The Betrayal of Renegade X (Renegade X, Book 3) by Chelsea M. Campbell Page A

did, maybe Kat wouldn’t hate me.”
    “You can’t make someone like you, Sarah. And trying to force it just makes it worse. You know that.”
    The lady in front of us glances back again, still texting like crazy. Then the guy who’s sort of in front of her, sort of to the side, notices she’s focused really intently on something and looks over. His mouth actually drops open and he nudges his wife and his teenage daughter, jerking his head at me. Then they all stare.
    I flash them my most cheerful smile, even though people pointing and staring at me wherever I go is getting pretty old. But at least it pays well. “Pictures are five dollars. Ten if you want to be in it, too.” Twenty if they want me to make my hands go all electric, but it’s too crowded in here to offer that one.
    The parents turn around, looking kind of embarrassed, though their daughter’s eyes light up. Offering up photo prices gets some curious looks from other people nearby, until they recognize me, and then I can see them considering it.
    “Special holiday discount,” I tell them, even though those are my usual prices.
    Sarah rolls her eyes at me as a crowd starts to gather. People actually step out of the line to come get a picture with the Crimson Flash’s infamous half-villain son. Though I’m not sure if all of them realize who I am yet, just that there’s a celebrity in the store.
    There’s a big gap between Sarah and the rest of the line now. What would have been at least a half-hour wait is probably down to only ten minutes. She looks over at me, and I gesture for her to get going. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
    “Okay,” she says. “But if I don’t see you, you’ll be at my demonstration, right? I need a volunteer from the audience, and if you can’t do it, I need time to figure out someone else.”
    Sarah’s unleashing—I mean, unveiling—a new invention on the unsuspecting senior citizens at the retirement home, now that she’s deemed herself “rehabilitated” and is working on projects again. I think I’d make a pretty obvious plant, what with being under eighty, but I don’t have time to argue about it right now, since there’s a growing crowd of people anxious to take pictures of me. And even though I’d really like to double-check that this new invention of hers isn’t the exploding type, I just nod and say, “I wouldn’t miss it.”

    I swivel back and forth in Zach’s desk chair, being careful not to knock over the stack of paperbacks on the floor. They’re all fantasy and sci-fi novels. Some are new, and some have yellowed pages and bent spines, but pretty much all of them are based on TV shows and video games.
    “It’s not fair.” Zach’s sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at his phone. He’s looking at his mom’s Facebook page, at a picture she posted earlier of her and Curtis eating pizza during her lunch break. It’s a cutesy double selfie that practically screams, Look how in love we are! Zach’s mom is grinning, squished up close with Curtis, who has a glob of tomato sauce on his nose that he either doesn’t notice, or thinks is funny somehow. Ugh.
    “Moms shouldn’t date,” I tell Zach. “And if they do... it shouldn’t be with that guy.”
    “The other day, she said she had to run to the store. But she had this big smile on her face, like she was looking forward to it. And she was gone for hours. I know she was meeting Curtis.”
    Riley appears in the doorway, scowling at me with his arms folded. “You’re sure Sarah said it was boring?”
    I told him about her getting him the same DVD set earlier and that he’d better step it up. “Boring and pretentious. Don’t forget that.”
    “But...” He sighs and stalks off to his room across the hall. Then I hear him typing at his computer, presumably shopping for Sarah’s new Christmas present.
    Zach turns off the screen to his phone, like he can’t even look at his mom being happy with Curtis anymore. “He was