The Phobia of Renegade X

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  Tristan folds his arms and tilts his head at me. “Okay, now what?”

  “Now we find Frank.” Obviously. I’m just not sure how we’re going to do that. I glance around the room, but there are a ton of people here, and I don’t see anyone who looks like her.

  “We should split up,” Riley says, and my stomach kind of twists, because this is starting to feel a little too much like the gala.

  Me, him, and Sarah, all dressed up, going our separate ways and trying to find a weapon, trying to stop something really bad from happening. But I tell myself tonight is completely different. The gala’s long over. Kat’s not here, and neither is Amelia, and Tristan isn’t Mason. And splitting up to cover more ground doesn’t mean we’re all going to end up in danger, or that I won’t be there to stop people from attacking my friends.

  But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do, either.

  “X—”

  I shake my head. “We’re sticking together. Frank’s going to be with the fear ray. She’s not going to be out here, in the crowd.” At least, I don’t think. “We need to look for her backstage, and… she needs to not find any of us alone.”

  Sarah nods. “Good thinking, Renegade.”

  “Renegade?” Tristan looks confused for a second, and then he smirks at me. “You’re Renegade? That’s your superhero code name or whatever?”

  “Renegade X,” Sarah corrects him. “I’m the Cosine Kid, and Riley’s Secant.”

  “Sarah.” I grit my teeth. “Don’t tell him our code names.”

  “But he’s part of the group.”

  “Temporarily,” Riley reminds her. “And it’s not funny.” He says that last part to Tristan, who’s really obviously trying not to laugh.

  Tristan holds up his hands, like he wasn’t doing anything, but then he says, “Do all heroes have stupid names, or is it just you guys?”

  I kind of wish it wasn’t so crowded in here, so I could at least act like I was going to zap him. “We don’t have time for this.”

  “I didn’t think you could get any lamer than Son of Flash, but you guys sound like a math club, not a superhero team. What do you guys do, terrorize villains who suck at algebra?”

  I ignore him and make my way through the crowd, to a door that leads backstage.

  “We don’t terrorize anyone,” Sarah says. “That’s not what heroes do.”

  Tristan snorts at that.

  “We’re not the League,” Riley adds, sounding annoyed.

  “Whatever, man. Just as long as kids keep doing their math homework, right?”

  I clench my fists, really not sure why I invited him. And then I have this thought about how hilarious Kat’s going to think all this is when I tell her, and it totally guts me. Like I just found out about her being sick all over again. I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself.

  “You okay?” Riley whispers.

  I nod, just once.

  He nods back, though I’m pretty sure he knows it’s a lie. Then I try the knob, but it’s locked.

  I mean, of course it is. They’ve got all the valuable items from the auction somewhere back there—they’re not just going to leave everything open to the public.

  “Stand back,” Tristan says, elbowing his way past me. “I’ll take care of this.” He puts his hand on the knob, and I watch it turn red as it heats up and starts to melt.

  “I could have done that,” I mutter, though not without, like, having to blast it for a while and attracting a lot of attention.

  Tristan just gives me a smug look, like we both know he’s better at this than me. Then he has to jump back a step as some molten metal almost lands on his shoes.

  Once the knob’s gone, the door swings open, and all four of us slip backstage.

  I don’t know what I expected to find, but this is just an empty hallway, with no big signs pointing in the right direction that say, Fear ray over here! or Big-ticket items from the auction we don’t want anyone to steal, right this way!

  “Maybe we should split up,” Sarah says. “Unless anyone knows which direction we should go?”

  “We’re not—”

  Tristan interrupts me. “She’s right. We don’t know where they’re keeping the fear ray or if that’s where we’ll even find Frank. Frank might not even be here, and the sooner we know that, the sooner we can figure out where she really is.”

  I hate that he’s making sense right now, even if I don’t agree with him. “She’s here. I know she—” My phone buzzes, since I have it on vibrate. My heart lurches into my throat as I grab my phone, afraid that it’s about Kat. But it’s just a text from Gordon.

  It says, Where are you?

  I consider writing him back, but only for a second, and then I decide against it. I can’t tell him where I really am, because he wouldn’t approve. Or at the least he’d worry about me, and probably for good reason. And while my first instinct is to lie to him and say that I’m at Riley’s, I decide against that, too.

  And then I notice that I do have a missed call, after all. It must have gone off while we were in the crowd, and even though I had it on vibrate, I guess I didn’t feel it.

  It’s from Kat’s mom. My hands start shaking and I feel like I can’t breathe.

  Everyone’s staring at me now.

  “What happened?” Riley asks, his voice almost a whisper.

  “Kat’s mom called. I don’t… I don’t know.” She didn’t leave a voicemail. She didn’t text. Maybe she didn’t even mean to call me. Or maybe what she had to tell me was too horrible to say to a machine.

  Tristan takes out his phone and checks it, like maybe he would have gotten a call, too, which kind of really pisses me off. But it’s still a disappointment when he says, “Nothing here.”

  Maybe Kat’s mom called the house when she couldn’t get a hold of me. She could have gotten the number from Kat’s phone. Maybe that’s why Gordon texted, wondering where I was. I hit the button to call her back, but it just rings and rings. Then I try calling their house, just in case, but nobody picks up.

  Panic claws through my chest, and my throat feels tight, and I hate this. There are a million different reasons why that missed call might not mean anything, but I can’t bring myself to believe any of them, and instead the worst scenarios run through my mind.

  “X,” Riley says.

  I shake my head. “I’m okay.”

  He opens his mouth, then doesn’t say anything.

  “We have to focus on finding Frank,” Sarah says. “That means splitting up.”

  Riley glances over at me, then at the others. “We’ll go in teams of two. That way no one will be alone. I’ll… I’ll take Tristan.”

  Tristan folds his arms. “Don’t do me any favors. There’s no way I’m partnering up with some letterist douchebag.”

  Sarah glares at him. “He’s not letterist. Or a douchebag.” She looks Tristan up and down, then adds, “That sounds more like you.”

  Riley takes a step forward, so he’s between them. “I’ll go with Damien. Sarah, try not to kill Tristan, okay?”

  “I can’t make any promises.”

  “Kill me?” Tristan laughs a little. “I’d like to see you try.”

  Sarah reaches a hand into her purse.

  “Look,” Riley says to Tristan, “if you’re not going to add anything to the group—”

  “I got us through that door, didn’t I?

  “—then maybe you should just leave. You’re slowing us down.”

  “Me? I’m slowing us down? How long did it take you to let us in? This could have all been over by now if you hadn’t—”

  “Nobody’s leaving,” I tell them. “And nobody’s splitting up, even if—”

  “Hey! What are you kids doing back here?!”

  We turn to see a security guard running toward us from down the hall.

  Crap. My mind races, trying to think of something to say—a lie that explains why we’re here, why we shouldn’t get kicked out—but it just goes blank.
I tell myself I have to think of something, because if we have to leave right now, before we get that antidote, then Kat’s not going to make it. But that thought only makes it worse, and I freeze up, my mouth slightly open, not saying anything.

  The security guard does not look happy to find four teenagers wandering around backstage. “How’d you even get in the club?”

  “We’re testing your security,” Sarah says. “What you should really be asking yourself is—”

  “Don’t listen to her.” Tristan steps forward, shaking his head at Sarah and smiling like this whole situation is hilarious. “She’s kidding. We’re here because my uncle’s the caterer, and he said it would be cool if me and my friends hung out for a while. We’ve never been to a nightclub before, and we just wanted to say we came to the auction, because our friends are never going to believe we were here.”

  The security guard takes that in. “Your uncle should know better. You all look underage to me, and it is not ‘cool’ for you to be here, and especially not backstage.”

  “We’re not drinking, and we’re not getting in the way of the auction,” Tristan tells him, keeping his voice calm, like we really are just here for some bragging rights and aren’t causing trouble. “I swear.”

  “You’re still going to have to vacate the premises, and I’m going to have to—” He stops in mid-sentence as he looks over at me, recognition suddenly flashing in his eyes. “Aren’t you Alistair Locke’s grandson? From the Truth commercials?”

  Tristan scowls.

  “Yep,” I tell the security guard.

  “I can’t… That’s…” He shakes his head and wipes his palms on his thighs. “Please tell your grandfather, and yourself— Please tell yourself how much I—” He winces. “Let me start again. What you did, it was just… It’s hard to put into words how much it means to me. What you and your grandfather did for villains. And I can’t thank you guys enough.”

  I feel sick, and I don’t know what to say. He just told me how much what I supposedly did means to him, when really he should be kicking us out, and now he’s standing there with this big, hopeful grin on his face, waiting for me to acknowledge him.

  All I have to do is say, Thanks, I’ll tell him. All I have to do is smile back. But I can’t bring myself to do either of those things. And maybe I was frozen before, but now I can’t stop the words from coming, even if they’re the wrong ones. “You shouldn’t be thanking me. All I did with those commercials was lie to the people who believed in me. The biggest thing I did for the Truth was almost get a bunch of people killed. So don’t”—I swallow—“don’t thank me.”

  Beside me, Riley cringes. Tristan looks like he just ate something really sour. Sarah bites her lip and stares at her shoes.

  I watch the security guard’s smile fade. He looks me over again, like he’s seeing me for the first time and not sure he recognizes me anymore.

  I lean back against the wall and rub my hands across my eyes. I wish I hadn’t said any of that. I wish I hadn’t meant it. But I did, on both counts, and I can’t take it back now.

  “Look,” the security guard finally says, “all I know is that we got my niece back from the League because of the Truth. Because of those commercials, and people believing in you, we got her back. She’s only sixteen. She’d never hurt anybody, but they took her, and—” He chokes up, just a little, and shakes his head. “That’s all I know, that we got her back, and that’s all I care about.”

  I feel like a jerk for the things I just said, even if they were true, and for not being who he wanted me to be. “Okay,” I tell him. And then, because that doesn’t feel like enough, I add, “Thanks.”

  He nods. “But you kids really shouldn’t be here. I’m going to have to— What’s that?” He squints at the door behind us, the one with the missing knob.

  We all turn to look at where he’s pointing, as if it’s news to us and we had no idea.

  “That was like that when we got here,” Sarah says. “That was a while ago. There might be someone lurking backstage—they could be anywhere by now.”

  The security guard’s eyes go wide. He swears under his breath, then says, “You kids need to leave,” before grabbing his walkie-talkie and running off down the hall.

  At least now we know which direction to go. Once he’s gone, we take the security guard’s lead and head down the hall, because I figure he wouldn’t have run away from the items he was trying to protect if he thought there was an intruder on the loose. I’m just not sure what we’re going to do when we run into him and possibly all the other security guards he’s called for backup. Saying we got lost probably won’t cut it, especially not if Frank’s there.

  If she’s there. Because there’s still the possibility that I was wrong, and she didn’t come here tonight, and all of this is for nothing because Kat’s still going to—

  An announcement from the loudspeakers interrupts my thoughts as someone says, “Ladies and gentlemen, please return to your seats for our next item, the Director of Damage’s fear ray. Up until recently, the fear ray was believed in some circles to only be a myth, but we have the real thing here today. And to prove it, there’ll be a short demo before the bidding starts, performed by none other than its finder, Frank herself.”

  All four of us stop moving. We look at each other.

  “Where’s the stage?” I glance around, looking for the quickest way up there.

  “Wait,” Riley says. “What are we going to do? We can’t just—”

  “I can’t let her get away!”

  “I know, but we need a plan! We can’t just run in!”

  There’s the muffled sound of applause, probably as Frank takes the stage.

  She’s there, right now, with the antidote on her. And the fear ray. And who knows what other weapons.

  And Riley’s right—rushing in without a plan is probably a stupid idea. I have no idea how I’m going to get Frank to give me that antidote, let alone how I’m going to keep her from killing me. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m out of time. This is it.

  “I have my lightning,” I tell him. Then, to everyone, “Stay here.”

  But none of them do. All three of them follow me as I race toward the door marked Stage.

  Chapter 43

  WE HEAR FRANK’S VOICE through the loudspeakers. “Good evening, ladies and gents! Do I have a volunteer from the audience? One lucky person is going to get terrified out of their mind—who’s it going to be?” There’s a pause, then, “No one? No one’s going to take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?” She makes a tsk sound. “Such a shame. Then I guess it’s going to have to be all of you.”

  The whole audience starts screaming.

  We arrive onstage a second later. Frank’s wearing a pair of purple-tinted safety goggles and holding a remote control in one hand. Besides what look like a couple rayguns in holsters around her waist, she’s also got the fear ray hanging from a strap across her chest, except it becomes obvious as we get closer that it’s not the fear ray. It’s a plastic replica.

  “Quiet!” Frank yells. “Or you’ll get another dose!” She waves the remote at the audience, threatening them, and they all go silent. She turns to us. “And you. Get out of here.”

  Lightning’s already running down my arms. I hold up my hands. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  Frank smirks at that. At us. “If I push this button again, the fear ray gets you, too. And then you’ll do whatever I say. So you might as well do it now.”

  Tristan’s got flames in his hands. Sarah’s holding a tiny raygun. Riley’s invisible. Frank could push the button, but could she do it before one of us attacked?

  “I don’t have time for this,” Frank says. Then, to the audience, “Will Bernard Hargrove please come to the stage so I can give that bastard what he deserves?”

  There’s a murmur in the audience. A man stands up and starts making his way over.

  Frank addresses us again. “Well, you’re still here, so I guess we do this th
e hard way.”

  “We just need the antidote!” I shout.

  “The antidote?” She frowns, like she’s confused and doesn’t know what I’m talking about, and for a second I think it actually doesn’t exist. And that I’m going to throw up. “Oh.” She waves her free hand in our direction. “That’s right, your little girlfriend’s not here this time, is she?” She tilts her head and pouts her lips in mock sympathy. “Though it’s kind of late to be asking for the antidote, since she should be dead by now.” She shrugs, as if it’s no big deal. “Well, just remember, you brought this on yourselves.”

  Frank holds out the remote, pointing it toward the disco ball on the ceiling. Her thumb twitches on the button.

  But not before I zap the remote.

  The audience shrieks in terror.

  Frank swears and grabs the rayguns from the holsters around her waist. She doesn’t hesitate—she aims and fires. Except, not at me.

  Riley cries out and turns visible, holding his shoulder.

  My blood runs cold. I feel like someone just poured ice water down my back. Electricity crackles across my skin, making my hair stand on end.

  “Did you think I didn’t know where he was?” Frank shakes her head at me. “You underestimated me, just like Bernard here. Are you there, Bernard?” she asks, not turning to look.

  Bernard’s standing on the floor just in front of the stage. He’s middle-aged and old enough to be her dad—so, probably not an ex-boyfriend. He hauls himself up onto the stage, shaking all over and watching Frank with a horrified look on his face. “I’m here,” he says quietly, just loud enough to be heard.

  “You see,” Frank says, “Bernard thought he could kidnap me and get away with it, because I was just some weak, scared little girl. He thought he could use me to lure my father to him. Isn’t that what you did, Bernard?”

  “Yes,” he admits, not looking at her.

  “Tell them what you did.”