SOMETHING GRABBED HER IN MIDAIR.
Nova felt her body being crushed against a hard, unforgiving shell, and she was soaring upward again. She sucked in a shocked breath and stared up at the Sentinel’s visor. The feeling of weightlessness was brief. He thudded down on the second-story floor, which cracked and groaned under the force of his landing. He turned and launched them both back toward the destroyed wall. Wind and smoke blew into Nova’s face and she turned away, shielding her eyes against the Sentinel’s chest.
This time, the sense of flying led to a sense of falling, and soon he had landed with the impact of a bulldozer on the roof of the theater. He dropped to one knee, his arms cradling her. “Are you okay?”
Nova realized that she was shaking. All of her, shaking, as she lifted her head and saw only her own stunned expression reflected back on the surface of the visor.
He was holding her. Like she was … precious cargo. Or an innocent bystander. Or … or … a damsel in distress.
Clenching her jaw, Nova slammed both palms against his chest plate and forced herself out of his arms. He fell back in surprise, catching himself on one elbow as she leaped to her feet and backed away. She grabbed the shock-wave gun from her waistband.
The Sentinel held a hand toward her. “I’m here to help.” He slowly got back to his feet. “You can trust me.”
She laughed—a mad, disbelieving sound. “I highly doubt that.”
Her eye caught on movement and she spotted Gene Cronin and Narcissa beside a large roof vent. Narcissa was clutching her grandfather’s arm, but he was still holding one of the old, delicate books from the library. Narcissa’s face was ashen, her braid mussed and her clothes streaked with soot. Cronin wasn’t faring much better, though he had already been so disheveled it didn’t make that much of a difference.
Another explosion roared from across the street and Nova spun around, imagining more bombs being lobbed at them. But this time, it wasn’t the Detonator who had caused the noise. It was the library, succumbing to the fire. The remaining beams and rafters had caved in, sending a roar of sparks and flames that engulfed what remained of the roof. Soon, all that would be left would be a few exterior stone walls. A skeleton of the structure they had housed.
Her heart squeezed.
Was Adrian still…?
No. No—he was strong and clever. He was a Renegade. Surely, he’d found a way out.
The Librarian let out a pained wail and fell to his knees. “My library … my books…”
Narcissa hovered over him, rubbing his back, but he did not seem to notice her beyond his devastation.
“Paper and ink,” drawled an angry voice.
Nova grimaced.
Ingrid appeared, stepping out from behind an old, rusting searchlight—what might have been used to promote a new movie premiere, back in a far-gone time. She already had a smirk on her face and a new explosive crackling between her palms.
“You’ll get over it,” she said. “It’s all those lost weapons that are the real tragedy.”
Cronin smiled wistfully. “The weapons might have supplied my livelihood, but those books … those were my life.”
Ingrid snorted. “Pathetic,” she said, turning her attention toward the Sentinel. She started to toss the sphere of energy up, catching it in one hand, before tossing it up again. “Well, well. If it isn’t the Renegades’ shiny new toy. Who would have thought you’d be involved in this little raid too?”
“Stand down, Detonator. You’ve caused enough damage today.” The Sentinel’s right hand began to glow, the gray-tinged metal turning white-hot from wrist to fingertips.
Nova stared in disbelief.
That was new.
Surely he didn’t have even more abilities that she hadn’t seen yet. How could it be possible?
“I know I have,” Ingrid said with a cheerful laugh. “And it feels so good. After nine years of smothering my power, feigning obedience to the Council’s demands … to finally remind the world what I can do. Great powers, it feels good!” She let out a hoot toward the sky, then started to laugh. “You know, my focus had been to take out that Everhart boy, but you … you might be even better. To take out the Council’s own lackey. Do you think your armor can withstand a direct hit? I have my doubts…”
“Council’s lackey?” said the Sentinel. “I think you have me mistaken for someone else.”
“Oh, I don’t,” Ingrid countered.
The Sentinel extended his glowing gauntlet in front of him, fisted tight. “I’m not here on the Council’s orders. I’m not here for anyone’s business but my own.”
Ingrid sighed. “Do you really—”
A narrow beam of white energy launched from a cylinder on the Sentinel’s forearm and slammed into Ingrid’s chest. She stumbled and fell back, gasping for breath.
Nova’s jaw was hanging open now, her mind momentarily shocked into silence.
The suit, the fire, the long-distance jumping, and now … what was that? Some sort of concussive energy beam?
How many abilities did this guy have?
The Sentinel lowered his arm. “Why is it that some villains get so obnoxiously chatty?”
“Is she dead?” said Nova.
The Sentinel turned to her. “Stunned.” He hesitated, glancing down at his arm, which had returned to the same dark gray color as the rest of the armor. “I think. I’ve never actually used that one before.”
Nova gaped at him. “What do you mean, you’ve never used it before?”
They were interrupted by Gene Cronin’s faintly dazed voice. “She did this.” He had made his way to the edge of the roof and was watching the library burn, its flames dancing in his sorrowful eyes. “She set up this trap. She threw those bombs. She destroyed everything.” He let out a small, humorless laugh. “What can one expect, from a woman who calls herself the Detonator? I should have known better … I should never have trusted an Anarchist…”
He unfolded his arms and Nova saw that he was still clutching the leather book he’d had inside the rare books room. “But I remember everything,” he whispered. “Every single word. This knowledge. It will not be lost.” He shut his eyes and his face took on a look of exultation. Of deep, driven purpose. “This is why I was bestowed this gift. To preserve all those words, those stories and ideas. To rescue them from extinction. If it takes the rest of my years on this earth, I will record them all. It will be the great pride of my life.”
“Do you plan on doing that while you’re in a jail cell?” said the Sentinel. Cronin turned to him, as if surprised anyone else was still standing there. “Because the Renegades may or may not be willing to supply you with enough paper to replace”—he gestured at the library—“all of that.”
Cronin swallowed.
The Sentinel stepped closer, his voice lowering. “But my offer stands. I can get you and your granddaughter away from here. Just tell me what you know about Nightmare.”
“Sweet rot,” Nova muttered. “Is that all you care about?”
The Sentinel did not look at her … but the Librarian did.
Nova drew herself up, fixing him with the most threatening look she could manage.
“Nightmare,” said Cronin, and, suddenly, he started to laugh, as if it had just occurred to him what a hysterical situation this was. “Oh, Nightmare. Yes. I might know where you can find—”
A gunshot ricocheted through Nova’s ears. Gene Cronin’s head snapped back, an arc of blood spraying across the rooftop. His body seemed to sway, momentarily suspended, before he collapsed backward. The book he’d been holding tumbled opened beside him, its crisp yellow pages fluttering.
Narcissa screamed.
The world paused. Nova stared at the blood sprayed across the wall, and though she knew it was red, everything seemed suddenly awash in gray. Her lips were parted, but she might have stopped breathing. Her wide, disbelieving eyes swept toward Ingrid, landing on the gun in her hands.
Ingrid raised her chin. There was little to read on her face. Anger. Perhaps pride. But no remorse, so far as Nova could see.
In her bleary thoughts, Nova pictured them sitting around the subway platform later that night, listening to Ingrid tell of how she had taken out the Librarian moments before he could betray Nova’s identity. She imagined Ingrid laughing about it, and the others joining her.
But it didn’t seem so funny at the moment.
Nova knew Gene Cronin would have given up her secret. Whether now, to the Sentinel, or later to the Council. If he survived this night he would have eventually talked, even if merely to spite her and the Anarchists who had caused the destruction of his library. He had to die if she was to go on with this mission. If she was to have any hope of staying in the Renegades and working to remove them from power once and for all. He had to die. It was the only way.
Sometimes the weak must be sacrificed so that the strong may flourish.
But those thoughts seemed very far away and, she realized, she was hearing them not in her own voice, but in Ace’s.
As she watched Narcissa fall, sobbing, over her grandfather’s body, Nova knew that she could not have killed him. Not even to protect herself.
What sort of villain did that make her?
Lips pulling into a sneer, Ingrid raised the gun toward Narcissa. The second liability.
A bolt of blinding energy struck Ingrid in her side, knocking her off her feet again. The gun flew out of her hand. A second blast followed almost immediately, sending her rolling a few times until her shoulder struck the rusted spotlight.
The Sentinel stormed toward her, his arm glowing, preparing to fire again—when a flash of blue struck the rooftop at his feet. The explosion sent him soaring through the air and over the rooftop’s ledge and left a crater of cracked concrete where he had stood.
“Stop it!” Nova yelled. “Stop blowing things up! Just stop!”
Ingrid sat up, gripping the side of the spotlight with one hand and preparing another bomb in the other. “We can’t let her go,” she said. “You know that.”
Nova stared at her, the words swimming meaninglessly in her head for a long time before she realized Ingrid was talking about Narcissa.
Setting her jaw, Nova marched forward and picked up the fallen gun.
“Go ahead,” said Ingrid, letting the blue sphere extinguish, evaporating back into the air. “It should be you. Why should I do all the heavy-lifting when it comes to protecting your identity?”
Nova cocked the gun and slipped her finger over the trigger.
It should be her. She needed to be concerned with her own self-preservation. The sanctity of her own secrets. Killing Narcissa is what any Anarchist would do. What Ace would have wanted her to do, and almost certainly what he would have done himself.
Nova let out a shuddering breath, turned, and took aim.
Ingrid stilled, eyeing the barrel that was suddenly targeting her own chest. “Don’t be a fool.”
“Run,” Nova said.
Ingrid glared. Nova glared back, a drop of sweat falling into her eye.
Slowly Ingrid pulled herself to her feet. She eyed Nova warily as she took a step backward toward the fire escape, then two. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Can’t be as big as the mistakes you made today.”
With her brow beginning to twitch, Ingrid turned and started to run. Nova waited until she was launching herself over the edge of the roof before she squeezed the trigger.
The bullet hit Ingrid in the back of the arm. She cried out as she fell and Nova heard the clang of her body hitting the metal landing of the fire escape. Then the structure shook and thumped as she staggered her way down, jumping from landing to landing. Below, Nova heard someone yell—Ruby?—and soon, another cacophony of explosions rocked the building. Cursing, she ran to the ledge and peered down to the street, where a new patch of stones was missing from the wall of the theater and now scattered across the road. Ruby was on her back, coughing, with Oscar kneeling at her side. And Ingrid—
Nova scanned the street, only spotting Ingrid’s tall boots as she disappeared around a corner.
She slumped forward, unable to tell if she was relieved or not to see Ingrid get away.
Her legs were shaking as she pushed herself off the side of the roof and turned around.
Only for her heart to lodge into her throat again.
Narcissa was no longer kneeling over the Librarian’s body. Instead, a series of bloody footprints tracked across the roof, to the ledge facing the destroyed library. Narcissa had climbed up onto the low parapet, carrying the book her grandfather had managed to save.
“Narcissa, no!”
Ignoring her, Narcissa lifted her arms in a graceful arc over her head, then tipped forward over the edge. Nova screamed and ran toward her, though she knew she was far too late. She grabbed the ledge and leaned over, just in time to see the glinting surface of a broken mirror on the concrete below, as Narcissa swan-dived into it and disappeared.
The air squeezed from Nova’s lungs as she watched the reflection of blue sky and smoking flames shudder in the glass, before turning still once more. She recognized the mirror as the one that had been above the mantel in the rare books room. Bricks from the fireplace were scattered throughout the alley, blown there from the explosion.
Nova groaned, exhausted to her core, and sank down to her knees, her arms dangling limply over the wall. Her head fell forward, pressing into the cool stone, and she had the distant thought that she would be perfectly content to sit there, unmoving, for a month. Even if the air was full of smoke and debris. Even if there was a dead body and a pool of blood mere steps away from her. She did not want to move. She didn’t know if she could.
She felt heavy and drained. Her thoughts jumbled together as she tried to cope with what her expectations had been for the day, and what had become reality.
As she tried to determine what to do next.
Narcissa had gotten away. Nova knew that Ingrid had been right—the girl was a liability. She knew too much. And though Nova didn’t regret her decision not to kill her, or to let Ingrid kill her, she also wondered how long she would be haunted by the fear that Narcissa would turn up at any time and give up her secrets out of revenge … or, perhaps even more likely, use those secrets as blackmail.
The Librarian was dead. Good—because he couldn’t betray her. Bad—because he had been one of the Anarchists’ few reliable resources.
Bad—all those guns were destroyed. At least, she assumed most of them were destroyed, and any that weren’t would no doubt be in the hands of the Renegades by the day’s end. Double bad.
But, good—they had not learned anything about Nightmare. Not who she was or where to find her. Not even definitive proof that the Librarian had supplied her the gun she used at the parade.
Although, the Sentinel surely would have deduced that there was a connection between Cronin and Nightmare, based on how Cronin was so close to responding to his questions, but Nova couldn’t think clearly enough yet to determine how much danger that really put her in. After all, a lot of criminals came to Cronin for supplies. It didn’t exactly narrow down the search.
A clang reverberated across the rooftop, the sound conjuring the memory of metal armor and cold arms tightening protectively around her as they flew through the air.
Nova inhaled sharply.
“Are you okay?” said the Sentinel, sounding more gentle than he ever had before.
Nova swallowed. She didn’t respond and didn’t turn to look at him, even as his footsteps thumped closer. He stopped, not beside her, but beside the Librarian’s body.
Nova turned her head enough so she could glimpse him from the corner of her eye. He stood just outside the pool of dark blood. She inspected his profile, his suit, the arms that she had seen burn with flame and glow with energy, but that were now dull, metallic gray. There were signs of stress from the battle—singe marks on his side, dents on his back. But for the most part, he looked little worse for wear.
She had all but forgotten about the gun, which she had dropped in her rush to stop Narcissa. Now she found it beside her knee, the handle cool in her palm as she picked it up.
“Would you really have let him go?” she said, sitting back on her heels. “If he’d given you the information you wanted?”
The Sentinel said nothing for a long time, before finally admitting, “I hadn’t decided yet.”
“You mean the offer wasn’t sanctioned by the Council?”
His head turned toward her. Instead of answering her question, though, he asked again, “Are you okay? Do you need … help? Getting down?”
“I’m fine,” said Nova, running her thumb down the gun’s handle. “What do you want with Nightmare, anyway?”
The Sentinel cocked his head and she could imagine him watching her. She wished she knew what he looked like. The blank canvas of his face had become deeply unnerving.
“She and I have unfinished business.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And the Council, too, no doubt?”
“They don’t dictate everything I do,” he said, a little stubbornly. “Nightmare is a threat to all Renegades, but … I have my own reasons for wanting to find her.”
“Okay, Mr. Alter Ego,” said Nova, attempting to infuse some lightness into her voice, “my curiosity is piqued. Who are you, really?”
He turned to face her more fully and she was sure, at first, that he would tell her. He certainly seemed to consider her question long enough.
Finally, he said, “I’m not your enemy.”
Her cheek twitched. “Prove it. Lots of people think you’re an impostor, trying to discredit the Renegades. If that’s not the case, then take off the helmet and show yourself. No secrets between allies, right?”
Again he stood unmoving for a long, still moment, before he shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Insomnia!”
Nova swallowed. Lifting her head, she could barely see Ruby and Oscar on the street below, staring up to the top of the theater with worry scrawled on both their features. Spotting her, Oscar pointed, then cried out, “Are you okay?”
Nova didn’t respond. She was looking past them, around them, scanning the ground below in all directions …
Ruby and Oscar were alone. Adrian was not with them.
Her gaze darted to the library, but the fire had gotten so bright and the air so hazy with smoke she almost couldn’t stand to look at it.
“Where’s Adrian?” she yelled down to them, and watched as both of their faces fell.
Nova shuddered. Adrian wouldn’t have just disappeared. He must have been trapped inside. Dread clawed at her, even as she told herself it was a good thing. One less Renegade in the world. One less superhero …
But she was seeing his notebook full of stunning, heartfelt drawings. She was hearing the way he laughed when she told him about juggling and bird-watching. She was seeing Max’s face light up as Adrian drew the tiny glass figurine for his tiny glass city.
She was not convinced that his death—and such a horrible, horrible death—could possibly be a good thing.
“It’s all right,” said the Sentinel gently. “Here. Let me take you down to them.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
She glanced back and frowned, wondering if she was imagining the way his shoulders had curled inward, giving the strangest impression of … of shyness.
“I have to go soon,” said the Sentinel. “But it would only take a second for me to—”
“No,” said Nova, pushing herself up to standing, though her legs still felt weak. “You haven’t answered any of my questions, Sentinel. Who are you? What do you want with Nightmare?” Her voice rose, scratched raw from the hazy air. “Are you working for the Council or not?”
“I can’t tell you any of that. I’m sorry.”
He did, in fact, sound apologetic, but that only served to stoke Nova’s fury. Here he was, her enemy, the Renegade she most needed information about, and so far she felt like she’d learned nothing that she didn’t already know yesterday. “All right, how about this question,” she snapped. “Is that suit bulletproof?”
“What—?”
Nova revealed the gun and fired. The bullet hit him in the chest, squarely over his heart. The bullet did not penetrate the armor, but he still cried out and stumbled back—though whether in pain or surprise, Nova couldn’t tell.
She frowned. “I guess it is.”
The Sentinel touched a gloved finger to the bullet lodged into the chest plate. “What are you—?”
Nova fired again. And again. Each bullet pinging off the armor.
The Sentinel leaped upward, flipping over Nova’s head and landing behind her. He tried to grab her arms but Nova dropped to the ground and rolled out of his reach. Leaping back to her feet, she pivoted and raised the gun again.
“Stop!” the Sentinel demanded, lifting both hands in supplication. “I’m not fighting you. I’m on your side.”
“I just witnessed you trying to strike a deal with a villain!” Nova yelled. “You won’t give up your identity, and you all but admitted that you don’t follow the Council’s laws. That makes you a criminal.” She shot again, but this time the Sentinel dodged, throwing himself behind the spotlight. Nova marched after him. “So, you’re either a villain who’s pretending to be on the Renegades’ side, or you’re a brand-new class of Renegade, and for whatever reason, the Council doesn’t want us to know about it. Which is it? And why?”
She rounded the spotlight, only to be knocked down as the Sentinel slammed into her. Nova fell hard on her back and felt the gun being ripped out of her hand. The Sentinel threw the gun over the side of the building. Then he reached for her waist and snatched the shock-wave gun from her belt too.
“Hey!” she yelled, grabbing for the gun.
The Sentinel’s fingers wrapped around her wrist and pulled her back to her feet in one swift motion, yanking her so close her own breath fogged against his visor. “I’m not a villain, and I’m not your enemy,” he said, “but I can’t tell you or anyone else who I am, not until I’ve found Nightmare and gotten the answers I need.”
He released her suddenly and Nova dropped back, rubbing her wrist—though more to clear off the sensation of his cold grip than because he’d actually hurt her.
Then he tossed her stun gun over the side of the building too.
“Hey!” Nova yelled again. “I made that one!”
The Sentinel didn’t answer. Turning, he launched himself into the air. Nova watched as his body cleared the smoldering remains of the library and disappeared into the thick black smoke.