that means.
“I have to go.” I grab my hoodie, push open the glass door, and walk the three miles back to my house, clutching my skateboard like a shield, trying to buy myself time to figure this out.
I want to say just the right thing when I get home, the thing to show that I’m mature, that I’ve thought this through, that I’m more than the inconvenience my mom thinks I am—she’s barely called since I’ve been here—or the fuckup that my dad does.
That I’ve watched enough Captain America movies to know right from wrong, and this is wrong. That maybe if they let me, I could start a life here, maybe enroll in public school like a regular kid, even if I have to repeat my senior year. That it’s not worth it to nibble on the scraps of their attention anymore, begging for it like a starving dog.
That I could have a life and friends and a future, and maybe that wasn’t anybody’s intention when I came here, but it could be the outcome.
But when I get home and I knock on the door to Dad’s study, he pulls it open like I’m bothering him somehow, and it all goes out the window. I stand there for a second, trying to steel my nerves—What would Steve Rogers do?—but he just raises his eyebrows and says, “I’m on a call, Ridley.”
Like somehow that call is more important than finding out what I need. It’s not. Not anymore. Because for this second, I have enough adrenaline coursing through my body to form words instead of excuses. For this second, I’m a SuperSoldier with a conscience, clutching his vibranium shield.
“Hi, Dad,” I say, pushing into his office before I lose my nerve.
“I’ll have to call you back,” he says, and I didn’t realize he had his Bluetooth thing in his ear. I hate those things; they make everybody look like sci-fi movie rejects. Nobody even uses them anymore except my dad and people like him, probably because they’re also the only ones who even make phone calls anymore.
He pulls the device out and drops it onto the desk beside him. There are papers all spread across it, and he closes a file with a hard thud and then picks up his glass of scotch. “Okay, you have my attention.” He leans against the desk a little bit, his legs angling out, taking up as much space as humanly possible. “What’s so important that you had to interrupt me on a call to our German financiers?”
And I know I shouldn’t be excited just by the thought of having his attention for once, his undivided attention, which I don’t think I’ve had even once since I was born—stolen from German financiers, no less—but I am.
I am.
God, I am so screwed up.
“This is wrong,” I say. And that wasn’t how I meant to open, but it’ll do. I tuck my hands behind my back and lean against the wall and hope my opening volley was a good one.
He blinks and then lets out a little sigh. “I wondered why you’ve been feeding us bogus reports. I should have anticipated this. You’ve always been the emotional one.” He runs his hand over his chin. “It’s just business, Ridley, glorified market research, nothing more.”
“You knew?”
“I thought threatening to send you back to Seattle would bring you around.”
Awesome, so his threat was actually a business strategy. He literally does not care. I swallow hard—I can’t worry about that now—and steady my course.
“They’re good people.”
He turns around, shuffling some papers on his desk. “Why does that matter?”
“Screwing with good people is wrong.” I can’t believe I even have to explain this to him. This is like Being Human 101.
“Is that what you’ve been doing?”
“That’s what you’re making me do!”
“No, I brought you here, but everything else was your decision. All the nonsense you’ve been up to with Vera’s stepdaughter—” He looks at my surprised face. “Did you really think I didn’t know how much time you were spending together? I’d hoped you had learned from your last indiscretion not