Free Rogue by Lyn Miller-Lachmann Page B

to rest.
    â€œAt the park. I’ll give you back your bike.”
    Chad’s head was lowered, but now he looks up at me. And then he screams, drowning out the birds in the trees, the distant whine of a leaf blower, the crunch of my bike tires.
    He tugs at his hair. Strands cling to his fingers and fly loose into the air. I’ve never seen a boy pull out his hair before.
    I spit out the words. “Why are
you
flipping out? You’re the one that lied to me.”
    â€œThink I want to do this?” He gulps. “Our house stinks. Brandon’s not getting better, and all they care about is their batches.”
    â€œBut you said you wouldn’t use me.”
    Chad covers his face with his hands. His entire body stiffens when he touches the bruise that I made worse yesterday. “Dad made me ride with you today. So I could carry more.”
    My stomach twists. I remember what he said yesterday right before I beat him up—about his parents and the people they work with, what they’ll do if we try to stop them.
Don’t you dare! We’ll kill you and your dad.
They might hurt Antonio too.
    Once again, I’m trapped. In a dungeon with no special powers to help me escape. Not knowing if beside me is evil Gambit or good Gambit.
    â€œYou’re carrying four now just fine.” He really isn’t. He’s wobbly and out of breath, but he shouldn’t have lied to me and broken his promise.
    â€œYeah, I thought about leaving you behind and not telling him. But I wanted to ride the trail you told me about on Sunday. And see the BMX track ’cause I do freestyle.”
    â€œFreestyle?”
    â€œBMX tricks. There was a big skate park where we used to live.”
    I point to his saddlebags. “You weren’t going to do BMX tricks carrying this.”
    â€œNot today. I have another bike for BMX.”
    â€œSo you brought me when you didn’t have to so you could see bike trails?”
    â€œNot exactly. You asked me to be your friend. So I was your friend. We were supposed to do fun things together.”
    â€œThat wasn’t fun. It was scary.” Now I have to do what Antonio told me to do. I scrape the toe of my sneaker along the ground. “I can’t ride with you anymore. I guess that means we can’t be friends.”
    I turn the front wheel in the direction of the road, to leave Beresford Estates and Chad with his four bottles of chemicals.
    â€œKiara, don’t go! Listen to me.”
    I try to push Chad’s childlike voice from my mind. My tires bump onto the road.
    â€œPlease!” Chad’s shout reaches me.
    Maybe he really does want to be my friend. Nobody has ever begged to be friends with me. I let him catch up, even though I’m supposed to ride a hundred feet from him.
    â€œYou know what it’s like,” he says, voice small and choked. “Watching other people have fun and you can’t.”
    â€œBecause you’re too weird,” I add.
    â€œOr your family makes you do things.”
    â€œGambit’s family.”
    This time, Chad doesn’t warn me not to talk about the X-Men. Because he really is Gambit, and he needs me to help him escape.
    If I agree to be Chad’s friend and ride with him, he’ll have to carry all four bottles by himself and my saddlebags will be empty. That’s not the way friends are supposed to do things.
    But if Antonio’s really my friend, maybe he can help both of us, like Wolverine swooping in to rescue Gambit and Rogue from the families of criminals and the evil mutants.

CHAPTER 13
    EXPECTING DAD TO BE IN THE KITCHEN OR IN HIS LITTLE recording studio, I unlock the front door and tiptoe upstairs to my room. On the way, I listen for his music and sniff for the aroma of dinner. Nothing. I go into my room and bounce a few times on the bed before turning on the computer, making enough of a mess that he’ll think I was in my room all along.
    My stomach