“The best part of all this,” she said, “is that I’m going to kill you, and no one will know it was me, because no one will be alive to tell them. Except”—her eyes narrowed as she scanned Adrian and Ruby, the Librarian, and finally Nova—“you’re missing one.”
“And you’re missing some brain cells!” yelled Ruby. She threw her bloodstone at one of the tall shelving units beside Ingrid. The wire spun around a shelf bracket, hooking tight, and Ruby yanked back, bringing the enormous structure toppling down. Ingrid screamed as a shower of guns and ammunition crashed onto her head. The heavy shelves landed on her shoulders. The desk chair rolled out from beneath her and Ingrid collapsed onto the floor—the descent of the shelves caught by the top of the desk.
Growling, Ingrid crawled beneath the desk and lifted the gun.
Adrian turned and threw himself at Ruby in the same moment Ingrid pulled the trigger. The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space, the bullet lodging itself in a thick encyclopedia as Adrian and Ruby tumbled to the ground. They rolled behind a bookshelf.
With a terrified cry, Gene Cronin turned and started for the stairs, but Nova reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt. She slammed him into a corner behind another teetering shelf. “This wasn’t the plan,” she whispered. “What’s going on?”
“You tell me!” he spat back, his eyes wide with horror. “Ingrid said she was here for new bombshells, but I have the distinct impression I’ve been set up!”
Nova frowned. “What did she tell you yesterday?”
“Yesterday? I didn’t see her yesterday!”
A crash came from the artillery room. Releasing Cronin, Nova peered through a gap in the bookshelf as Ingrid cleared a path through the weaponry that had fallen from the shelves.
Nova searched for Adrian and Ruby, but could see no sign of them in the labyrinth of shelving.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” said Ingrid. “I’m going to kill you, then I’m going to go find your friend and kill him too. The smoky one, right? I’m sure he hasn’t gone far.” She cocked the gun again. “Then, while Captain Chromium is reeling from the death of his only son, I am going to burn down Renegade Headquarters and everything they’ve built. I will show them what it’s like to work so hard for something, only to have it destroyed in minutes.”
As Nova watched Ingrid pick her way through the mess, a movement near the floor caught her eye. She stood on her tiptoes, straining to see over a pile of books, and spotted Adrian. Or, his hand, as he sketched hasty lines onto the floor.
“We could run for it now,” whispered Cronin. “The stairs are right there. We could—”
“Shut up,” said Nova, snarling.
Ingrid rounded a shelf, the gun at the ready as she searched for Adrian and Ruby. She took another step and suddenly the lines drawn onto the floor jerked upward—a rope cutting across the aisle at her ankles. Ingrid tripped. She yelped, crashing to her knees. The gun flew from her hand.
Stepping out from behind a shelf, Adrian stopped the skidding gun with his foot. “You were saying?”
Ruby let out a battle cry and dropped down from the shelf beside Ingrid, landing on her back and wrapping her wire in front of Ingrid’s throat, pulling her head back.
Adrian grabbed the gun and aimed at Ingrid, but in the same moment Ingrid flung herself at the shelf, throwing Ruby’s back against it. Ruby cried out in pain, and her surprise allowed Ingrid to launch Ruby over her shoulders, sending her sprawling onto the floor.
The shelf they had struck wobbled, books sliding and tumbling over the sides. With a roar, Ingrid hooked her elbow around the side of the shelf and tipped backward, pulling it toward her. The shelf fell, toppling over into the next shelf, which smashed into the next, like a row of precarious dominoes, until the room was full of collapsing shelves and falling books.
Cronin shoved Nova aside, ducking past her before she could think to grab him. She snatched the shock-wave gun from her belt and pointed it at him, but hesitated, watching as he bolted up the stairs.
He was gone before the last encyclopedia had dropped onto the growing piles.
“Ruby!” Adrian yelled. Nova crept forward, but couldn’t spot him in the chaos and dust. “Are you okay?”
“Not Ruby,” came a groaning reply. “Red. Assassin.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Nova spotted him crawling out from the pocket of space left by one of the fallen shelves.
Then a flash of royal blue caught her attention. A glowing sphere was anchored to the back wall, the energy inside it beginning to crackle.
One of Ingrid’s bombs, preparing to detonate.
She saw Ingrid standing a dozen feet away from Adrian. Her face was cruel as she stared at him.
Nova’s heart jumped. She lifted the stun gun, but … who was she supposed to aim at? Was she a Renegade today, or an Anarchist? Who was she supposed to be protecting? Who was she supposed to stop?
Ingrid raised her hand, her fingers poised to snap.
Nova screamed, “Adrian, get down!”
Without hesitation, he fell to the ground.
Ingrid snapped.
The explosion shook the building, blowing chunks of the foundation outward. The blow knocked Nova off her feet. She flew backward, crashing into a wall of shelves. A flare of almost unbearable heat surged over her skin and she turned her face away, throwing her arm protectively over her head, at the same moment an avalanche of books tumbled around her shoulders.
It was a mere two seconds of pandemonium, and then it was over. Nova’s ears were ringing and when she dared to lift her head, the air was full of scattered papers and debris and smoke.
Smoke.
“Sweet rot,” she muttered, though she couldn’t hear her own voice inside her head. “Please let that be coming from Smokescreen.”
She grasped a shelf and used it to pull herself from the pile of books. Blinking rapidly to clear the dust from her eyes, she spotted Ruby first, pushing a fallen chair off her legs. Then Adrian, rising to his hands and knees and shaking away the debris that covered him.
The relief that washed over her was unexpected, a little disorienting, and completely overshadowed by the sight of Ingrid storming through the mess. She was holding a gun again—Nova didn’t know if she’d managed to retrieve the one Adrian had taken from her, or if this one was new. But she recognized the fury on Ingrid’s face. The enraged eyes. The roar coming from her twisted mouth, even if Nova couldn’t hear it.
Adrian looked up.
Ingrid lowered the gun, aiming for his head.
Still clutching her own weapon, Nova targeted Ingrid and fired.
It was an invisible force that knocked Ingrid off her feet, sending her sprawling over one of the toppled shelves.
Adrian’s head swiveled toward Nova.
“Fire!” she screamed, though it sounded like she was yelling into a pillow.
Though she hadn’t yet seen the flames, black smoke was billowing up from the pile of books closest to the gaping hole in the foundation. The heat from the blast was smoldering inside those pages, waiting to combust, ready to burn through all the flammable material it could devour.
Adrian scrambled to his feet and shoved his hands into his pocket. His determined expression faltered, replaced with a frown. Pulling out his hands, he patted down his pockets, then his sleeves. Panic rising in his expression, he looked down at the floor, turning in a complete circle, before looking up at Nova and Ruby. He said something.
Nova shook her head, gesturing to her ear.
He said it again and this time she could make out the shapes of his lips—My pen.
She gawked in dismay. What was he going to draw, a fire extinguisher?
Wait—actually, that might work.
Feeling around her own belt, she pulled out the ink pen with the hidden projectile dart and tossed it to Adrian.
He caught it at the same moment another explosion blew back the stack of books. They went up in a bonfire of flames.
Nova stumbled away, pressing back against the wall.
On the other side of the room, Adrian stooped and grabbed Ingrid, heaving her unconscious body over his shoulder, then yelling at Ruby. Go! Go! Go!
They bolted for the stairwell before the flames could cut off their path. Nova joined them, launching herself over fallen shelves, clambering over the desk, and flinging herself up the stairs. It didn’t take long for the flames to spread, surging from one stack of books to the next, black smoke permeating the air and clouding the staircase as they climbed.
They burst through the door onto the ground floor of the library, which seemed astonishingly bright and airy in contrast to the dim, smoke-filled basement.
A terrified voice broke through her disoriented thoughts, and she saw Oscar charging toward them, arms flailing. “We’re missing one!”
Adrian drew up short. “What?”
“There were thirty-one patrons,” Oscar said. Nova tipped forward, straining to understand him. “I counted, and as soon as I heard that first gunshot I started getting them out of here, but I only got thirty! There was one more—a kid, I’m pretty sure. Maybe he got out already on his own, I don’t know, but—”
“Split up,” Adrian yelled, and though his voice still sounded distant, Nova realized the ringing in her ears was beginning to subside. “Find the kid first. Then if you can, try to find Cronin and Narcissa too. But first, find that kid!”
Ruby and Oscar both spun away, dashing through the stacks.
“What are you going to do with her?” Nova asked, staring at Ingrid’s limp body and having the sickening vision of Adrian tossing her back down into the burning basement.
“Arrest her,” he said. “I’ll secure her outside and do another headcount of the civilians, just to make sure the kid didn’t slip by unnoticed, then I’ll come back to help.”
Nova stuffed the stun gun back into its holster and held out her hands. “I’ll take her.”
“What?”
“I’ll take her outside and secure her.”
Adrian’s gaze darted down her body and she knew what he was thinking.
“I’m strong enough,” she insisted. “If you find that kid, you’ll be able to get them out faster than I could. Come on, you’re wasting time. Hand her over.”
Adrian frowned for a second longer, then shifted his hold on Ingrid and draped her around Nova’s shoulders, so she could carry her like sack of grain. Not that she had ever carried a sack of grain.
She’d never carried an explosion-happy prodigy before, either.
She gritted her teeth, adjusting her grip on the leg and arm that dangled over her shoulders. Truth be told, she didn’t think Ingrid was that much heavier than her duffel bag when it was full.
“Got her?” said Adrian.
“Fine. Go.”
Nova stumbled toward the lobby. The entire place seemed abandoned, with no sign of anyone—not Cronin and his granddaughter, not Ruby or Oscar. Just her and Ingrid and billows of smoke creeping along the rafters. She stared down at her own plodding feet, wondering if she was just imagining the heat rising up from the floor, into the soles of her fancy new boots.
The wooden floorboards, nailed to wooden beams. The exterior walls might be stone, but everything inside—all the framework, all the furniture, all those books—it was an inferno waiting to happen.
And that didn’t even take into account the room full of ammunition and explosives in the basement, any of which could start detonating once the fire’s heat got to them.
Ingrid’s weight dragged on her as she crossed the vestibule and pushed her way through the main doors.
A crowd of terrified civilians was clustered on the sidewalk in front of the steps. Not just the patrons from the library, but a growing collection of neighbors and onlookers too. Soon there would be media. Soon there would be more Renegades.
Nova ignored them all as she shouldered her way through. The crowd parted, gasps and whispers replacing the fuzzy noises in her skull.
“Official … Renegade … business…,” she grunted, trudging into the street. A man stepped forward, hands extended as if to relieve her of the burden, but Nova snapped at him. “Don’t touch. She’s dangerous.”
He recoiled.
No one followed her as she crossed the street, into the shade of the office building. The dead weight of Ingrid’s body was just becoming unbearable when Nova reached the corner and dropped to one knee, rolling Ingrid off of her. Ingrid landed with a thud and a groan.
Nova sat back on her heels, gasping, and did her best to work out the muscles of her neck and shoulders. “Next time,” she said, “I’m going to let you burn.”
Ingrid groaned again.
Grabbing her elbow, Nova pulled Ingrid up to sitting, then leaned her against the building. She unhooked the handcuffs the Renegades had assigned to her from the back of her belt. Evidently they were handed out to every patrol unit, even though, in this case, Adrian and his team weren’t supposed to be patrolling.
“You shot me,” Ingrid mumbled, her words slurring as she fought to recover from the effects of the shock wave.
“Did not,” said Nova. “I stunned you. There’s a difference.” She slapped one side of the cuff to Ingrid’s wrist.
Ingrid started, her expression starting to clear. “What—”
“I’m only doing one hand,” said Nova. Yanking Ingrid’s arm upward, she attached the other cuff to the bars across the first-floor window. “You’ll be able to free yourself easy, and I’ll chalk it up to a beginner’s mistake.”
Ingrid craned her head, staring blearily at her trapped wrist. “You were supposed to help me,” she said. “They’d be dead by now.”
Releasing a hasty breath, Nova crouched closer to her. “You didn’t warn him at all, did you? You set this all up. You set me up.”
Ingrid coughed. “If I’d told you, you would have gotten trigger shy, and you know it. Just like at the parade. But you’re a smart girl. You should have figured it out.” She scooted herself closer to the wall. “A Renegade team walking right into our hands. The Captain’s son, no less. Finally, our chance to show them the pain and loss we’ve had to suffer. And you ruined it!”
Nova’s body began to shake with restrained anger. She stood and took a step back from Ingrid. “My goals are a bit more comprehensive than taking out one patrol unit. I thought we were together on that.” She shook her head, blinded by frustration. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, I have to go do damage control, because someone completely ignored my plan. The plan that would have protected the Librarian and hidden our connection to him, I’ll remind you.”
“They would have charged him with something,” Ingrid grumbled. “They would have found a reason to arrest him. It was only a matter of time.”
Nova pursed her lips. Yesterday she believed that was true. Now, she was no longer sure. All night long, Adrian and the others had done exactly what they’d said they would do. Watch and wait. They only decided to enter the library after Ingrid revealed herself. If Adrian had intended to plant incriminating evidence, she’d seen no sign of it.
“Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “All we know now is that we’ve lost the Librarian and access to everything that was in that storeroom. The Renegades won. Again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NOVA STOMPED BACK across the street, her thoughts reeling. She was in this for the long haul. She was acting the part of the Renegade not so she could teach them a lesson today or tomorrow. Not so she could undermine a single mission or take out a single team.
She would bring about the end of the Renegades. She would take down the Council. She would avenge the family they had sworn, and failed, to protect. Her family.
Ingrid was an idiot for being so shortsighted, for trying to take the easy road to revenge. But then … Nova had been an idiot too. She should have known something was wrong from the moment they stepped inside the library and she saw that speechless, terrified look on Narcissa’s face. She
should have reacted faster, before everything got so out of control.
But she’d been so focused on completing the mission. She’d put too much faith in Ingrid, convinced there would no longer be any incriminating evidence left behind. The Renegades would search the place and, when they came up empty-handed, this investigation would be over.
Instead, Ingrid had duped Nova, and now everything was in ruins.
Or at least, the library was in ruins. Smoke was streaming out through the lower windows. Nova could see the massive hole in the foundation where the bomb had hit. The cloud of smoke spilling out from that crater was black as pitch.
The crowd was watching her as she approached, their attention shifting from her to Ingrid to the library.
“What’s happening?” a woman demanded. “You’re a Renegade, aren’t you? Aren’t they going to do anything about this?”
Nova stopped and turned to face the woman, annoyance growing fast inside her. “Do something,” she said. “Like … catch the bad guy?” She gestured back at Ingrid.
The woman peered down her nose at Nova. “Like put out the fire.”
“Where’s Tsunami?” said a kid.
“Yeah!” another spouted. “Or someone else with water power! That’s what you need.”
Nova opened her mouth, preparing to tell them that right now, they were doing the best they could with the powers they had, but then she hesitated, remembering that the public’s favorable—or unfavorable—opinion of the Renegades wasn’t her problem.
“Whatever,” she muttered, shoving through the crowd and facing the library. She peered up through the windows. There was no sign of Adrian or the others. Had they found the missing kid? Were they still in there looking?
They must have. They were professionals. They were actual superheroes. If they hadn’t found the kid yet, they would, any minute now.
But … what about the Librarian?
Nova exhaled, struggling to retain focus in the upheaval. To not lose sight of her priorities.
The Librarian was found out. He would be arrested the moment they found him again, charged with illegal weapons dealing and conspiracy and who knew what else. Any hope of the Anarchists maintaining their connection to his distributors was gone.