys didn’t see that. Especially you, Perkins.” I readjust Riley’s arm around my shoulder, making sure I have a good hold of him, then move toward the hotel room. “Use your power to take out the lock,” I tell Amelia. “Once I’m gone, barricade the door.”
“That guy called somebody,” Amelia says. “More of them are going to come. You can’t leave me.”
“You’ll be safe in here. And I’m trusting you to stay with Riley.”
“They’re going to figure out where we are!”
“They won’t.” I hope.
“And if they do?”
“You remember when one of Grandpa’s goons had that raygun to your head?”
“Uh, yeah. How could I forget?”
“Call it.”
Her eyes go wide. “And then what? I’m not like you, Damien. I can’t... I can’t shoot a superhero!”
“You won’t have to. Just make them believe you will long enough to stall until Grandpa’s machine goes off, and then it won’t matter anymore.”
I take the elevator back down to the fourth floor. I check the time on Riley’s phone—7:44.
Kat and Sarah have been stuck in that room for over ten minutes. If they’re still there. If those superheroes didn’t bust their way in and capture them. And if they did, then that’s it. I don’t know where the control room is, and even if there was time to find out, I have no idea how to turn off the lasers. Without Sarah, we’re screwed.
But I still hear shouting and rayguns blasting off to the right. I never thought hearing that would be a good thing, but it means the girls are still under siege.
Er, not that that should be a good thing, either, but at least I’m not too late.
I race down the hall toward the sounds. Electricity crackles across my skin. I have no idea what I’m going to find, only that I have to be prepared to fight. I round the corner and see five superheroes crowding the hallway, all focused on the same hotel-room door. There are holes in the walls from them shooting their rayguns. It’s not as much of a war zone as the fifth floor, but it’s not good, either.
One of them was shouting, “Last warning!” at the door, but he stops when I come running and they all turn to look at me.
Maybe it’s because they recognize me, or maybe it’s because I’m covered in electricity, but it seems like they barely have a chance to register any of that stuff before they start shooting at me. And I don’t care what Gordon says about still believing in the League—they’ve totally lost it.
I jump to the right to dodge a raygun beam and zap the nearest superhero. It’s difficult to control how much power I’m using, especially when they’re shooting at me, but I try to hold back. Maybe I shouldn’t be, because they seem like they’re trying to kill me, and after everything the heroes have been doing tonight, they don’t exactly deserve the benefit of the doubt. But I’m not a killer.
Even if there are five heroes attacking me all at once and I’m pretty sure I’m going to die.
I dodge another beam. It hits the wall to my right, blasting out a chunk that hits my arm. The superhero I got with my lightning is on the floor, so at least that’s one down. Maybe I should run and try to lead them away from Kat and Sarah and hope they notice that the hall’s clear. But there’s no way I can turn my back to my attackers and live to tell about it, so my only option is to stay and fight.
I zap another one. I wish Grandpa was here to take them all down. I wish I’d had more time to train with him and learn how to do it myself.
“Eliminate him! He’s a villain!” one of them yells. It’s the same one who was shouting at the hotel-room door, and I figure he’s their leader.
Eliminate really sounds so final. I duck to avoid another shot. Fighting for my life kind of makes my electricity harder to control, but I don’t have much choice. I aim for another hero, and if I zap them harder than I mean to, it’s because I don’t have the luxury of holding back anymore.
But right as I zap them, a raygun beam hits my left arm. There’s an explosion of white-hot pain, and for a moment, it’s all I’m aware of, and I can’t make sense of what’s happening. My lightning misses its mark, hitting the wall instead.
The pain slows down my reaction time, and another blast almost gets me. I lash out, holding up my right hand and not caring how much power I hit them with. It’s them or me.
Right then the hotel-room door flies open, and Kat and Sarah burst out, screaming some war cry. Sarah’s holding out her stupefication gun—it has some wires hanging out of it, and she must have managed to fix it—and Kat’s wielding a small coffee pot full of boiling water and holding a little rubber garbage can like a shield.
They’re standing behind the heroes and almost get hit by my electricity. Kat swears and drops her coffee pot, nearly splashing herself with it, as she pushes Sarah out of the way, so that they both narrowly avoid getting electrocuted.
“It’s about time you showed up!” Kat shouts. Now that her right hand is free, she shapeshifts it into a sword.
The three remaining superheroes are shooting at all of us. I blast another one, and Sarah fires her stupefication gun at the other two. There’s a loud click, and nothing happens. Kat throws her garbage can at them. Sarah fires again, and this time there’s a whirring noise and a pop as the gun sort of explodes. But it worked this time. The heroes lower their weapons and stand there, confused.
I zap them before there’s any time for it to wear off. They fall to the floor, and I kind of feel like joining them.
“Oh, my God,” Kat says. “You’re bleeding!” She ducks down and grabs one of the knocked-out heroes’ rayguns.
“I’m fine.” I think. I press my right hand to the wound on my left arm. It burns like hell, but it’s not too deep.
Sarah’s eyes flick back and forth, taking everything in. “Where’s Riley? And Mason? What took you so long?”
“Mason left. And R
iley... He’s going to be okay.”
“What? What happened?!”
“I’ll tell you later—we have to go!”
There are footsteps in the hall, coming from the direction of the elevator. One of the superheroes must have called for backup.
Sarah opens her mouth to argue, but Kat grabs her arm and starts running. “Come on! The control room should be down here.”
I hurry after them.
Kat stops in front of a door labeled Networking/Storage: Authorized Personnel Only. “It’s an old building,” Kat says. “They converted an old janitor’s closet into a control room for the network when they got internet. Or at least that’s what the manager told us. I had to look really official—I turned into the head of the League, based on a thumbnail from his bio I looked up on my phone.” She tries the handle, but it’s locked.
Down the hall, I hear shouting. They must have discovered all the superheroes on the floor.
“Hold on—I’ve got this.” Kat starts to transform her hand into lockpicks.
“There’s no time!” I hold up my hand, and she nods and gets out of the way so I can blast it.
“Tell me now, Damien.” Sarah’s voice is flat. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard her sound so freaked out before. “What happened to Riley?”
“If he says he’s going to be fine,” Kat says, “then he is.”
“If it was your boyfriend, you’d want to know. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t.”
“His leg’s broken,” I tell her. “But he’s going to be fine. Amelia’s with him now.”
Sarah breathes a little easier, but then frowns. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Sarah, we don’t have time for this!” She’s right, I’m not exactly giving her the whole story, but it’s going to have to be enough. I step forward, ready to blast the door.
“Wait!” Sarah shouts. “Be careful—don’t fry any of the equipment. We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.”
The Betrayal of Renegade X (Renegade X, Book 3) Page 33
