The Rise of Renegade X

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  I make the trade, not caring that he’s oh-so-subtly kicking me out of the group. I got my sample, and that means my detective work is over for the day.

  I intended to go home, but then I remembered Mom’s pissed at me for “breaking” her stupid whatsit device. I say “breaking” because I don’t buy that it worked in the first place. But instead of getting chewed out, I opt for a detour to Kat’s house.

  Kat lives in a two-story, three-bedroom house with a white picket fence. Walking by, you’d have no idea the people who live here and keep their lawn trimmed and their roses pruned and their music quiet after dark are actually supervillains. Kat’s dad has some kind of superpower that lets him commune with machines, or at least know when and how they need fixing. He could have used his ability to repair tractors or something, but instead he used it to start a tech business. He’s the CEO of Wilson Enterprises, a computer company with good stock options and about a hundred million slaves—I mean, factory workers—under its thumb. Her mom is his secretary. They started the business together a little while after Kat was born, and it’s only in recent years that it’s really taken off. Their products are pretty good, if you don’t mind your CPU sending out mind-control signals, telling you to buy more Wilson Enterprises merchandise. As a bonus, it waits until the computer is in energy-saving mode, so it doesn’t use up all your processing power while you’re playing games. Or, you know, working.

  “Did you get your hair trimmed?” I ask Kat’s mom as she shows me in. “It looks very … modern. And high-tech.”

  She fluffs the bottom of her shoulder-length ’do, her whole face lighting up. “Why, thank you, Damien. I didn’t expect anyone to notice.”

  I make my way up the staircase to Kat’s room, keeping close to the wall and not looking down. I’m always torn between keeping to the inside of the stairs, where there’s less chance of falling over the edge—but where you have nothing to hold on to if you slip—and gripping the railing for dear life and taking the risk. So far, I’ve always chosen the wall. Even if I’m terrified of slipping, railing can break at any moment; you can’t trust it.

  “Damien!” Kat shouts from the top of the stairs. She sounds excited to see me. “Come on, get up here! Show some hustle!”

  I pretend to be distracted by the painting on the wall of Kat’s notorious grandfather, Bart the Blacksmith, as if that’s the reason I’m slow getting up the stairs, even though I know I’m not fooling anyone. Kat’s known about my phobia for over a year and a half. “I think you should move your room to the first floor. The guest room’s a lot bigger than yours. You’re sixteen now—you deserve some respect.”

  She tromps down the five steps I have left and grabs my arm. “It’s only stairs, Damien. Lots of people have them. And you know what? They go up and down them every day, and nothing happens.”

  I jerk my arm back, like I’m offended she tried to help me. Really I don’t want her getting careless and making us both fall.

  “Keep your door open, honey!” Mrs. Wilson calls from downstairs. “You know what your father said!”

  “Yes, Mom!” Kat rolls her eyes. She slides her octopus statue as close to the edge of the doorframe as possible, so that the door’s open just a crack, obeying only as much as she has to. Kat had a real octopus for a while, and when it died she got this foot-tall stone replica in its honor.

  I’m still wearing my new gloves, by the way. If she saw my X, she’d know about my dad. I haven’t even figured out who he is yet, let alone how I’m going to tell Kat—if I tell Kat instead of finding a hole to crawl in and die so I’ll never have to see anyone again. It’s a tough decision.

  Kat has pink streaks in her hair today. She bounces down on her bed, a frilly purple canopy. She doesn’t even pretend it’s leftover from when she was a kid. They couldn’t have afforded one then, plus I was with her when she picked it out at the store last year.

  “Here’s your phone, before I forget.” She grabs it from the nightstand and tosses it to me.

  “Thanks.” I lie down on the floor and stretch out, resting my arms behind my head. Her ceiling is covered in thick spackle. She has a poster of Falling Super Pants, the all-supervillain emo boy band. All five of them have their shirts off and seem to have walked into a fountain without realizing it. They’re standing around in the middle of it, getting sprayed by the water and shrugging and laughing. And holding sci-fi-looking rayguns. Their expressions say: Wow, how’d we get here? I don’t know, but let’s splash each other some more! They are all, how you say … more “finely toned” than me. Some might even use the term “rippling.” I shake my head. “Falling Super Pants?”

  Kat glances up at the ceiling and gasps, like she forgot that was up there. Her face turns pink. “So? You’ve only heard the one song they play on the radio all the time, ‘Poisoned Lipstick in My Heart.’ The rest of the album’s way different.”

  I sit up. “You have their whole album? Next you’re going to tell me you downloaded all the bonus tracks, too.”

  “Whatever.” She throws one of her pillows at my face. “Like you can talk. I know about your Superstar collection.”

  Superstar is one of those stupid pop bands made of, like, eight teens who won some contest for a record deal. The ones in the band aren’t actually super, but they dress up like heroes and villains in their videos. I’m ashamed to say I own both their albums and their six singles and listen to them on a regular basis. To my credit, I resisted buying concert tickets when they played last month. Of course, I was completely broke at the time, but I guess I could have borrowed the money from Mom. And maybe the real reason I didn’t go wasn’t the money, but because I’d have wanted to take Kat with me, and taking her to a concert would be kind of like a date. And asking Kat out on a date would be kind of like getting back together. Which we’re not, even if we spend all our time together and are closer than we ever were when we were actually going out.

  Here’s how I see it. I might secretly still have a thing for Kat, but as long as we’re not technically together, she can’t cheat on me. If she takes up with someone else, it’s not like we’re dating, so it’s not like she can break my heart or make me feel like crap. At least in theory. But if we go out? Then I couldn’t help but take it personally if she chose someone else over me again.

  “I hoped you’d stop by,” Kat says. The bedsprings squeak as she leans over one side of it and rummages around underneath, her knees digging into the mattress. I hear paper crinkling, and then she sets something on my stomach.

  “I would have given it to you on your birthday, but I didn’t want to risk it getting broken at the party.”

  I lift my head to see what it is. It’s a birthday present, wrapped in leftover silver Christmas paper. Wherever it said Merry Christmas, Kat crossed out the Christmas part and wrote in Birthday! with a black Sharpie.

  “Merry birthday,” she says.

  The present is tall and thin and oddly shaped. It must have been hell to wrap.

  Footsteps pound up the stairs. “Kat, honey, I thought I heard something,” her mom calls. She pushes the door all the way open, quickly surveying the situation, her eyes flicking from me on the floor to Kat on the bed. “I told you to leave this open.” She drags the octopus over to hold the door open as wide as possible. “Were you two …?” She struggles to come up with the right way to phrase it. “… sitting on the bed just now? I thought I heard squeaking.”

  Kat folds her arms and sticks out her chin. “Were you going to oil the springs for us, Mom? That’s so kind of you.”

  Mrs. Wilson’s mouth hangs open. I set Kat’s present down on the floor. I hold up a finger, signaling for Kat to wait a minute, then I take her Mom’s arm and lead her into the hall. I pat her hand. “I feel your pain, Mrs. Wilson.”

  She stands too close to the stairs and I draw her over to the wall. She has a quizzical look on her face, not sure what the hell I’m talking about.

  I cup a hand around my mouth and whisper, “Did you know y
our daughter has a poster of half-naked men on her ceiling?”

  “Oh, dear.” Mrs. Wilson touches a hand to her chin and glances into Kat’s room, where Kat’s still frumped on the bed, glaring at her.

  “Don’t look!” I grab her sleeve and pull her farther into the hall. “It’s such a rare trait these days for a parent to care as much about their kid as you do.”

  Mrs. Wilson squeezes my hand. “Oh, Damien, you know your mother loves you.”

  “I know, I know.” I sigh. I shift my weight, shuffling my feet. I scratch my ear and look away. “Mrs. Wilson,” I whisper, “can I ask you a favor?”

  She nods, her face pale, her eyes hooked on my every move.

  I open my mouth and take a deep breath, then turn away. “No, I can’t, it’s … it’s too much.”

  “Damien.” Mrs. Wilson puts a stern hand on my shoulder. “Now, you know if you have a problem, or you need something, you have to ask someone. Keeping quiet isn’t going to get anything solved.”

  “You’re right. But, please, don’t tell Kat. I don’t want her to get mad at me.”

  “Go on. Your secret’s safe.”

  “I’m …” I cover my eyes with my hands. “I’m offended by Kat’s taste in décor. The naked men—”

  “I thought you said they were only half-naked!” Mrs. Wilson whips around, her eyes darting to Kat’s room.

  “Half-naked. Same difference.” I point to my face. “These eyes can’t take the vulgarity.”

  “Now, Damien, it’s … it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. It’s not that”—she twitches on the word—“unacceptable in present-day society.”

  “I know. I guess I’m too old-fashioned. But, if you could … if you could talk to her for me, about the posters and the … the magazines.”

  “The what?!”

  I wave my hand, dismissing it. “Never mind, Mrs. Wilson. I think I’m going to have to face the facts. Kat and I are too different to be friends. If I can’t tell her to her face that her … her obvious carelessness when it comes to these matters disturbs my soul, how can we maintain a relationship?” I shake my head. “What’s the man she marries going to think when he finds out that she looked at posters?”

  Mrs. Wilson’s brows knit together in concern, though whether she’s concerned about Kat or me, it’s hard to tell. “Damien, it’s … it’s no problem. I’ll talk to her. Kat needs more influences like you in her life.”

  I hide my eyes under my hand again. “Is it … is it okay if we shut the door, just this once? I don’t want anyone to hear me crying—”

  “It’s fine, fine!” Mrs. Wilson wraps her arms around me, pulling me into a hug. I press my face against her shoulder, and she pats my back like she’s comforting a little kid. “Don’t worry about it. You know, Damien, you need to relax more.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Wilson.” I sniff and drag my sleeve across my nose. When she’s gone, I stride into Kat’s room, grinning. “You can shut the door now.”

  Kat storms over, pulls the octopus out of the way, and slams the door as hard as she can. The sound seems to set off my birthday present, which starts twitching on the floor.

  I raise my eyebrows. “What the hell is that?”

  Kat grabs the present and sets it in my hands. “Don’t talk that way about Mr. Wiggles.”

  “Mr. Wiggles?”

  “Have you been crying?”

  “Just faking it.” I rip open the wrapping paper. It falls away, revealing a plastic sunflower in a flowerpot, wearing sunglasses and holding a guitar. It’s one of those dancing flowers that wiggles around when you play the radio for it. “This is Wiggles?”

  “Mr. Wiggles.” Kat jabs a finger into my stomach. “He was my favorite toy when I was a kid, so you’d better take good care of him.”

  “You should have sent him to grad school. Then he’d have his PhD and be Dr. Wiggles.” I sit down on the bed. “If he’s your favorite toy, why are you giving him to me?”

  “Because. It’s your sixteenth birthday, and I wanted you to have something really special.”

  I stare hard at Mr. Wiggles. I still have a teddy bear from when I was two. His name is Damien II, and he’s so faded, you can’t tell what shade of brown he started out as, and one of the ears is worn through. I can’t imagine giving him away. But Kat’s giving her favorite old toy to me. As a special present.

  I feel like a jerk for not taking her to that concert. For avoiding even getting tickets because of her. Not that she’d want to go—she hates Superstar. But if she’d give me her most prized possession from her childhood, something that can’t ever be replaced, maybe she’d go see a band she hates with me.

  Kat picks up her remote from her nightstand and clicks on the TV. A grin tugs on one side of her mouth. “I’ve got a whole week’s worth of episodes recorded. Two and a half hours of The Crimson Flash and the Safety Kids. I know you want to watch it.”

  “You know me too well.” I set Mr. Wiggles down on the floor and join Kat on the bed. As the theme song plays—“The Crimson Flash is here, and everything’s okay; trust his word and not the herd and have a neato day!”—I decide he’s got to be the worst of the three candidates. The Gallant Gentleman might be a fake British snob who sicced dogs on me, but at least he doesn’t wear a bright red cape and tights. He doesn’t make it his mission in life to save kids from burning orphanages or to help old ladies with their groceries. And best of all? The Gallant Gentleman can’t fly.

  I wince as the Crimson Flash zooms through midair across the screen. If the Crimson Flash turns out to be my dad, that might mean I’ll be able to fly someday. I shudder at the thought, and not just because I have a fear of heights. Some superpowers are unique to villains, and some to heroes. Just as no self-respecting superhero would have laser eyes like my mom, no self-respecting villain would be able to fly. And if they could, they’d never be taken seriously as a villain. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of villainous things you could do with flying, like swooping down on your enemies and dropping Mom’s concoctions on them, but that’s what jet packs are for. Of course, most villains don’t have to worry about getting flying powers and becoming the laughingstock of the universe, since superpowers are genetic and inherited from people in your family. I’m just lucky that way, I guess.

  “This episode’s all about taking your pets to the vet,” Kat says. “I’ve seen it before. You want to skip to the next one? Oh, I know, I’ve got the one where he wears a swimsuit and teaches everyone about beach safety. A swimsuit, Damien. With stripes.”

  I’m staring too intently at the screen to respond. Is the Crimson Flash’s hair the same color as mine? It doesn’t matter. I know my mother well enough to say it definitely wasn’t this guy. My mom and him? He stands for everything good and lawful in the world. Mom’s exact opposite, and the guy in her diary entry was clearly ready and willing to do it with her. I bet the Crimson Flash doesn’t have sex. Like, ever.

  “Damien? Are you okay?” Kat’s giving me a worried look.

  “It’s fine,” I tell her. “Let’s watch this one.”

  “You seem really nervous.” She twists a string from her purple-flower comforter around her finger.

  I run a hand through my hair, almost simultaneously with the idiot on the screen. That doesn’t mean anything. So we have a few of the same traits—complete coincidence.

  Kat holds up the remote and presses the pause button. The Crimson Flash freezes in mid-motion, right before he gives the intro and tells us what today’s show is going to be about. He looks like he’s staring directly at me. Great.

  Kat doesn’t say anything right away. I notice how close we’re sitting. She smells like her watermelon shampoo and the laundry soap her mom uses to wash their clothes. I guess they’re real and she’s not secretly naked. Our shoulders are touching, and if I wasn’t busy gripping the bedspread in outrage that the Crimson Flash has the same hair as me, my hand would probably be lying really close to hers. Like, resting against it. Which doesn�
��t sound like a big deal, except when you consider how far we’ve come in the past year, going from me not talking to her to getting all cozy on her bed and making fun of stupid TV shows. Also, there’s the fact that I want to touch her hand—and other, less public, places—but it’s never going to happen. I’m not going to let it.

  “We need to talk,” Kat finally says. Her voice is quiet. “About us.”

  “There is no us, Kat.”

  “I think I freaked you out, at your party. When I almost …” She let’s out a deep breath all at once. “I almost kissed you, okay? Now you’re acting weird.”

  No, I almost kissed her. And any freaking-out on my part is due to the fact that my dad is a superhero, possibly the one staring at me from the screen. It’s got nothing to do with Kat, but I can see how she might get that from my behavior right now, not knowing about my X.

  “I wanted to,” she adds, her eyes darting toward mine, then down at the bed. She sets the remote on her nightstand and hugs one of her frilly pillows. “We’re practically back together as it is, so—”

  “Whoa.” I hold my hands up in a “stop” gesture. “We are not back together.” I laugh. I actually laugh, even though I’ve had the same thought myself. “I don’t know where you’re getting that.”

  She chews her lower lip. “Oh, so you’re over at my house all the time, hanging out and snuggling up with me for no reason?”

  “There’s no snuggling.” To be honest, there has been a fair amount of what I would call snuggling in the past couple weeks, but I’m not going to admit to it. I scoot a little farther from her to make my point. My heart is racing because I think she’s on to me, and I’m not ready to get caught. I’m only okay liking her in secret—it’s not all right if she knows and wants to do something about it. “I’m … I’m so over you, Kat.” It sounds like a lie, even to me. Hot guilt spreads through my chest, and I can’t look at her.

  But every time I think about how great it would be to kiss her again or put my arms around her or tell people she’s my girlfriend, I have flashbacks of walking in on her kissing Pete. She was shapeshifted, so she didn’t look like her. Long blond hair, tight muscles, and extra curves in all the right places, with her hands all over my best friend. She shifted back to her usual self as soon as she saw me, with a horrified look that must have rivaled my own. If she hadn’t—if she’d had her power longer and had more control over it—I might never have found out.