Nova finished entering the data on a box of ammunition—one of the few that hadn’t exploded when exposed to the heat from the fire—and took a moment to stretch out her spine. A flicker caught her eye and she glanced out the window to see that the lights inside Max’s quarantine were on, lighting up his glass city in a pale shade of yellow. She was sure it had been dark in there before. Was he having trouble sleeping?
She scooted closer to the window but could see no sign of the boy beyond the walls of his enclosure. Her eyes scanned the rest of the lobby. She could see one security guard pacing in front of the main entryway, but otherwise the place seemed as abandoned as it always did this time of night.
With a curious grunt, she leaned back in the sleek office chair, pulling her legs up until she was seated cross-legged. Checking the data list that had been provided for her, she decided to enter just three more items, and if Max’s light was still on when she was done, she would go check on him.
Nova rolled her shoulders and pulled up the next batch of photos, showing a simple handgun taken from multiple angles. She discovered the serial number near the base of the barrel and punched it in to the database.
A window popped into view—ONE MATCH FOUND.
She clicked on it, pulling up the profile of the weapon, its manufacturer, and the year it had been produced, and at the bottom, a list of known criminals and gangs this or similar guns had been connected with over the years. Often this list was blank or contained only vague notes from the field when there was a match between a gun’s serial number and a bullet casing found at a crime scene.
There was only one connection listed—not of this exact gun, but to another handgun of the same model. Reading the words felt like a kick to Nova’s gut.
IN CONNECTION WITH MULTI-VICTIM MURDER—KINGSBOROUGH APARTMENTS. SEE SUMMARIZED REPORT.
Kingsborough Apartments.
She had lived in the Kingsborough Apartments.
Her hands were shaking as she opened the report.
It brought up a summary drafted by Hugh Everhart—Captain Chromium himself—dated the night of her family’s murders. The night of. Mere hours after it happened.
Nova’s heart thundered.
He had been there. He had been there that night.
But he had been too late.
Four people found dead. David Artino: age 31. Tala Artino: age 30. Evie Artino: age 11 months. One unnamed man: age unknown. Suspected Anarchist or Roach affiliation.
Forensics confirm all deaths were a result of direct trauma from bullet wounds, without prodigy interference. Prints found on the gun matched both those of the unnamed man and also those of Alec Artino (alias: Ace Anarchy).
There is reason to suspect the deaths of the three family members were done as a killing for hire. The motive for the homicides remains under investigation. See the full report as filed by Hugh Everhart (Captain Chromium) here.
Additional notes: The eldest child,a six-year-old girl, was not found at the scene. Neighbors have reported no knowledge of her whereabouts. A report has been made to the Renegades missing persons unit.
An icon at the bottom of the report indicated a folder of pictures taken from the crime scene. Nova shuddered. She had been saved from seeing the bodies of her family all those years ago, and she would not look at them now. But to know they were out there … that such photos existed, mere clicks away, made her sick to her stomach.
With her heart feeling as though it were being squeezed in a clamp, Nova forced herself to click on the link to open the full report.
A small window popped into the center of the screen.
RESTRICTED ACCESS. ENTER PASSCODE: _ _ _ _ _ _
Nova stared at those words for a long time, in turns furious that something so personal to her could be kept confidential, but also in part relieved.
She knew what had happened to her family. She knew that the cowards in the Roaches had hired a hitman to kill them because her dad had refused to keep making weapons for them. She knew the Renegades hadn’t been there to stop it, even after they’d promised to protect David’s family, and neither had they been the ones to track down the gang and ensure justice was served. No—it was Ace who had destroyed them all in retaliation.
She stared at those words—RESTRICTED ACCESS—and felt new resentment smoldering inside her. The Renegades knew her family was being threatened. Captain Chromium knew they might be targeted, and yet he had failed to save them. He was too late. Could it be that the full report was confidential because he recognized his own ineptness? Was he so embarrassed to have failed to save this family that he would hide it from the world?
It was easy to believe. He hadn’t protected them. He hadn’t saved them. He’d only recorded their deaths, entering the information like notes on a ledger.
But people believed he was the world’s greatest superhero. A hit like that to his reputation would be inconceivable to all the fools who idolized him.
With a shudder, Nova closed the summary report. She squeezed her eyes shut, pushing her chair back from the desk.
It was good she had found this, she told herself. It was a reminder of how the Council had betrayed her family’s trust. How they had not been there when they were needed most.
They were not superheroes. They were frauds, and this whole system that was meant to protect and serve was nothing more than a failed social experiment. She could see now that many Renegades had good intentions—Adrian was proof enough—but it didn’t change the fact that their society was not being run by strong, competent leaders, but by dictators who had put themselves in this position of power without cause, and now had no idea what to do with it.
The people would be better off on their own.
The world would be better off without them.
Nova waited for the tight knot in her gut to start to unravel, and peeled open her eyes. She was facing the window again, and her gaze immediately shifted toward Max’s quarantine.
Her brow furrowed.
She rose from her chair and stepped closer to the window, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. A light was still on, but not the full overhead lights that had been on before. It was dimmer now, pale gold shimmering off the glass facades of his tiny skyscrapers.
And they were … floating.
Nova rubbed her eyes and looked again.
The same image greeted her. Not every building of the model city, but perhaps a few dozen of them, their glass spires hovering above the ground, bobbing like buoys on a calm lake. As she watched, larger bits of the city began to rise up too. Like a hundred shimmering missiles launching slowly into the air.
At their center sat Max, cross-legged and levitating.
Levitating.
“He’s telekinetic,” she whispered, but saying the words aloud did not make them any less surprising. Because … he shouldn’t be telekinetic. She had seen his profile, when she found the directory. She struggled to recall what it had said—something that had been made intentionally vague, she recalled, because she’d been annoyed at the time that she didn’t know what it meant.
Stooping over her desk, she minimized the weapons database and tracked down the Renegade directory again. After a quick search, she found him.
Max Everhart. Alias: The Bandit. Ability: Absorption.
Absorption. That’s right, she remembered it now, and how very frustrating it was that it meant nothing at all. Absorption of what? It offered no explanation for the quarantine or why people seemed to think he was dangerous.
But this …
She looked again. More of the buildings had risen up now, along with every miniature tree from City Park and the entire Sentry Bridge.
This, people might think was dangerous. Not because telekinesis was terribly rare, but because most telekinetics could only manage to move one or two objects at a time. Not dozens and certainly not while keeping themselves aloft as well. That sort of focus and mental aptitude had only been recorded in a handful of prodigies, so far as Nova kn
ew.
And one of those prodigies was Ace Anarchy.
She returned to the window.
She even had a faint memory of seeing Ace in the cathedral, levitating just like Max was now—cross-legged and five feet in the air, one of the few times she’d seen him relaxed enough to go without his helmet. He had surrounded himself with candles in red glass votives, hundreds of them drifting around him, casting swirls of flickering light around the altar.
Seeing Max was so painfully familiar that she half doubted she wasn’t hallucinating.
Down below, Max opened his eyes. For a moment he stared at nothing. Not his floating glass city. Not the lobby below. His expression was serene and still.
Nova pressed her palm against the window of her cubicle.
That small movement must have caught Max’s eye, because he suddenly spotted her.
His concentration broke.
Nova saw it the moment it happened. His eyes widened, his lips parted, and his body dropped back to the ground, while all those sleek glass buildings crashed down around him.
Nova grimaced, embarrassed on his behalf.
But then she saw pain shooting through Max’s expression. Not the sort of pain that accompanied a hard fall, but the sort of pain that was excruciating. She pressed her nose into the glass, her own breath misting against it, and tried to make out what had happened.
As soon as she saw the blood, she turned away from the window and started to run. Down the corridor, past the elevator bank, into the stairwell. She launched herself over the steps to the next landing, then down the next, her feet barely touching the ground. She burst out of the doorway and raced across the sky bridge. She could see Max through the quarantine walls. He was on his knees, bent forward, cradling his hand. His right arm was soaked in blood.
Nova rounded the side of the quarantine and yanked open the door to the tertiary chamber. She charged for the next door, pulled down the lever to release the air lock, and pried it open.
An atmosphere-controlled chamber waited for her. Screaming in frustration at all these barriers, she bolted forward and yanked open the second door.
Her breath hitched.
She was inside the quarantine.
Max hadn’t moved. His back was to her, but he’d fallen onto his hip. He looked back when he heard Nova enter. Pain was still drawn into his features, but his eyes widened in fear when he saw her. Fear and panic and desperation. Nova looked at his hand, which was covered in blood. Beside him, she saw the bloodied spire of the Woodrow Hotel.
“Sweet rot,” she breathed, and already her mind was creating a checklist. Clean the wound. Bandage it up. Get him to the medical wing, or if no healers were available, get him to the hospital.
Nova started making her way through the glass city, kicking aside the fallen buildings in her path.
“No—” Max gasped.
“It’s okay,” said Nova. “You’re fine. You might be in shock, but you’re fine.”
“No, Insomnia, stop!” he yelled. He started to back away from her until he collided with the wall of the arena. “Stay there!”
“You need medical attention,” she said, halfway down Drury Avenue. “Just some basic first aid and then I’ll get you to the heal … healers…”
Her body began to slow.
Her lungs contracted, expelling her last breath.
She stumbled, grabbing the model of Merchant Tower for support.
She blinked at Max, but her vision had blurred.
Terror crossing his features, Max stood and tried to step over the arena, but his ankle caught and he stumbled, knocking over one of the great standing floodlights. “Go back!” he screamed. “Get out!”
But Nova couldn’t move. Her breaths wheezed as she slumped forward. Her eyelids were so heavy. Her brain was clouding over with … with exhaustion.
She felt like her limbs were full of sand. Like her skull was thick with fog.
She fell onto her side. Her shoulder smashed into the model of Gatlon City Hospital. Its north tower tipped over and shattered on the street, which was the last sound she heard before darkness engulfed her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THERE WERE TWO all-night eateries within a one-mile radius of Renegade Headquarters, and Adrian and the team were frequent patrons at both. Sometimes they just seemed like a better option than coming back to HQ and getting something out of the vending machines or snacking off the cold salad bar in the cafeteria, which stopped serving hot food after nine. Fighting crime burned a lot of calories and sometimes a superhero needed a gooey grilled cheese sandwich or a giant chocolate chip waffle smothered in whipped cream.
He didn’t know if cataloging data or whatever it was Nova was doing for the arms department burned a lot of calories, but Adrian did know that everyone needed to nosh when they were awake in the wee hours of the morning, and he doubted that an inability to sleep changed that.
As it was, he needed a distraction, anyway. Since the team was still technically on the Nightmare investigation case, which was fast becoming the Anarchist investigation case, they’d spent the last few days following every lead they could to try to find Ingrid Thompson, the Detonator. Frequenting any business she’d ever been known to visit. Calling on any citizen that might have had a connection to her, no matter how tenuous—a classmate from high school, a long-ago neighbor. So far, everything had led to dead ends, and Adrian couldn’t help but feel like they were wasting their time. They needed something recent and concrete. Video footage or an eyewitness spotting or … he didn’t know. Maybe a stash of glowing blue explosives discovered in an abandoned warehouse. Something tangible.
In lieu of something that would further the case, though, Adrian had three nights of restless sleep and, now, a bag full of sandwiches from Mama Stacey’s Greasy Spoon. Since he didn’t yet know Nova well enough to be able to guess her preferred sandwich order, he’d brought an assortment—a grilled cheese, a turkey club, a roast beef, and a southwest chicken wrap. He felt like he had the major bases covered, sandwich speaking, and Stacey had thrown in six bags of potato chips because, quote, “Gotta keep our heroes fed.” Wink.
He still wasn’t sure what the wink meant.
Anyway, he hoped Nova would think the gesture was thoughtful. He hoped she wouldn’t be annoyed that he was interrupting her work. He hoped maybe they’d be able to sit and talk, because he kept thinking about the night spent in the office building across from the library and how it had been really nice to talk to her. To get to know her, at least a little.
The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to know her even better. Questions kept popping into his head when he wasn’t around her, but then vanishing the moment they were together, and all the conversations turned toward the investigation again. Questions like, where did she get her ideas for her inventions? And, what was the most bizarre thing she’d ever done to keep from being bored at three o’clock in the morning? And, did she have a boyfriend?
He was pretty sure he knew the answer to that last one. She’d never talked about a boyfriend. But then … she hadn’t talked much about her personal life at all, so he couldn’t be sure.
He’d even had this outrageous idea as he was leaving Mama Stacey’s. This fantasy of sneaking into Nova’s cubicle while she was gone and laying out the spread of sandwiches and napkins like a picnic. He could even draw some candles, except that would probably be too much, and he didn’t want her to think this was, like, a romantic thing.
Except a part of him sort of did.
His palms were damp by the time he got to headquarters and he kept having to switch the paper to-go bag from hand to hand so he could rub them dry on his pants. The scanner near the door recognized the signal from his communicator band and unlocked with a clunk. He pushed through the revolving door and immediately heard someone yelling.
Adrian glanced at the security booth, where the guard on duty was screaming into his communicator. “—only two healers on night duty, and they’re both on
their way. But what was she thinking, going in there in the first place?”
Frowning, and wondering if something had happened to one of the patrol units, Adrian jogged down the steps into the lobby. His gaze shot up to the bay of windows where Nova had been working lately. He could see the light on in her cubicle, but her desk appeared to be empty.
His hair stood up on the back of his neck as he crossed the inlaid R in the tiled floor.
An erratic pounding made Adrian draw up short. He turned his gaze toward Max’s quarantine, where a faint light was casting a glow across the lobby.
Max was standing at the quarantine wall. He was wearing plaid pajama pants but no shirt. One hand was wrapped up in cloth—perhaps the missing shirt—while he pounded the other fist against the glass. He was yelling, his face wild with panic, and it took Adrian a moment to understand him.
Adrian! Hurry!
The bag of sandwiches fell from his hand, hitting the floor with a crackle and thud, and then Adrian was sprinting up the stairs to the quarantine. As soon as he reached the sky bridge he saw a body lying inside the quarantine.
His heart jolted.
It was Nova.
She was unconscious.
She was inside the quarantine.
He slowed for only a second, but still—he did slow, and he knew it, and he would later feel like the biggest coward for that moment of hesitation. But then he was running again, as fast as he could. Before he could sort out what he was doing, his hand was grasping the handle of the quarantine door and yanking it open. He didn’t know how long she’d been in there, but he knew that every second could make a difference. Every second that passed, her strength would be leaching from her, bit by bit.
Her power draining away, bit by bit.
But he would not be any safer if he didn’t hurry.
Once past the door, his vision attached itself to Nova. He could reach her. He had to reach her.
On the far side of the quarantine, pressing his body against the glass wall, Max was panting as if he, too, had just dashed across the lobby and the stairs and the bridge. His thin, pale shoulders were shaking, and Adrian could see now that the shirt around his hand was soaked with blood. Glass buildings were toppled and broken everywhere he looked.