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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
NOVA KNEW THAT HER DROP from the bottom platform of the theater’s fire escape to the alleyway was terribly lacking in grace, but she was beyond caring. Her legs ached, her arms ached, and besides, no one was around to see her. The rooftop had carried the stench of smoke, but it was a hundred times stronger down here, thick and inescapable. She pressed her nose into her elbow and stayed as close to the theater wall as she could to avoid the heat emanating from the library as she picked her way past the debris.
The crowd had grown, though most people had moved away from the burning building. Someone cried out in hopeful surprise when they spotted Nova emerging from the smoke, but it was immediately followed by a groan of disappointment. She dropped her arm, scowling, at the same moment a kid squealed. A second later, a body crashed into her, small arms tying around her waist. She gasped and peered down at the kid’s head. The child she had found on the top floor. The one she had rescued—with Ruby’s and Oscar’s help. She had never seen him reach the bottom of Ruby’s rope and she was surprised at the relief that washed over her at seeing him now.
“Thank you,” he said, his words muffled against her rib cage. So simple. So complete.
With a weary smile, she patted him on the head.
In that moment, she could begin to see why any sane person might want to become a Renegade.
“Oscar, no!”
Nova lifted her gaze and saw Ruby and Oscar. They stood out from the crowd, daring to stand closer to the library than anyone else. And, perhaps also because their faces were not alight with awe and curiosity, but anguish.
Extricating herself from the boy, Nova made her way toward them. Ruby had tears shining in her eyes, though she wasn’t yet crying. Actually, as Nova got closer, she realized they were both holding back tears, though Oscar was working hard to disguise them with a determined scowl. He was trying to pull away from Ruby, but she was clinging to his sleeve, refusing to let go.
“I survived one fire,” he said. “I’ll survive this one too!”
“You don’t know that!”
“I’m not letting him die in there!”
“He might already be—”
“Don’t say that!”
Ruby stepped back, her face pinched.
Nova stepped closer. “Adrian?”
r /> Ruby’s face scrunched up in agony. “Still no sign of him.” The words were followed by a sob, but she clapped a hand over her mouth, the struggle to hold in her emotions apparent in the shaking of her shoulders. “Did he say anything to you?”
“He said…” Nova struggled to remember. It felt like ages ago since she’d offered to take Ingrid from him. “He was going to look for the lost kid.” Her gaze slid back to the child, who had returned to the other children across the street.
“I’m going back in,” said Oscar, tearing his arm from Ruby. His limp had become more pronounced as he started to make his way toward the library. Despite the flames and smoke ravishing the shattered windows, the front facade of the building was relatively unscathed compared with the rest of the structure. The exterior brownstone was standing strong, but Nova knew that inside it would be little more than a shell by this point. A smoldering, blackened shell.
“Oscar!”
Ruby’s scream was punctuated by a loud crack within the library, followed by a boom and a spurt of new flames and sparks billowing up out of the open ceiling. Another part of the second-story floor had just caved in.
Nova shuddered and took a few steps closer, watching the building burn.
Surely, he would have gotten out before it was too late. Surely …
But not if he still believed there was a child needing to be rescued. Somehow, though she knew so little about Adrian, she knew this for sure. He would not have left so long as he believed someone needed his help.
She wrapped a hand around the bracelet on her wrist. The sickening thought came to her, unbidden. Ingrid had achieved her goal. She had killed Adrian Everhart.
Captain Chromium and the Dread Warden would be devastated.
Nova felt only hollow disbelief—none of the accomplishment, none of the joy she might otherwise have expected. He might have been her enemy, but … she did not think he deserved to die.
The sudden blow of an air horn screamed through the street. Nova tensed and looked around, unsure where the noise had come from.
It sounded again. A crude, distressed honking, over and over.
Brow knitting, Nova took a step closer to the library. Her heart had started to pound. With disbelief, but also … with hope?
She exchanged looks with Ruby and Oscar, then she took off running, sprinting around to the back of the library. This wall had mostly collapsed when Ingrid launched the bomb into the rare books room and great chunks of brownstone had blown halfway across the street, leaving behind a mountain of rubble where the wall had stood. Inside, the flames were dying down, but the collapsed floors were still smoldering and the air was alive with blackened book pages drifting into ashes.
The horn continued to blow, sounding from somewhere within the smoking ruins.
Oscar stamped past Nova and reached for a piece of splintered wood on top of the nearest pile of debris. With a grunt, he heaved it off the pile, then reached in for a destroyed bookcase. Nova could see he meant to clear a path to wherever that noise was coming from. But not seconds later, Oscar roared and stumbled back, staring at his burned hands. He let out a stream of curses and started using his cane like a crowbar to lift pieces of debris instead.
Ruby joined him a second later, flinging her bloodstone hook and dragging away chunks of stone and wood and plaster.
Nova gulped, her hand landing on the satchel on her belt. Her gloves were heat proof. Nightmare’s gloves …
She shut her eyes and told herself that if anyone became suspicious she would be able to find a perfectly reasonable explanation for why she had gloves so similar to those Nightmare had been seen wearing.
She tried not to think of how the Anarchists would scream at her for doing something so stupid, something that risked giving her away, all to save one measly Renegade—
Exhaling, she opened the pouch and reached inside.
An enraged roar echoed in every direction. Nova looked up to see a massive, inexplicable tidal wave of water rolling toward them—towering over them, its crest foaming white. Yelping, Nova grabbed Ruby and Oscar by the backs of their shirts and hauled them away from the library. They all fell back onto a patch of ivy and watched, speechless, as the wall of water fell and gushed over the library. The fire hissed and a great cloud of steam rolled up over them. The water gushed outward, flooding the land around the library and soaking Nova’s backside. No longer clean and clear, the water was muddled with ash and debris.
She spotted Tsunami, standing delicately in the center of the road, her palms open toward the sky and her face serene. The image she struck was so in contrast with the chaos of the past hour that Nova found she could only stare at her in wonder. Then Tsunami dropped her hands and turned her head just slightly. She gave a subtle, encouraging nod, and Nova noticed the other Council member who had arrived.
Captain Chromium barreled forward, and Nova had barely grasped these new arrivals before the Captain was tearing through the wreckage as if the fallen library were nothing more than a child’s set of building blocks, tossing whole floor beams aside, crushing his fist into half-standing walls of stone. Steam continued to rise up from the ruins, and though the fire was extinguished, Nova knew all those materials must still be blistering hot. But what did he care? He was Captain Chromium.
Ruby climbed to her feet first, and Nova and Oscar followed, watching speechlessly as the superhero tore a path through the destruction. At some point, the blast of the horn started up again, and he changed his course, making his way through toppled, burned bookshelves and crumbled stone columns. From the corner of her eye, Nova saw Ruby slip her hand into Oscar’s. Nova squeezed her own hands into fists.
Halfway into the wreckage, near to where the children’s books had once been, the Captain grabbed a massive bookshelf and heaved it off into the rest of the remains. And there, underneath, was …
Nova stared, incredulous.
Ruby let out a strangled, confused noise.
Oscar started to laugh.
In the middle of the burned, smoldering building, Captain Chromium had found an igloo.
Or, the remains of an igloo. Much of it had melted away, and some chunks of ice had cracked and fallen in front of the igloo’s arched entrance.
Seconds later, a figure emerged, crawling through the small opening.
Adrian was drenched. In one hand he held the horn, like something that would be strapped to a motorbike. In the other hand, he carried Nova’s pen.
Before he could speak, the Captain pulled him into an embrace. Adrian grimaced slightly, but didn’t pull away.
When the Captain had let go, they picked their way back to the others. Adrian spared a grateful smile for Tsunami, who smiled back, then disappeared around the front of the library, presumably to see if anyone else needed assistance.
“An igloo, Sketch?” said Oscar, shaking his head.
Adrian shrugged. He looked positively exhausted, but there was still a lightness in his eyes, a faint smile on his lips. The marked joy of one who had defied death. “Sometimes inspiration just strikes, man.”
Finally allowing a sob to escape, Ruby ran forward and wrapped her arms around Adrian, giving him one tight squeeze, before pulling back and punching him in the shoulder. He flinched, more than Nova thought was warranted, given that it hadn’t been that hard of a hit.
“Where were you?” Ruby cried.
Adrian blinked at her, then glanced back at the quickly melting igloo.
“I mean—why didn’t you get out?”
“I was looking for that missing kid,” he said, wrapping one arm around Ruby and giving her a friendly embrace. After he let go, she stepped back and crossed her arms, a sour scowl still drawn into her face, clear that she wouldn’t forgive him that easily for the distress he’d caused. “I was in the stacks and the smoke got so thick I couldn’t see anything. I got really disoriented and felt like I was just walking in circles. Once I realized I was trapped, I made the igloo to protect myself. Then the ceiling collapse
d. The igloo protected me, but … at some point I passed out. Smoke inhalation, I think.” He inhaled deeply, gratefully. “When I came to and realized I was still inside that igloo, I made the horn to call for help.”
He turned to Nova and held out the pen she had given him, what felt like ages ago. “Thanks for this.”
She took it numbly, holding his gaze and feeling like she should say something, but she couldn’t think of any words that would convey what she was feeling. She wasn’t even sure what those feelings were.
But she couldn’t deny that she was glad Adrian Everhart was alive. She was glad that his smile was just as warm and relaxed now, after an extremely trying day, as it had been at the parade. She was glad …
Well. Maybe she was just glad.
Adrian looked like he wanted to say something to her, but couldn’t quite find the words. He was staring at her, a question in his eyes, but he seemed to think better of it as he swallowed and looked away.
“We need to get you to headquarters,” said the Captain. Nova started. Momentarily caught up in Adrian’s dark brown eyes, she’d almost forgotten the Councilman was there. “The med staff will want to see you.”
Adrian shook his head. “I’m fine. I feel fine.”
“This isn’t open for debate. That goes for the rest of you too.” The Captain fixed each of them in turn with his icy blue stare, which could not have been more different from the celebrity smile he usually wore. “Go back to headquarters. Get checked out, then get some rest. We’ll speak more about this tomorrow.” He looked at Adrian again, and Nova could tell he was trying to use some sort of stern, fatherly expression, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He was clearly too overwhelmed with relief that Adrian was okay, and something about that look made her feel like a screw was being turned in her stomach.
She’d once had a father to look at her like that too.
The Captain turned to go.
“Dad, wait.”
He paused.
“The Detonator was here,” said Adrian. “She’s the one who set off the explosions. Cronin was still selling on the black market, just like we suspected.”