NOVA LET THE DOOR SLAM shut behind her. Not because she was angry, but because even after the long walk back to Wallowridge, she was still dazed from the discovery of Ace’s helmet and all it meant. For her. For the Anarchists. For the Renegades, who probably had as much power contained within that one object as all their patrol units put together. They may have opted not to use it for their own purposes so far, but it still remained a possibility that they could at any time. So long as the helmet was in their possession, no one stood a chance to oppose them.
As Nova passed through the front room, Honey appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, digging a spoon into a mason jar full of golden honey. “That isn’t your normal stealthy entrance,” she said, lifting the spoon out. The honey began to drizzle down, before Honey deftly spun the spoon’s handle to catch it. “Did something happen?” She shoved the spoon into her mouth, sucking on it like a lollipop.
Nova stared at her. Did something happen? Did something happen?
“Sort of,” she said, squeezing past Honey and unwinding the communicator band from her wrist. She deposited it on the kitchen counter. It was the first time she’d taken it off since they had decided to leave their home in the subway tunnels, and her wrist felt bare without it. Bare—but also light and unencumbered.
“Uh-oh,” said Honey, lifting a penciled eyebrow at the band. “You must be going somewhere the Renegades wouldn’t approve of.” She leaned saucily against the fridge. “Do tell.”
“Later,” said Nova. “There’s something I need to do first.”
She headed toward the back door and had just grabbed the knob when a small explosion vibrated through the walls. She looked up as a few drifts from the popcorn ceiling tumbled down onto the counters.
“Leroy is making up a new batch of something,” Honey explained, dipping the spoon back into the honey. “Are you leaving already? You just got here.”
Nova ignored her question. “You do realize we’re trying to go unnoticed here, right?”
Honey smirked. “Sweetheart, some people just can’t help being noticed.”
Refraining from rolling her eyes, Nova asked, “Is Phobia here too?”
“No. Hasn’t been all day. I think he spent the night back in the tunnels. He’s better suited to the dankness and shadows, you know. Me? I’m so happy to be back in the sun.” She sighed and cast a sweet smile at the small, dirty window over the kitchen sink.
Nova twisted the doorknob and pushed her way outside. “Don’t get used to it,” she muttered, stepping out onto the slim concrete porch.
She trekked through their small patch of weeds and thorns, where Honey’s bees were busy restoring their hives as fast as they could. The day before, Nova had noticed how their buzzing seemed happier than it ever had down in the tunnels, but now it served as little more than a distraction. She turned into the alleyway behind the house and started in the direction of Blackmire Way. It was nearing dusk, and the shadows from the surrounding row houses filled up the narrow spaces between buildings. She passed boarded-up windows and graffiti-covered fences and yards full of tufted dandelions. A flicker of light caught her eye and she glanced up to the second story of the corner house just as someone was throwing open the window sash. She paused in surprise. She’d gotten so used to thinking of the neighborhood as deserted, she was startled to find that they might have neighbors after all.
Or perhaps it was only the man she had kicked out of her own house before.
She was turning away when the hairs prickled on the back of her neck. Her stomach clenched and her hand fell instinctively on the shock-wave gun at her belt.
It was, she realized a second later, a distinctive scent that had caught her attention. The sweet aroma of coconut body oil mixed with the faintly rotten taint of sulfur and gunpowder.
She forced her shoulders to relax as she turned, letting her hand fall from the weapon.
Ingrid was leaning against the side of the building Nova had just passed, one heel casually pressed against the brick, her arms crossed over her chest. She was dressed in something that might have been intended to be a disguise: skinny black pants and a high-collared jacket that covered both her armbands and her midriff. Even her thick coils of hair had been imprisoned beneath a knit cap.
Otherwise, she did not look much different than she had the last time Nova had seen her, after they had fled from the tunnels. She was clean and did not seem to have gone hungry, at least, and only when Nova had the thought did she realize some part of her had been worried about her.
“How’s life in the Renegades?” Ingrid said, her voice dripping with disdain. “Have you completely turned your back on us yet, or are you still holding on to the charade that you’re on our side?”
Nova’s jaw twitched. “You and the others knew exactly what my plan and intentions were from the first day I decided to go through with this. Perhaps you’ll recall that you were the one who betrayed me, not the other way around.”
Ingrid waved one hand languidly through the air, as if she had long ago tired of these ruminations, though Nova felt they still hadn’t really had the chance to discuss what happened at the library. She understood that Ingrid had sought to exact some revenge against Captain Chromium and the Dread Warden by harming Adrian, and maybe even killing him. But she still couldn’t fathom what had possessed Ingrid to keep it from her. To lead her into that trap along with the rest of the team.
Except she also knew that she would not have gone along with it. It wasn’t in keeping with her mission, for one, and … she wasn’t convinced that Adrian, Ruby, and Oscar deserved to be incinerated by one of the Detonator’s bombs.
“What do you want?” said Nova. “Cyanide was the one who told you to leave, so if you’re wanting to move in or something, it’s not exactly up to me.”
“Please,” said Ingrid with a snort. “I’ve survived long enough without charity from you or Leroy Flinn or anyone else. The last thing I need is to be holed up in this ghost town.” She shot a rueful look at the surrounding alley.
“Then why are you here?”
“I have a proposition for you, Insomnia. One that stands to serve us both.”
Nova frowned. She knew Ingrid used her Renegade alias only to irritate her. The really irritating part, though, was that it worked.
“A proposition,” Nova drawled.
Ingrid nodded, though a dark smirk had crossed her features. “If you’re willing to hear it. Of course … you don’t have much of a choice. Assuming you don’t want all your new friends at Renegade Headquarters to find out exactly who Nova McLain really is.”
Nova’s brow furrowed, as much in dismay as anything. “Seriously, Ingrid? You’re blackmailing me?” She cast her eyes toward the sky, which had darkened to a cool violet. “What is going on with you? Ever since the Renegade trials you’ve acted like I’ve somehow become the enemy.” She took a few steps closer, tapping a finger against her own sternum. “I’m still Nightmare. I’m still the one you’ve been training for almost nine years, with one purpose. To destroy the Renegades. Not just Captain Chromium or the Council, not just a single patrol unit, but the whole lot of them. The entire organization. So maybe, instead of sneaking up on me in back alleys and threatening the one mission that might actually stand a chance in helping us accomplish that goal, you should take a moment and remember who we are. Who I am.”
Pushing herself off the wall, Ingrid sauntered closer until she stood nearly toe to toe with Nova. “I hope you mean that. Because this is your chance to prove it. To show me that what happened at the library was just”—she shrugged wistfully—“an unfortunate but temporary lack of judgment.”
Nova gawked at her. “Sure,” she said slowly, “if you mean your lack of judgment. If you had trusted me from the start, the entire fiasco wouldn’t have happened. The Librarian would be alive, we’d still have access to his stockpile and his distributors, and—oh yeah, we wouldn’t have revealed ourselves to the Renegades and been driven out of our own home.”
“Home?” said Ingrid, guffawing. “Those tunnels were never our home.”
“So not the point,” Nova shot back.
Ingrid peered down her nose at Nova, scrutinizing her. “Interesting you should mention the Librarian, given that the only reason I killed him was to protect you.”
“Right,” said Nova. “I’m sure you weren’t at all concerned with him giving up any number of your secrets. Exactly how many explosives have you and Leroy sold to the Librarian for overseas buyers? It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s an actual war crime, come to think of it…”
Ingrid’s lips curved. It was nowhere near a real smile, but it was a nice change from her scowl all the same. “There again, you and I have something in common. Although it doesn’t much matter at this point if the Renegades discover my crimes, I sense you’re still quite intent on keeping yours hidden. Now—picture this.” She stepped closer and rested an elbow on Nova’s shoulder, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Imagine a scenario in which the Renegades no longer cared to find the mysterious Nightmare. In which they lost interest in uncovering her identity. In which they left her completely alone.”
Nova narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “Sounds unlikely.”
“Not,” said Ingrid, lifting a finger, “if they have every reason to believe that Nightmare is dead.”
A chill swept down Nova’s spine, and she did her best to conceal it by shaking Ingrid’s arm off her shoulder. “Tell me this isn’t some roundabout way of threatening to kill me in my sleep. Because, you know…” She gestured to her head. “Sleep. Not really my thing.”
Ingrid let out a bellowing laugh, one that was far more boisterous than Nova felt her comment deserved. “You see?” she said. “Rooming with Honey has a tendency to make one just a little too melodramatic. No, no. I don’t want to kill you. I just want to fight you. Publicly. And in the end, the whole world, especially the Renegades, will be watching as we tear each other apart…” She shrugged. “Metaphorically speaking.”
Nova eyed her, struggling to parse out Ingrid’s meaning from her words. “You want to fake our deaths?”
“Not exactly.” Ingrid brightened. “I want to fake the deaths of Nightmare and the Detonator.”
Nova’s face must have been skeptical, because Ingrid ducked close to her again, her fingers painting an invisible picture into the air. “We’ll stage it to appear as though Nightmare is furious over the death of the Librarian, and she blames me. Or—the Detonator.”
“You are the Detonator.”
“Keep up. We find a public place, and ensure at least one Renegade is present. Not too many. We don’t want them getting in our way before we can finish. You and I fight, in full view of everyone, and in the end … you shoot me at the same time that I blow you up, and everyone sees it happen. Except you’ll be using blanks and I … well, I won’t really blow you up, but I can make it believable enough.” She winked.
Nova was still frowning. “And when there are no bodies?”
“We’ll stage it to appear that the explosions destroy us both. They won’t be surprised if there’s nothing left. Now, stop dwelling on insignificant details and focus on the big picture.” Her eyes burned, suddenly intense. “They would stop hunting us. They would stop hunting you. How much easier would it be for you to continue with your work inside the Renegades if no one was investigating Nightmare anymore?”
Nova swallowed, unable to form a counterargument.
“Besides,” Ingrid drawled, smirking, “you still owe me.”
“Owe you? For what?”
“Killing the Librarian.”
Nova laughed. “You didn’t—”
“Yes, I did. Say what you want about what happened that day. He would have told the Sentinel everything, and the Sentinel would have taken it right back to the Council. I protected you.”
“I wouldn’t have needed protection if it wasn’t for your asinine plan.”
“You wouldn’t need protection if you were capable of dealing with these situations when they come up. If you had the guts to take out Cronin yourself or Narcissa or even Captain Chromium for that matter. Face it, Nova. Despite all your talk, you’re afraid to make the tough decisions when they need to be made. That’s why you still need the Anarchists. That’s why you still need me.”
Nova clenched her jaw, angry sparks flickering across her vision. But her fury was overshadowed by the insecurities Ingrid’s words stirred up. Because of her hesitation, she had failed to kill the Captain. She wouldn’t have killed Cronin, even to save herself. She had chosen to let Narcissa go, knowing full well that she would endanger her mission going forward.
“You think about it,” said Ingrid, rocking back on her heels. “I’m sure you’ll make the right decision. How about I come back tonight and we can start hashing out the details? Right now…” She peered past Nova’s shoulder. “It looks like you have company.”
Nova glanced back.
Her heart launched into her throat.
Through a gap in the alley, past a chain-link fence and a half-disassembled car, a figure was strolling up the sidewalk.
She blinked rapidly, sure that the sight of him was some hallucination, some aftereffect of being in contact with Max, perhaps. Because what in this great city would bring Adrian Everhart here?
“Look at him, all distracted and nervous,” said Ingrid with a subtle coo in her voice.
Cursing, Nova turned and shoved Ingrid toward the wall, trying to push her out of sight. “Get back before he sees you.”
“Oh please. He’s caught up in his own thoughts—talking to himself, probably planning out whatever adorably pathetic thing he’s going to say when he sees you.”
“What?” Nova glanced back, but Adrian had already passed out of view.
“I trust you’ve noticed how he looks at you, observant as you are.” Ingrid’s grin turned teasing. “Be careful, little Nightmare. Renegade runs in the blood of that one, maybe more than anyone else in this town.”
Nova’s heart was still drumming, panic thundering through her veins as she pictured Honey in the kitchen, Leroy upstairs … but still, something about the look on Ingrid’s face gave her pause. “You know he’s the son of Lady Indomitable.”
Ingrid guffawed. “Of course I know that. She wasn’t the first superhero we killed, but she might have been the first one that really mattered.” Her cruel smirk made Nova’s blood run cold.
“You killed her?”
“Not me,” Ingrid said, as if this were obvious. “There was still something left of her, after all.”
“But you know who did. Was it an Anarchist?”
Ingrid stilled and peered at Nova, her gaze darkening. “What does it matter to you?”
Nova took a step back and shook her head. “It doesn’t.”
Then she turned and started to sprint back to the house.
“See you tonight!” Ingrid called after her, and Nova would have shot her with the stun gun again just to make her be quiet, except she didn’t have the time.