The Rivalry of Renegade X

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  Mom stands up straight and scowls at me. “No, Taylor and my little sweetiekins are going to visit Taylor’s aunts today. They haven’t seen Xavier since the wedding.”

  “That was only seven months ago.” Which is way too soon, if you ask me.

  “But he’s grown so much since then.”

  “Everyone wants to see how big and strong I am,” Xavier says.

  Ugh. I can’t help making a face at that.

  Mom glares at me. Then she smiles at Xavier. “Go finish getting ready, sweetie.”

  “I don’t want to! I don’t want to dress nice!”

  “Look at Mommy. I’m dressed nice.”

  Xavier scrunches up his nose, like that’s up for debate.

  Mom gets a really sour look on her face. “Taylor!” she bellows.

  He comes running in from their bedroom. “You called, sugar lemon?”

  She points to Xavier. “Get him dressed. I don’t have time for this. I have to meet my parents at the restaurant in twenty minutes.”

  Taylor gives Xavier a terrified look, then ushers him down the hall to his room, muttering about how they all need to look nice for his aunts.

  I look at Mom. “Juniper V’s was the best. Remember how Grandpa used to always say he was too full for dessert and then order it anyway?”

  “Mm-hmm.” She’s barely listening, digging around in her purse for her keys.

  “And Grandma always used to order something weird and let me try it?”

  “Yes, Damien, of course I remember. Now, if you’ll just—”

  “I could run home and get changed. I’ll meet you guys there.” I’m not really hungry, but I could probably go for some dessert later, plus it would be fun to do this again, like we used to. And I’ve got plenty of time before I need to be at Riley’s.

  Mom’s gaping at me. “What?” Then she scoffs in disbelief. “You will not.”

  “Juniper V’s was our thing. Me, you, and Grandma and Grandpa. And you guys are still going there, and I’m not doing anything right now, so—”

  “It’s Juniper V’s. It’s villains only.”

  I swallow. “But I’m half villain. The whole city knows that.”

  “The whole city knows you’re half hero.”

  “Yeah, but I was the spokesperson for the Truth.” That’s got to count for something. “And I was in the paper just today for helping a villain.”

  Mom sighs and gives me a really exasperated look. “With your hero group, Damien.”

  “We’re just as much villain as we are hero,” I tell her, echoing what Kat said earlier. “We don’t really know what we are.”

  She dismisses that with a shake of her head. “Your superhero group helped a villain, and it was only his puppy. And the article used your superhero name.” She wrinkles her nose, like even mentioning it grosses her out.

  Which is kind of understandable. “Son of Flash is not my superhero name.”

  “But you do have one.” She’s still making the disgusted face.

  “I always go to Juniper V’s with you guys.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “It’s a family tradition.”

  “A family you’re barely a part of. You hardly even speak to your grandparents these days.”

  “Only because they betrayed me.” And that doesn’t mean I never want to see or talk to them again.

  “And you chose living with that… that man over me.”

  “That’s not…” I clench my fists. “I’m still a part of this family.” I’m still half villain. Despite what she wants to pretend.

  She tilts her head, giving me an almost pitying look. “It’s villains only, Damien. Some of us have reputations to maintain. And besides, we only made a reservation for three.”

  Riley’s not happy when he gets home. He even has the nerve to glare at me, as if any of this is my fault. And as if I wasn’t on time and ready to help with the garage as promised. There just happens to not be anything left to help with, which has nothing to do with me. But the way Riley immediately looks over, his eyebrows coming together in an accusatory scowl, you’d think I’d orchestrated the whole thing to get out of helping.

  Which, you know, I could have, but I didn’t.

  “I can’t believe this,” Riley says. He’s wearing normal clothes—he must have changed before leaving the diner—but he still smells like grease. He looks from me and Zach on the couch, playing video games, over to Jeffrey, who’s standing in the kitchen in the doorway to the garage.

  Jeffrey’s got dark skin, short black hair, and a well-trimmed beard that normally I would hate but that somehow works on him. He’s kind of sweaty and dirty right now from working in the garage and has his sleeves rolled up. He gives Riley a big smile when he sees him. A somewhat tentative smile, since some part of him must know that Riley’s not going to be happy about this, but a genuine one nonetheless.

  Oh, and did I mention that Jeffrey has an H on his thumb, but isn’t a douchebag? He’s practically a unicorn, and pretty much the exact opposite of Curtis, Mrs. Perkins’ last boyfriend, who we can all agree was the worst. But Jeffrey actually seems… nice.

  Riley glares at him. “I said I was going to do it.”

  “And now you don’t have to. I wasn’t doing anything today, and I thought—”

  “It’s our stuff, not yours.”

  Zach glances nervously over at Riley, then back to the screen, where the car he’s racing is about to go over a cliff. “It’s mostly just junk.”

  “But it’s our junk.”

  “We saved anything that looked important,” Jeffrey says. “You can still go through it. Just not tonight, okay? Come on. It’s Saturday. You’re seventeen. You should be out with your friends, not cleaning the garage. You’re working too hard.” He turns toward the garage and calls out, “Isn’t he, Winnifred?”

  Mrs. Perkins appears in the doorway and squeezes past him into the kitchen. She, too, has her sleeves rolled up and looks kind of sweaty and grimy. There are even a few cobwebs in her hair. She nods as she gets a glass of water from the sink. “Way too hard.”

  Riley rolls his eyes. “It’s only part-time.”

  “You worked over thirty hours last week. This is your last summer before graduation—you should be enjoying it. And you shouldn’t be spending Saturday night helping your mother clean out the garage.” She shakes her head at him.

  “But I want to help. You shouldn’t have to do it by yourself.”

  “And I didn’t.” She smiles real big at Jeffrey. He holds out his arm and pulls her close to him. And now they’re grinning at each other in a really gross, lovey-dovey way that makes us all want to barf. But, like, in a good way, I guess—not like how it was with Curtis.

  “I said I’d do it.”

  Mrs. Perkins breaks away from Jeffrey and pats Riley’s shoulder. “I know you would have. But I didn’t need you to this time.”

  Riley looks like someone just sucker punched him. “But—”

  “I need you to have fun, okay? Don’t be so responsible.” She laughs a little, and then she and Jeffrey share a knowing look, as if they’ve been discussing this behind his back. “And speaking of fun… Tell them, Jeffrey.”

  Jeffrey clams up a little, suddenly on the spot under Riley’s scrutinizing, very unforgiving gaze. Then he clears his throat and gets a hold of himself, sounding really excited when he says, “I got us tickets to the water park next Saturday!”

  “What?!” Zach shrieks from right beside me, nearly breaking my eardrum. “Oh, my God!” He jumps up from the couch, like he can’t hold still for even one second now that he knows there’s a water park visit in his near future.

  Jeffrey smiles with relief, like he wasn’t sure how that was going to go over, and Mrs. Perkins is beaming at both of them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy.

  But Riley’s expression hasn’t changed. Or if it has, I’d say he looks even more devastated. “I have to work.”

  Mrs. Perkins’ smile falters.
“Well, tell them you can’t.”

  “I’m sure you can find someone to cover for you,” Jeffrey suggests.

  “Or quit,” Mrs. Perkins says, not sounding even a little bit like she’s joking. “You’ve only got a month of summer left. You should make the most of it.”

  “Mom.” Riley grits his teeth. “I can’t just quit.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “They need me there.”

  She dismisses that with a wave of her hand. “Psh. They can easily find somebody else. I’ve put in my fair share of hours in places like that, and trust me, everyone’s replaceable.”

  Riley blinks, then sighs, his shoulders deflating. “You didn’t even ask me first. About Saturday.”

  “Well, I’m available,” I say. “If you’re really set on working.”

  Riley turns and gives me a shocked look, like I just stabbed him in the back instead of helpfully keeping his ticket from going to waste.

  “What? I said if you’re really set on working, which obviously you are.”

  Jeffrey grins and points at me. “Already got you a ticket. I know how this family works.”

  “Yes!” Zach screams, practically bouncing up and down now.

  “And if you want to bring Sarah, I already—”

  “I told you,” Riley says, “I’m not going.”

  Mrs. Perkins frowns. “Maybe you’ll change your mind. Just think about it.”

  “There’s nothing to think about. I have work, okay?”

  “But…” She takes a deep breath and stops herself from arguing with him. “Alright. But if anything changes, just let us know.”

  Chapter 4

  “THIS IS YOUR INVENTION?” I ask Sarah Monday afternoon. All four of us—me, Kat, Riley, and Sarah—are standing in front of her entry display in the showroom at the Golden City Junior Inventors Competition. Sarah’s invention is a white plastic canister covered in color-coded buttons. Which, on the one hand, totally seems like something Sarah would make, but on the other, actually looks, like, professional. As in, there aren’t any wires hanging off of it and it’s not held together with duct tape, or at least not anywhere that’s visible.

  “What does it do?” Kat asks, frowning at the machine.

  “Oh!” Sarah’s eyes light up. “It holds coffee. Or any other hot liquid.”

  Riley raises his eyebrows at that. “You made a thermos? This is the top secret invention you’ve been working on?”

  “It optimizes the temperature.”

  “So,” I say, “it keeps it warm? Like a—”

  “It’s not a thermos,” Sarah snaps, sounding slightly huffy about it. “And it doesn’t just keep it warm. It cools down hot coffee to the optimal temperature, so you don’t burn yourself.”

  Riley points at it. “What are all the buttons for?”

  “Does it actually make drinks?” Kat asks. “Like, espresso and stuff? Because that would be really cool.”

  Sarah frowns and bites her lip. “The buttons are for all the safety features. You have to put in a code to open it. And if you want to get your drink back out while it’s still too hot, then you have to enter a special override sequence.”

  “Oh,” Kat says, barely hiding her disappointment.

  “So, basically, it’s a thermos that keeps you from drinking your coffee?” I can’t help sounding skeptical about that. “And if you get the sequence wrong, let me guess, it—”

  “It doesn’t explode.” Sarah glares at me. “It’s perfectly safe. I made sure of that.”

  Riley gives her a questioning look. “It’s, um, it seems different than your other inventions.”

  Sarah rolls her eyes at him. “Hardly any of my inventions actually explode. Damien likes to exaggerate. And he’s definitely exploded more stuff than I have, if we’re keeping score.”

  “No, I mean, it doesn’t look like your other work.”

  “He means it doesn’t have wires sticking out of it,” I explain, because I know we’re all thinking it.

  Riley looks slightly relieved that he didn’t have to be the one to say it. He nods.

  She brightens. “I’m glad you noticed! I worked really hard on that part. I didn’t want the judges to think it didn’t work. I wanted them to take it seriously.”

  Kat nods. “It does look pretty legit.”

  “It does,” Riley agrees. “But…”

  “But what?” Sarah’s forehead wrinkles.

  “Usually you make weapons and stuff.”

  “I’m trying to cut back. I’ve been rethinking things, ever since what happened at Vilmore.” She means last fall when she almost killed off an entire generation of supervillains. Though, to be fair, she was under the effects of her personality enhancer, which I’d sort of screwed up and accidentally used on her. So it wasn’t completely her fault, and it’s not like she’d ever do something like that normally. Still, she glances guiltily over at Kat, then down at her shoes.

  Kat folds her arms and stares straight ahead at the device, ignoring her.

  “And besides,” Sarah adds, “Damien’s got more than enough firepower. If I’m going to stay useful to the group, I need to be doing more than just weaponry. That’s why I’ve been trying to make things that keep people safe.”

  “Like thermoses that keep people from spilling hot coffee on themselves?” I ask.

  “It could be any hot liquid, but yes.”

  “Obviously you don’t have to make just weapons,” Riley says, “but… I don’t know. This isn’t what I was expecting.”

  “It’s because I kept it a secret. You didn’t know what to expect.”

  Riley looks like he wants to say something to that, then wisely keeps his mouth shut. “And, Sarah, you’re still useful to the group, even if Damien explodes more stuff than you.”

  I give him a look. “Seriously, Perkins?”

  He shrugs. “Well, she’s right. You have—”

  An announcement over the loudspeakers interrupts him, and a man’s voice says, “Attention, junior inventors! The judges have made their decisions, and it’s now time to announce the winners of this year’s Golden City Junior Inventors Competition!”

  Everyone in the showroom goes completely silent. Well, except for the girl with the display next to Sarah’s. She keeps muttering very quietly to herself, “Pick me, pick me, pick me.”

  Sarah squeezes Riley’s hand. She tries to also take Kat’s, but Kat conveniently sees something interesting she needs to look at that involves stepping out of reach.

  The announcer continues, pausing at the end for dramatic effect. “In third place, we have…”

  Sarah grits her teeth. Her expression’s both hopeful and worried, like she definitely wants to win, but like she’s not sure she wants to be in third place.

  “…Priya Martin!”

  There’s a shriek of delight from across the showroom, followed by some supportive squeals.

  “And up next, in second place…”

  Again, the announcer does an extra long pause, just to keep us all waiting. I’m pretty sure everyone’s holding their breath. Well, everyone except Priya and her friends, since they already know she won.

  “…Kyle Tanaka!”

  Some guy, presumably Kyle, shouts, “Yes!” from the next aisle over.

  Sarah bites her lip. Kat grabs my hand.

  “And now, in first place and this year’s winner of the competition, we have…”

  The announcer draws it out super long this time. And there’s a woman coming toward us carrying a giant blue ribbon. She takes her sweet time, trying not to give away the winner before it’s officially announced, even though it’s obviously Sarah.

  Sarah’s mouth slips open and her eyes light up. She looks not just excited, but really relieved. Which I totally get, because it’s one thing to know you could win something like this and another to actually do it.

  “…Sarah Kin…” The announcer stumbles on the last name. That or he’s doing this to build even more suspense, because Ki
nk isn’t exactly hard to pronounce.

  “…Sarah Kinnear!”

  The girl whose display is next to Sarah’s screams and jumps up and down. Her friends are all screaming, too. The woman with the blue ribbon proudly places it on the display, beaming at her the whole time.

  Sarah—our Sarah—looks shocked. She blinks a couple times at the scene in front of her, like this can’t be happening, like it’s all just a big mistake.

  Riley puts an arm around her, or at least he tries to, because Sarah suddenly takes off. She runs up to the woman who had the ribbon, who’s now trying to congratulate Sarah Kinnear.

  “What happened?” Sarah asks. “What did I do wrong?”

  The woman looks really put out that she has to answer this. “There were a lot of great entries this year. It was a close call.”

  “But I didn’t even place. My invention was flawless.” Sarah glances over at the first-place invention, which looks like a tiny spaceship, but which is apparently both a radio and an air freshener. It emits a different smell depending on what music you’re listening to, which is kind of dumb if you ask me. Though maybe not quite as dumb as a coffee holder that doesn’t give you your coffee, though there’s no way I’d ever tell Sarah that.

  “All decisions are final, and any questions can be emailed to—” The woman actually looks over at Sarah’s device. “Oh. That.” She makes a face. “You were disqualified.”

  “What?!” Sarah shrieks. “But—”

  “Your invention was just a lot of buttons. It doesn’t actually do anything.”

  “Yes, it does! You just have to push the buttons in the right sequence. I printed out a handy chart to make it easy.” She grabs a piece of paper from behind her device. “See?”

  I don’t get much more than a glimpse while she’s waving it around, but it looks like there are about ten “easy” steps to follow, each one more complicated than the last, with a long list of buttons to push.

  The woman shrugs. “We couldn’t figure it out. Even if it does work, it’s too convoluted to be of any use.”

  “It’s supposed to keep people safe.”