The Betrayal of Renegade X (Renegade X, Book 3) (41 page)

“Maybe we should have split up into three teams,” Mason says. “Ry and I could go to one location and you could go to the other.”

He means he and Riley could ditch me again. “It’s not going to be in the basement. And we don’t have time to start second guessing.” Plus, one person going off by themselves doesn’t really count as being a “team,” and I don’t hear Mason volunteering for it.

“You might need backup,” Riley says. “And if you want me and Mason to check the roof—”

“I have to do this. I got us into this mess.”

The elevator doors finally open, and all three of us step inside. There’s no stop that takes us directly to the roof, so I hit the button for the fifth floor. The doors take forever to close again, and then we begin slowly going up.

“Why would we check the roof?” Mason asks. He doesn’t know about my problem with heights. Or with falling off of buildings.

“Come on, X,” Riley says, totally ignoring Mason’s question. “It’s not your— Well, it’s not
all
your fault.”

“None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for me. And...” I shrug. “Look, Perkins, I’m sorry, all right? That’s what I was trying to say on the phone to you earlier.”

“You mean when you hung up on me?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you during our final. Not because I think what I did was wrong or anything, and I really don’t care that I broke the rules, or—”

“Geez. If this is your apology, no wonder you hung up.”

I scowl at him. “My point is, I don’t care about any of that stuff, but you’re my friend. And we were supposed to be working together. I shouldn’t have acted like it was just me.”

The elevator stops at the third floor. The doors take a million years to open, and then an old man with a rolling suitcase tries to get on. I hold up a hand to stop him and start hitting the button to close the doors. “Sorry, we’re, um, at full capacity already.”

He frowns at the three of us and all the space left on the elevator. “But—”

“It’s an old elevator,” Riley says. “You have to be careful. It’s already making a weird knocking sound.”

“Wait, it’s what?!” I would have noticed if there was some knocking noise. He’s got to be making that up.

The old man starts to say something else, but then the doors
finally
close again and we continue on our way. I clutch the bar around the edge this time, listening hard for the supposed knocking sound.

Riley lets out a slow breath. “You didn’t know about my scholarship, or what would happen to me because you broke the rules. It sucks that you screwed up, but it’s not like you did it on purpose.”

“Yeah, but...” I glance over at Mason, who’s watching this conversation play out. And I hate that I have to say this, especially in front of him, but there’s a not-so-small chance I might get obliterated by some villain-targeting lasers tonight—or by this elevator, because I definitely heard a creak, if not a knock—so it’s kind of now or never. “But I guess I can kind of maybe see why you wouldn’t have wanted to work with me anymore. I don’t like it, but I get it.”

The elevator dings, and the doors slowly open. I practically jump out into the hallway of the fifth floor. It’s got the same fancy carpeting as the rest of the hotel, with this swirly red pattern in it, and the walls are painted the same off-white color. The only difference between this hallway and any others in the building is that there’s a door to a stairwell with a sign on it that says,
Roof Access
.

Mason pulls the handle, but it doesn’t budge. “It’s locked. Now what?”

“Move.” I motion for him to get out of my way. Then I step up to the door and use my lightning on the handle.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to work with you, X,” Riley says.

Sweat beads on my forehead as I focus my electricity enough to make the handle start to melt. Even though I’ve been practicing my skills, it still takes a lot of concentration. “Kind of busy here.”

“The truth is, I actually admire what you did. When you zapped that kidnapper.”

“You
what
?” Me and Mason both say that at the same time—ugh—though probably for completely different reasons.

“Don’t get me wrong, it still really pisses me off that you didn’t listen to me, or consider the consequences of your actions, or that you don’t care what happens to anybody but yourself.”

“Hey. Not true.”

“But it’s not like I didn’t want to catch that guy, when I thought he was a kidnapper. And what you did? It was against the rules, but it was also really badass. You weren’t afraid to do what you thought was right.”

“Yeah, well, that’s great and all, but it doesn’t change anything. Maybe you wanted to work with me”—I pause, concentrating on melting the last bit of the handle—“but you made the right decision.” Other than the fact that he picked Mason as his partner, of course. “I would have gotten you in trouble. More trouble, I mean. And—”

The handle finally gives, and the roof access door swings open. I wipe the sweat off my forehead onto my sleeve. It’s not a whole lot of stairs between here and the roof, but the thought of going up them and being out in the open, on top of a building again, makes my stomach clench.

Mason hurries up the stairs, though Riley hangs back a little. “And?”

“You’re better off without me.” I hold the railing tight and force myself to take a step. I don’t even want to know how little time we have left, but if we don’t make it, my fear of heights
cannot
be the reason.

“X—”

“I mean it. Being badass and stopping some fake kidnapper even though it’s against the rules might be cool, but it doesn’t make me a good partner.” I grit my teeth and take another step. I kind of wish Riley would just go on without me, instead of watching this. “I put you in a bad situation, and, let’s face it, if you kept working with me, you probably would have been kicked out of school by now. You need to have a partner who doesn’t get you into trouble on a daily basis.” Not that it was every day, but still. Obviously he and Mason really are on the same page.

Mason’s already at the top of the stairs, staring out at the roof. I’m pretty sure he hears our conversation, though other than glancing over his shoulder at us, he stays out of it. But he also looks pretty worried about something, though that may just be our impending doom. “It’s not there.”

“It’s there.” I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes at him. I focus on taking another step instead and try really hard not to show how much effort it takes. “You just missed it.”

“No. I can see the whole roof, and there’s nothing.”

Yeah, right.

Riley practically runs up the last few steps and joins him at the top. “I don’t see it, either.”

They both stand there and stare at me as I painstakingly make my way up. And, okay, once I’m at the top, I have to admit that I
can
see pretty much the entire roof, and I really don’t see a machine. But it’s got to be here.

“I told you we should have split up,” Mason says.

I step out onto the roof, even though it’s just about the last thing I want to do. The wind hits me, making my ears and nose cold. I consider putting my hood up, but having it on gets in the way of my peripheral vision, and I’ll take the cold over accidentally not seeing a ledge and falling to my death.

I mean, I
can
fly, if I have to, so I guess I wouldn’t die. But I really don’t need any more trauma related to falling off of buildings.

“Maybe it’s over here.” Riley has to shout to be heard over the wind. He checks behind the enclosed area that houses the staircase. I start to follow him, but he reappears a second later. “There’s no machine.”

“That’s what I said.” Mason sounds really put out about me not listening to him.

“It must be in the basement,” Riley says.

“Or neither of those places.” Mason folds his arms. “Sarah was only guessing where it would be. It could be anywhere, and we might not even find it.”

I look out across the roof one more time, just in case it’s possible we missed it. But the roof is flat, with nowhere for a machine to hide. And if Riley says it wasn’t behind the stairwell house, then I trust that it wasn’t. “Let’s go back inside. We don’t have time to—”

“What are you kids doing up here?!” someone shouts as a couple security guards from the League appear in the doorway. They look us over, taking in Riley and Mason in their tuxes, and then me, in my sweatshirt and jeans.

The security guard on the left’s eyes widen when she realizes who I am. “We’ve got a villain up here!” She whips out a raygun and points it at me. “Don’t move!”

Her partner does the same thing.

“He has a ticket!” Riley shouts.

“I don’t think they care about that, Perkins!”

“Call for backup,” the first security guard tells her partner. “We’re bringing him in.” Her eyes dart from me to Riley, then over to Mason. She squints at them, like she thinks they must be guilty by association, even though none of us has done anything. Other than trespassing on the roof, I mean. “We’re bringing
all
of them in.”

Crap. We don’t have time for this. I flex my hands, thinking about zapping the security guards. Because if they haul us in right now, and we can’t get to Grandpa’s machine to stop it, then a lot of people are going to get hurt. We’re going to have to fight our way out of this.

Riley must be thinking the same thing, because before I can decide to actually zap them, he turns invisible and says, “Mase! Your light!”

Mason has a deer-in-the-headlights look at first, and then he gets it, and I have just enough time to remember to close my eyes and fling my arm over them as he uses his power.

The two security guards cry out in surprise, temporarily blinded.

“Come on!” Riley shouts.

I can’t see him, but I don’t need to. All three of us hurry for the stairwell, pushing past the security guards while they’re still too stunned to stop us. One of them actually shoots their raygun, completely missing us, but tearing a chunk out of the rooftop.

“Were they
shooting
at us?!” Mason cries.

I pause at the top of the stairs. Adrenaline floods my veins, and I know I have to do this.

Before I can take a step, though, Riley turns visible and grabs my hand, pulling me down the stairs against my will.

And if I thought I was full of adrenaline before, I
really
am now. Lightning crackles across my whole body, and Riley cries out and lets go.

We stumble down the last few steps. I don’t know if I should thank him—which, even if I should, is
so
not going to happen—or punch him in the face. “What the hell, Perkins?! You can’t just drag someone down the freaking
stairs
! Were you trying to kill me?”

“I was saving your life.” He shoves something into my hand. It’s his phone. “Take this. Mason’s number is in there, and so is Sarah’s. Get down to the basement. We’ll hold them off.”

Mason makes a strangled cry of surprise at that, but he doesn’t argue.

“Perkins, you can’t—”

“We can! Now go!” He shoves me toward the elevator.

I press the down button. The doors open immediately this time, and I step inside and hit
B
for
basement
. The doors close again, right as the superheroes come running down the stairs, weapons pointed at my best friend.

T
HE BASEMENT ISN’T AS straightforward as the roof. I was picturing one big room, dark and full of junk, but there’s actually a well lit hallway with several doors leading off of it. Thankfully, there’s no one here. There are no stairs or ledges to fall off of, either, and I run to each door, hoping they’re not locked. Because if I have to blast through all of them...

I check the time on Riley’s phone.
Three minutes.

The first door is locked, but the second and third ones aren’t. The third room is some kind of storage, full of folded up tables and stacks of extra chairs. And there, in the middle of the room, is a big metal box with a keypad on it.

Unless someone else just happens to also be attacking the Heroes’ Gala tonight, this has to be it. I walk up to it, wondering how I’m going to stop it from going off, let alone reprogram it. Maybe if I call Sarah, she can walk me through it. If she isn’t too busy disarming those lasers.

There’s no big obvious button that says
Power
or
Reset
, so I hit one of the numbers on the keypad. Nothing happens. I hit a couple more until it makes an angry beep at me.

This isn’t going to work. I have
three freaking minutes
left, and no idea what to do. Panic twitches in my chest. I can fry this thing. I can at least shut it down, but if I do, then there’s still going to be a battle. There’s still going to be—

“Damien.”

I jump, a wave of electricity crackling up my spine.

Grandpa steps out of the shadows, a look of extreme disappointment on his face.

“Don’t scare me like that!” Maybe I’m just on edge, on account of having less than three minutes left of consciousness, or maybe it’s because I got attacked by superheroes—
again
—and dragged down the stairs, but him showing up out of nowhere really freaks me out. “What are you doing here?” He’s supposed to be at the rally, getting all the villains I inspired for him ready to come murder everyone I care about.

“I knew I’d find you here.” He sighs, really hitting home the disappointment. “Your mother called. Apparently she spoke to Xavier and found out the two of you were at the Heroes’ Gala, where I
specifically
told you not to go. I locked you up for a reason—for your own safety—and it wasn’t so you could show up here and attempt to destroy all my hard work.”

“I’m preventing a
massacre
.”

He snorts. “We’re capturing a few prominent heroes to show the League they can’t just ignore us. We’re not—”

“You’re leading an angry mob here! You’re knocking everyone out, making them vulnerable, and then bringing in hundreds of strangers who hate heroes! What do you think is going to happen?”