Renegades

  This, Nova knew, was all true. The poisons that Leroy made were, by and large, legitimate and useful. His side business remained the primary source of income for the Anarchists. A boon when it was getting harder and harder to scavenge or steal even basic necessities in this post-Council world, which was something Frostbite and her goons had undoubtedly known when they decided to go after their food supply.

  “This wasn’t a mere pesticide,” the Sentinel growled.

  “And how am I to know that? All you said was that it was one of my signature poisons, which hardly narrows it down.”

  “Okay, Cyanide, try one of your signature poisons intended to—” The Sentinel pulled up short, interrupted by a quiet hissing sound. He recoiled, pulling back the hand that had been gripping Leroy’s face.

  Nova clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. Even without being able to see the Sentinel’s expression, his disbelief was written clearly into his body language. His arm fully extended, his head pulled back as if trying to escape from his own limb, where the fingers of his right gauntlet were coated with a sticky, dark substance that had just oozed from Leroy’s pores and was now eating away at the glove’s metal surface.

  Climbing to his feet, Leroy tightened the belt of his robe and tucked his hands into his pockets. “You were saying?”

  “He was saying,” said Honey, trying to shake off her lingering paralysis as she leaned against one of the fallen shelves, “that he has as much evidence of criminal activity as that irritating ice girl did. Which is to say, none at all.” She pulled one of the curlers from her hair and began rewrapping the blonde lock around it.

  “You’re right,” said the Sentinel. “We don’t have any evidence … yet. But I know you were involved with the attack today. I know the Anarchists want to see the Renegades destroyed.”

  “Of course we wish to see them destroyed,” came Phobia’s haunting voice, like a boom of thunder echoing from every corner of the tunnels. The Sentinel spun around, searching the darkened tunnels. “But wanting something is not a crime, not even under their laws.”

  The shadows behind the Sentinel solidified and Phobia stepped out as if from nowhere, gripping the scythe in both hands. “We have tolerated this invasion of our home for long enough.”

  “I concur,” said Leroy. “If the Council believes we are in violation of our agreement, let them make these accusations themselves. Until then, we demand to be given the privacy we were promised.”

  Small flames began to crackle around the Sentinel’s clenched hands. “You have been given privacy only so long as you adhere to the Council’s laws. When we have reason to believe otherwise, it is within our rights to investigate. Today, an Anarchist was arrested for terrorism and assault. Today, an Anarchist concoction was found to be involved in an attempted murder.”

  “And if that were enough to arrest us all,” said Ingrid, who was on her feet again, arms crossed defiantly over her chest, “we’d all be in custody right now.”

  “But we aren’t, are we?” said Honey. Standing, she gave a lithe stretch, reaching both arms overhead. “So you can waste your time all you want threatening us, but I am going to go comfort my poor, bereft children.”

  She cast one tremulous look at the wrecked beehives, then lifted her chin and began picking her way, barefoot, through the broken bottles and toppled provisions.

  She had not taken two steps when the Sentinel leaped, landing directly in front of her. Honey reeled back, her breath hitching, her head tilting back to stare into the visor of the daunting figure.

  Honey’s flash of surprise disappeared and she set her jaw, planting her hands on her hips. The look was a reminder why she called herself the Queen Bee. Even in a negligee and curlers, even with her venomous insects having been sent away, she maintained a regal spirit. At least, in the face of opposition, she did. Nova couldn’t help but notice how very different she looked now from her utter hopelessness mere hours before. Perhaps Honey only thrived when she had something to fight against.

  Perhaps they all did.

  “One more thing before you go,” said the Sentinel, his voice a thunderous rumble from inside the helmet.

  Nova tensed, gripping the gun at her side as she waited for him to reach out and wrap his fingers around Honey’s throat or jaw, as he had done to her and Leroy. Nova began running through her options again. The dart wouldn’t do anything against that armor, but perhaps she could use it to create some sort of diversion …

  She was not the only one who was preparing for an attack. Leroy had pulled a capsule from his robe pocket, one she knew contained a powerful acid. Ingrid opened her palms, forming a new sphere of crackling blue energy between them. Phobia’s entire form started to grow, his body stretching upward, wrapping himself in shadows so thick it was hard to tell where he ended and the darkness began. Even the buzz of bees had returned, growing louder as they spilled back out from the tunnel, a writhing, furious swarm that hovered ominously overhead.

  The world stilled, but for those bees. The Sentinel seemed to hesitate, the blank facade of his visor making him seem more like a statue than a human being. More like a robot than a hero.

  His fingers twitched and Nova wondered if he really thought that suit could protect him from all of them at once. She doubted that armor would withstand even one of the Detonator’s bombs.

  Part of her hoped they were about to find out.

  But rather than grab Honey or lash out with another pillar of flame, the Sentinel stooped and grabbed hold of one of the metal shelving units. He heaved it upward, slamming it back into place against the wall. Turning, he grabbed the second unit and, with one hand, set it to right as well.

  Nova’s brow furrowed.

  “No matter what any of you have done with your lives since the Day of Triumph,” he said, “you are all enemies of the Council and the Renegades. But right now, the only enemy I care about is Nightmare.”

  He turned and faced the train car Nova was lying on. She ducked down against the roof as the Sentinel sauntered in her direction and jumped onto the tracks. He passed by Ingrid without glancing at her or her sizzling bomb.

  “When you see Nightmare,” he said, grabbing the remains of the concrete bridge that Aftershock had brought crashing to the ground, “tell her that the next time she goes after the Council, I’ll be there, waiting to destroy her. And I won’t wait for the Council’s permission to do it.”

  He heaved the bridge against the side of the platform, clearing the tracks. He did not turn back to see how his message had been received, just continued on, stomping into the black opening of the tunnel. Soon the darkness swallowed him, and the steady ringing of his footsteps faded into silence.

  It took a long time for the tension to disperse. Eventually, Honey sent the bees buzzing back toward their solitary alcove. Eventually, Ingrid released the crackling energy and Leroy tucked the acid bomb back into his pocket and Phobia sank back to his normal stature.

  Then Ingrid lifted her hands to either side of her head and made a face at the tunnel where the Sentinel had gone.

  “To be weak,” Phobia rasped. “To be helpless.”

  Ingrid cast him a sideways look. “Excuse me?”

  “That is his deepest fear,” said Phobia, idly twirling the scythe blade overhead. “To be, in essence, without power.”

  Honey huffed. “How fitting for a self-righteous Renegade.”

  “Perhaps,” said Phobia, the hood of his cloak swaying with a slow nod. “And yet, a difficult fear to exploit against one who has been given so very much of it.”

  “Are his abilities products of the armor?” Leroy mused, taking out a handkerchief that had been tucked against his chest and dabbing his slick face with it. “It would be beneficial to know if he represents a new evolution in prodigy strengths, or if his powers are the result of experimentation or engineering.”

  “And whether or not they can be replicated,” said Ingrid, suspicion making her lip curl.

  Phobia did n
ot have an answer.

  Releasing a slow breath, Nova rolled onto her back. Long ago, someone had spray-painted graffiti on the ceiling here and she found herself staring up into an ugly demonic face, its tongue lolling out.

  They were right. If the Sentinel was a creation of the Council, who was to say there wouldn’t be more coming? That thought led to a host of concerns. If they could give someone superstrength, super-agility, and even the ability to make and control fire … who knew what else they could do?

  One Sentinel she could handle. But an entire army of them? It would leave the Anarchists, well … powerless.

  She shifted and felt something crunch against her hip. Reaching into her pocket, she wrapped her hand around a piece of crumpled paper.

  “We should have killed him,” Ingrid said, and Nova heard the thuds and shuffles as they started to put their supplies back in order upon the shelves. “We should have killed them all.”

  “And live the rest of our lives behind bars?” Leroy clicked his tongue. “That would be a shortsighted attempt at vengeance.”

  “At least it would avenge my poor darlings,” said Honey.

  “Nothing has changed,” said Phobia. “The Council is our enemy. The Renegades will fall easily once they are gone.”

  Nova unfolded the paper in her hands. It was the flyer she’d been handed at the parade, advertising the Renegade trials. At the top was scrawled, in bold letters: DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?

  Jaw twitching, she started to shred the paper to pieces.

  Phobia was wrong. Things had changed that day. Thanks to Winston’s attack and her own botched assassination attempt, the Renegades would be on higher alert than ever.

  And now they had the Sentinel to contend with.

  Where twenty-four hours ago she had felt optimistic about their chances, now it felt as though any hope of someday reclaiming a real life for themselves was evaporating before her eyes. The existence of the Sentinel was proof that they didn’t know enough about their enemies, while the Renegades knew so much about them. Where they lived. The extent of their abilities.

  But they didn’t know about her.

  And if that was the only advantage she had, then she was going to use it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  OF THEIR GROUP, Leroy was the only one who had ever learned how to drive. It wasn’t necessary for most people in the city, who could walk to just about anywhere they really needed to go, and plenty of people still made their living carting others from place to place, especially after the collapse of the public transportation system.

  Still, though Leroy claimed to have gotten a legitimate driver’s license before the Age of Anarchy started, Nova sometimes wondered if he just said that to imbue his passengers with a sense of confidence; in which case, it didn’t really work. Perhaps it was partly due to the fact that he sat so low in the driver’s seat she didn’t think it was possible he could see clearly over the dashboard, or perhaps it was because Leroy’s pleasant, toad-like smile never faded when he was driving, no matter how many people honked or cursed as they passed, no matter what mystery item thumped beneath the wheels, no matter how many pedestrians screamed and lurched out of their path.

  “Where does this woman live, anyway?” she asked, glancing at Leroy from the passenger seat of his yellow sports car, a vehicle he claimed had been highly desirable back when he’d stolen it. (According to Leroy, it had belonged to a lawyer who had famously defended a man who had beaten a prodigy nearly to death. The lawyer had gotten the man off with nothing but a steep fine and some community service to answer for his crime. So stealing his car was as much a matter of justice as greed.)

  Thirty years and exactly zero car washes later, the car more resembled an overripened banana than anything remotely desirable, at least to Nova’s eye. Rust was creeping around all its edges, there were countless dents and paint scratches on the exterior doors, and the ripped upholstery carried the distinct aroma of mildew.

  “By the marina,” said Leroy, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

  Nova scanned the buildings they passed. They’d left downtown and were making their way through the industrial district, where warehouses and storage yards had once been full of shipping crates ready to be loaded onto cargo ships or distributed to the rest of the country by endless trains and semitrucks. Though international trade was gradually returning to the city, most of these buildings were still deserted, home only to rats and squatters who, for whatever reason, weren’t eligible for Council-sanctioned housing. That, or they preferred to make their own choices about where and how to live their lives, whatever the cost.

  Through gaps in the warehouses and defunct factories she caught glimpses of Harrow Bay, sparsely lit by a handful of boats on the water. Her eyes traveled to the horizon which blended almost seamlessly with the black sky. Though they were still in the city, the light pollution was dimmed out here enough that she could see a scattered sprinkling of stars and she found herself scanning for constellations she recognized. The Fallen Warrior. The Great Cypress. The Hunter and the Stag.

  As a child, Nova had been fascinated by the stars. She would make up entire stories about the celestial beings represented in those constellations. Back then she’d even convinced herself that all prodigies, like herself and her dad and Uncle Ace, had in fact been born of the stars, and that’s how they’d gotten their superpowers. She’d never figured out exactly how that had come to be, but it had seemed to make perfect sense in her youthful logic.

  She wasn’t sure what was more amazing—her childhood theory on how prodigies came to be, or the truth. That each of those stars was its own sun, thousands of light-years away. That to look at a star was to look back in time, to an age in which there were no prodigies at all.

  Leroy turned a corner and the car passed over a series of train tracks before tipping down a long, steep hill toward the marina.

  “How do you know this woman again?” asked Nova.

  “Oh, I don’t, not really. But then—how much do we really know anyone? Can we say with absolute certainty that we even truly know ourselves?”

  Nova rolled her eyes. “And again. How do you know her?”

  Leroy grinned and jerked the wheel to one side. Nova stiffened and glanced out the window, but couldn’t see whatever it was he was swerving around. A second later, he had righted the car in his lane. “She was a member of the Ghouls,” he said, citing one of the villain gangs who had risen to power during the Age of Anarchy, one that had formed an alliance of sorts with the Anarchists. “I used to trade her disappearing inks for false documentation. Still do, when it’s needed.”

  “She’s a prodigy, then.”

  Leroy hummed his confirmation.

  “Any powers I should know about?” Even when meeting a supposed ally, Nova liked to be prepared.

  “Psychometry. Nothing dangerous.”

  Psychometry. The ability to see into an object’s past.

  “Well,” Leroy added with a chuckle, “nothing dangerous so long as you don’t get crushed beneath all her stuff. You’ll see when we get there. She told me once that it’s difficult to give things up, once you know what they’ve been through.”

  “I’m not afraid of stuff,” said Nova, “as long as we can trust her.”

  “Oh, I didn’t say that,” said Leroy. “But outside of family, she’s as close to trustworthy as we’re going to get. And”—he sighed—“I don’t believe we have any other choice.”

  Nova settled deeper into the seat, staring at the weathered boathouses that blurred past.

  Her mind settled on that one ephemeral word.

  Family.

  She had had a family once. Mom. Papà. Evie. When they were taken from her, she believed she’d lost everything. So much of her childhood was lost in a haze of pain and loss, mourning and anger, betrayal and a sadness so raw there were entire days in which she couldn’t summon the energy to eat, or even cry. Entire nights in which shadows terrorized her, becoming murderers and
monsters.

  There had been but one source of light in those first months. The only real family she had left.

  Uncle Ace.

  He had held her close so she couldn’t see the bodies of her family as he took her away from the apartment, stopping only to grab the unfinished bracelet her father had been working on. He hadn’t let her go until they arrived at the cathedral, what he and the Anarchists had called home in those days. It was the largest church in the city, which Ace had claimed long before Nova was born. At first, she found it haunting and eerie, with the lofted ceilings that echoed every footstep, the bell tower that had long ago fallen to silence and cobwebs, the paintings of dead saints that watched her pass with condemning eyes.

  But Ace had done his best to make it feel like a home to her. She did not recall him talking very much, but he always seemed to be near when she needed a stable presence. Sometimes he held her hand or rubbed her back while she sobbed into his shoulder. Sometimes he would use his powers to distract her from her sorrow, making playful puppets out of the figures and statues that lined the sanctuary and chapel walls. And when her curiosity overcame her misery, he showed her every hidden alcove of the cathedral. The tombs beneath its foundation, full of bones and history. The massive organ where she was free to pound at the keys to her heart’s content, filling the vast space with chilling chords that perfectly fit her mood. He had taken her to the belfry and let her tug on the ropes to make the smaller bells chime, then showed her how he could move the massive central bell with his thoughts. Their music had pealed across the rooftops of the surrounding city blocks.

  The pain did not go away, but when Ace was there, it seemed to lessen, little by little.

  Then, one day, he told her the truth of what had happened to her family.

  Nova had been inspecting some reliquaries she’d found in one of the smaller chapels when Ace found her and sat her down on a worn wooden bench. He told her that one of the villain gangs—the Roaches—had demanded that her father craft them a collection of weapons using his gift. They had threatened David’s wife and daughters if he didn’t meet their expectations.