The Rivalry of Renegade X

by Chelsea M. Campbell

“At almost one in the morning? I’m never going to be in your video, so if this is your way of—”

  “It’s not.” She makes a dismissive sound, like that’s the last thing on her mind. “You wouldn’t have been a good choice, anyway. You probably would have screwed it up, and not how we wanted you to.”

  “Oh.” I mean, I was never going to do it, but still. It’s like she’s never even heard of tact.

  “So if you’re done begging me to hang out with you—”

  “Whoa, I am not—”

  “Then you can go now.” She actually makes a shooing motion.

  I stare at her. She couldn’t really be this upset about me trying to go to the movies with them yesterday, could she? “Is this about what happened on the news?” Maybe she’s butthurt because Gordon and Helen are acting all weird about it, and Gordon’s getting all misty-eyed at the idea of his eldest son following in his footsteps.

  Amelia exhales in an annoyed kind of way, like she really does have better things to do and I’m holding her up. “It’s not about anything.”

  “But you always want me to hang out with you.”

  She scoffs, even though that’s totally true. “No, I don’t. And why would I? You’re not exactly that great of a brother. You screw up a lot. You’re always ruining things for me, like the barbecue. We don’t really have anything in common, either.”

  “That’s not… Since when do you even care about that?”

  “Since I realized there are better people out there I could hang out with. You’re supposed to only spend time with people who give you energy and cut out the ones who bring you down.”

  “What?”

  “So that means you can go run along to your room now. We’re done here.”

  I’ve just finished giving the director her coffee—two creams, one sugar, and p.s., she’s super proud of me and my new orphan-saving ways—and slumped into my sleeping corner at the studio when Gordon comes up to me. He’s got the same look on his face that Heraldo gets when he thinks someone said the word walk.

  I press my face into the upholstered chair I’m sitting in and close my eyes, so maybe he’ll think I’m asleep and not tell me whatever he’s so excited about, because I’ve seen this look before, and it usually doesn’t end well for me.

  But either he knows I’m faking or he doesn’t care, because he ruffles my hair kind of hard and says, “Good news, son.”

  I make a tired mnh noise, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave me alone.

  He doesn’t. “I’ve just finished talking with the producers, and they’ve agreed.” He stops there, like I’m supposed to know what he’s talking about.

  I open one eye halfway and try to convey how much suspicion I’m feeling right now. Gordon never gets this excited about things that I would consider to be “good news.”

  “We want you to be on the show!”

  Okay, now I’m awake. I sit up. “You what?”

  He beams at me. “I didn’t want to say anything until I got permission. I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

  That’s so not what’s happening here. “Dad, I’m not going to be on your show. You’re not going to interview me about what you think happened last night or have me demonstrate how to fly down wells, okay?”

  “No, of course not. That would be dangerous. We want kids to stay away from wells, not think they can fly down them. Not everyone can do what you did.”

  “That’s not… If you’re not interviewing me, then what—”

  “I got permission for you to be my sidekick!” He pauses there to beam at me some more, as if this is the most exciting news he’s heard his entire life.

  “Whoa, you did what?!” If I hated myself that much, I would have just said yes to being in Amelia’s dance video.

  “Don’t worry, I know it sounds intimidating, but we’ll keep your lines down to a minimum at first, just until you get comfortable being on camera.”

  “Dad, that’s not… I don’t get paid enough to humiliate myself in front of the entire city.”

  He laughs. “You don’t get paid at all.”

  “Exactly.”

  “It would be part of your internship. But if it goes well, who knows? Maybe you’ll become a permanent part of the show, even after you go back to Heroesworth. We’d have to rearrange our shooting schedule, maybe start at three or four in the morning each day, so you could get it done before school. And we could get in as much as we could during your breaks and on weekends. It’ll be tough, but don’t worry, I know we can figure something out.”

  “Three or four in the morning? As in, you’d want me to get up that early?!”

  “Of course not, Damien. That’s just when we’d have to be in the studio. You’d need to be up by two.”

  Just thinking about it makes me yawn. “That doesn’t work for me.”

  “We can figure something out. And of course your school work comes first. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, anyway.”

  “Because I haven’t agreed to be on the show. I told you when I started this internship that I was just going to do behind-the-scenes stuff. And you’ve been planning this behind my back the whole time?” Typical. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I just really thought we’d started to understand each other better, at least to the point where he could listen to me about stuff like this.

  “Behind your back?” Gordon screws up his eyebrows, looking hurt. “Damien, I just asked about it this morning. I thought you’d be happy. After what you did on the news last night—”

  “That’s what this is about?”

  “You made a statement. It was the good deed heard round the world.”

  Ugh. “All he did was fly down a well!”

  He frowns at the word he. “To save that girl, Damien.”

  “Anyone who could fly could have done it! I don’t see why everyone’s freaking out about this.” It’s not like my fear of heights is public knowledge or anything. Plus, like I’ve said, it wasn’t me.

  “People like a good story, that’s all. And you haven’t exactly been…” He pauses, trying to think of the right words.

  “I’m usually on TV for blowing things up. Is that what you mean?”

  “I was going to say you usually make the headlines for more… questionable actions.”

  “Like saving a villain’s puppy? Because I don’t see how that’s questionable.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, it’s not. But other people don’t know you like I do. They don’t know what to think most of the time, but your actions yesterday put you solidly in the hero camp, and that means something.”

  Apparently he doesn’t know me at all if he believed for even one second that that guy on TV was me. “Dad, I didn’t save that girl. That was somebody else.”

  He sighs. “You’re not comfortable with this side of yourself yet.”

  “No, I’m trying to tell you that that guy wasn’t me. He literally was somebody else who just looked like me. Maybe a shapeshifter or something.” Except obviously he could fly, and that’s a hero power, and shapeshifting would make him a villain. Maybe he’s half hero and half villain, too. And just happens to look exactly like me, which would be a pretty weird coincidence.

  Gordon’s still looking at me like I’m losing my mind. “You should be proud of what you did. I thought from what you said on the news that you were. That you’re… proud to be my son.”

  Oh, my God. I take a deep breath and hold back a groan of frustration. “I am, okay? But that doesn’t mean…” I hesitate, seeing the look of confusion on his face. Confusion and worry, like he really does think I’m going crazy. The last thing I need is him thinking I have some kind of mental disorder or split personality or something, since he obviously doesn’t believe me about it being someone else. I decide trying to convince him it wasn’t me is a losing battle right now, and one that might land me in a therapist’s office three days a week for the rest of the summer. Or for my whole life, since it’s not like I’m ever going to believ
e that that was me on the TV last night. I sigh. “That doesn’t mean I want to be your sidekick. This show, like Amelia’s dance videos, isn’t really my thing.”

  “Neither was flying down wells until last night.” He smiles at me, totally unfazed by my rejection. “Just think about it, Damien. I have a feeling you’ll come around. After all, you’re a Tines—this is in your blood.”

  Chapter 8

  “DON’T WORRY, RENEGADE,” SARAH says on Saturday, as we’re all floating on rafts in the wave pool at the water park. “We’re going to catch him. I’m not giving up.” She slams her fist into her hand, though the effect is somewhat lost by the lazy way our rafts drift on the water.

  Kat grits her teeth and digs her nails into the side of her raft. She ended up coming with us because Jeffrey still had an extra ticket, since Riley actually stuck to his guns and is at work right now, and I helpfully suggested we bring Kat, since otherwise the ticket was going to go to waste. And unlike Helen, Riley’s mom isn’t prejudiced against Kat or her family and didn’t have a problem with it. Though, I mean, obviously she would have preferred that Riley gave in and came with us, but that’s neither here nor there.

  “Sarah.” I tilt my head at her. “What happened to no code names when we’re not in costume?” Not that that’s why Kat’s pissed about it, but still.

  “Oh, right! Sorry, Renegade—er, I mean, Damien.”

  “Man,” Zach says, sighing wistfully, “I want a code name.”

  “You can have Secant,” I tell him, “once your brother finishes working himself to death.”

  Sarah glares at me and rolls her eyes. “I’ve been working on some new inventions. We’re going to get this guy.”

  “I knew that wasn’t you on the news,” Zach says.

  “Oh, really?” I raise my eyebrows at him. “Then why did you text me, OMG, you’re so awesome, with five exclamation points?”

  Zach’s face turns a little red. He swallows. “I got carried away, but once I had a little while to think about it, I knew it couldn’t have been you.”

  “After I told you, you mean.”

  “I don’t get it,” Kat says. She lets her hand slip into the water and swishes it around. “Why would someone want to be you?”

  “Wow, Kat. It’s not like I’m amazing or anything.”

  “They’re not even acting like you. So why would someone want to pretend to be you and then… fix your reputation?” She makes a face at that last part.

  “Ruin it, you mean.”

  “I’d get it if he was trying to blow up Heroesworth or something, but saving people?”

  “Damien saves people,” Zach says.

  “That’s right I do.” I reach out to fist bump him, but the water pulls our rafts too far away before we can make contact.

  “But orphans?” Kat goes on. “In wells? I’m not saying you wouldn’t have done it, Damien, if you’d been there, but you wouldn’t have bragged on the news about it and been all douchey.”

  “That’s why we’ve got to get this guy and find out why he’s doing this,” Sarah says. “I’ve been working on some new inventions we can use to catch him, but they’re not ready yet.”

  “Does one of them involve putting out a piece of food that I like and then when he takes the bait, a big cage falls down on him?” I ask.

  She laughs. “Of course not. There’s no cage, just a bunch of lasers that all fire at once.”

  “Wow,” Kat says.

  Zach’s mouth falls open, and he accidentally gets water in it and has to spit it back out.

  “Sarah. I was joking,” I tell her. “And I thought the point was to catch him, not kill him.”

  “The lasers won’t kill him. They’re going to be aimed at where his limbs will be. They won’t be firing on any important organs. Though I’ll need you to stand in for him so I can get my calibrations right.”

  “Uh, that’s not happening. Like, ever. And you’re still planning to maim him.”

  “But don’t we want to catch him and stop him from impersonating you?”

  “We don’t know what his deal is yet, and while ruining my reputation might be a highly punishable offense, it maybe shouldn’t mean he loses a limb. Or, you know, all of them.”

  “Huh.” Sarah’s forehead wrinkles as she considers that. “You didn’t feel that way the other night after he kissed me.”

  Kat pushes herself up on her raft, her eyes darting to me. “When what happened?!”

  I may have, uh, conveniently left out that part when I told her there was an impostor of me running around. I force a laugh to show how ridiculous all of this is and how little it matters. “Kat, I can’t be responsible for what some crazy guy does while pretending to be me. And Sarah’s the real victim here, since she’s the one who had to kiss him.”

  Sarah shrugs and grins a little, like she’s remembering the kiss and isn’t all that unhappy about it.

  I glare at her.

  “What?” she says. “I told you. He was a better kisser than you.”

  Kat takes a deep breath. “But why did some guy who was pretending to be you go and kiss Sarah and not me? Everyone knows we’re together. And the only time you’ve really been associated with her in the media was when she was trying to kill you.”

  I shrug. “What can I say? Some people are into really weird stuff. And also, Sarah, just because I was worried about you after some weirdo forced his lips on you doesn’t mean I want you to murder him. I just wanted to make sure you were safe, in case he came back.”

  “Well, he didn’t. Me and Riley stayed up reading until two, and we didn’t see any signs of him. I let Heraldo sleep in the bed with us, though, just in case. But I still think that we—”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” I hold up a hand. “You and Riley stayed up all night reading, and then you let your giant dog share the bed with you?”

  “Riley said he slept between them.” Zach rolls his eyes.

  Sarah scowls. “I think you’re missing the point.”

  “I think you’re missing the point,” I tell her, “but go on.”

  Her nostrils flare as she takes a deep breath to steady herself. “I lost the competition because my invention was so safe, people didn’t even think it worked.”

  “What was it?” Zach asks.

  Sarah rubs at her eyes, which are kind of red, on account of her wearing contacts today instead of her glasses. “It was a highly specialized device meant to keep people from burning themselves on hot liquids.”

  Me and Kat share a look.

  “It was a thermos that didn’t give you your drink,” Kat explains.

  “Oh.” Zach considers that, then frowns at Sarah. “Why would you want something like that?”

  Sarah grits her teeth. “So you wouldn’t burn yourself on your coffee. Obviously. It’s a real hazard for some people. Anyway, after what happened at the competition, I can’t afford to play it too safe. Not when there’s this impostor running around that we need to catch. And not if I want to stay relevant to the group.”

  “First of all,” I tell her, “there’s playing it too safe and then there’s trying to murder someone. And second of all, of course you’re relevant to the group.”

  Sarah stares at me and Kat, giving us both hard looks, like she doesn’t believe me. “I make weapons. Crazy weapons that you think don’t always work right.”

  “Think? I have the burns to prove some of them.”

  “Before you got your lightning, you needed me. But now… Riley can turn invisible, and Kat can turn into anything, and you can—”

  An explosion not far from the wave pool interrupts her.

  “—blow things up.” She looks at me accusingly.

  Kat and Zach are staring at me, too.

  I hold up my hands. “That obviously wasn’t me!”

  People are shouting now. We all look over and see that one of the big water slides has a hole in it. Water’s pouring out, and there’s some kid dangling from the opening, holding on by his fing
ertips and screaming for help.

  We all get out of the wave pool as fast as possible, abandoning our rafts on the fake shore, and hurry over there.

  A crowd has gathered. Everyone’s staring and pointing at the kid, who’s up way too high. If he falls…

  I cringe just thinking about it. I’m not sure if this height would kill him or just mangle him, but neither one sounds like a good option.

  “What are you waiting for?” Zach waves his hand in the air. “Fly up there and save him!”

  My heart pounds, because I know he’s right. Still, I glance around real quick, hoping maybe there’s someone else here who can do it. Someone who actually knows what they’re doing when it comes to flying. Someone who it would be no big deal for. But clearly there’s no one else, just me.

  I remind myself that I passed the flying test last semester. And I can’t let my mom have actually messed me up this much. I lift off the ground, ready to zoom up there, when someone else swoops in from afar, grabs the kid, and flies him back down to safety.

  Someone who looks a hell of a lot like me. Maybe exactly like me.

  The crowd bursts into cheers.

  “I was going to do that,” I mutter, landing back on solid ground.

  The guy who looks like me hands the kid off to his parents.

  “Come on!” Sarah shouts, pointing at him, because obviously this is our chance.

  The four of us take off running. The other guy sees us coming. He excuses himself from his adoring crowd and is about to fly off when Zach, invisible, tackles him to the ground.

  I make lightning appear in one hand and hold it up, threatening my impostor. Kat and Zach each have him by one arm, and Sarah’s pacing back and forth, debating going back to her locker to get her raygun and wishing she’d finished her InterroTron already, which is apparently a machine that senses whether or not you’re lying and fires lasers at you if you are. Which, frankly, I think she should take her time on. Or maybe not finish at all.

  We managed to drag the impostor to a small, secluded space behind one of the bathrooms. I say drag, but he mostly came willingly. I mean, grudgingly, like he really didn’t want to, but also like he knew it was inevitable.