Renegades (Renegades #1)(19)
Author: Marissa Meyer
A chill swept down his back.
One cannot be brave who has no fear …
What did it mean that Nightmare knew those words? She herself seemed far too young to have been involved with the murder, but was it possible the murderer was still alive? Did Nightmare know who it was? Was she in league with them?
But if she had really joined the Anarchists, then didn’t it make sense that his mother’s murderer might be one of them?
He shoved the album onto the floor and stood, rubbing the back of his head. His feet began to pace, his eyes unseeing as he padded back and forth across the office.
He knew the Council was sending someone to search the Anarchists’ stronghold for any signs that they were working with Nightmare, or that more of their members were involved in the attack on the parade. Maybe to arrest Cyanide as an accomplice. A patrol unit would be investigating them tonight, maybe even at this very moment. An “experienced team.”
But he was the only one who knew about this connection to a cold case. The ten-year-old murder of Lady Indomitable. An original Renegade. His mother.
If her killer was still alive, was still out there … then Adrian had to know. And as far as he could tell, the only person who might have that answer was Nightmare.
Swallowing, he brought his hand down to his sternum, where the zipper tattoo lived in secret beneath his T-shirt.
His feet stilled.
For Adrian Everhart to go against a direct order and investigate the Anarchists on his own would tempt far too many consequences—for him, and for his team. Sketch couldn’t go by himself, and he wouldn’t involve the others. Not until he had something more substantial than a single uttered phrase that no one else had been around to hear.
He knew it was dangerous, and maybe a little stupid. His first go-round as the Sentinel hadn’t exactly gone as planned. But he’d already tried asking for permission once; he knew there was no point in trying again.
He would tell the Council everything. About the Sentinel and his newfound abilities. About Nightmare and what she had said. He would tell them soon.
He would tell them the truth, after he had some answers of his own.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE ONE THING Nova liked most about the tunnels was that there was no night or day down here. Nighttime could be lonely on the surface, when all the storefronts were closed and even the most serious of night owls finally gave in to the lure of sleep as the clock edged its way toward morning. Nova didn’t mind being alone, but she got bored sometimes, waiting for the world to wake up and return to its drab, miserable existence.
In the tunnels, the only reminder that Nova had eight more hours to spare than everyone else was whether or not she could hear Ingrid’s snores coming from the defunct elevator shaft she called a bedroom. Everything about Ingrid was loud—her bombs, her personality, and evidently, even her dreams.
Nova collected the darts from the target and walked back down the tunnel, setting herself up for practice again. She’d been at it all night. Usually she liked to divide her nighttime hours between tinkering with her newest batch of weaponry and inventions, or practicing meditation and martial arts, or going through a series of exercises to build up her strength and stamina—any skills she might need in her next encounter with the Renegades.
But tonight, she couldn’t shake the memory of the parade. Those moments when she’d been on the rooftop. When Captain Chromium had been in her sights.
She could have done it. She, Nightmare, Nova Jean Artino, could have been the one to take out the invincible Captain Chromium.
But she’d hesitated. It had taken her too long to pull the trigger, and she’d blown it.
Never again.
She returned to the line she’d chalked across the tracks and loaded a dart back into the chamber of the gun. Not the gun she’d had on the rooftop that day—Red Assassin snatched that one right out of her hands and she never had a chance to recover it—but another found in Ingrid’s collection.
She lifted the gun into her arms. Peered down the sights. Lined up the first target.
She fired.
Again.
And again.
And again, until each of the darts had been unloaded.
She exhaled and went to collect them. Only when she’d gotten close enough to the targets could she evaluate how well she’d done.
Bull’s-eyes across the board. A dozen darts stuck into the pupils of a dozen magazine clippings—each one a glossy photograph of the Captain’s charming face.
She didn’t even smile as she yanked the darts out. This was just target practice. She’d failed when it had actually mattered. When she could have made a difference.
All revolutions come with death. Some must die so that others might have life. It is a tragedy, but it is also a truth.
She could still remember Ace telling her this when she was younger, when she’d asked him why so many had to die so they might have freedom. At the time she couldn’t fathom the hatred and violence that had been directed at prodigies in the centuries prior to the Age of Anarchy, but even then, even to her six-year-old mind, Ace’s passion had been contagious.
So few people really understood what Ace had been trying to accomplish. He hadn’t wanted the world to become what it did. Sure, there had been a lot of brutality and destruction when he first took over, but he was right—there always is during a revolution. Ultimately, he’d wanted a world in which prodigies were no longer oppressed and frightened, belittled and tormented. He’d wanted a world where they could all be free to live their own lives according to their own devices.
It was all the other power-hungry people, villains and non-prodigies alike, who had started to vie for control. Who had run amok in a world without rules.
Nova didn’t want to go back to the Age of Anarchy. She didn’t want innocent people to be slaughtered like her family had been. She just wanted the freedom that Ace had envisioned for her and those like her. She wanted the Renegades and the Council to leave her alone, to leave all the Anarchists alone.
Hell, she wanted the Council to leave all of society alone. Maybe they thought they were doing the right thing by being the end-all, be-all of the ruling elite, but society was barely getting by and they had too much pride to admit they weren’t what the people needed.
What the people needed was to learn to take care of themselves, but that would never happen so long as superheroes were running things.
She was making her way back up the tracks when the ground shook beneath her. Nova stumbled, planting a hand on the wall to stabilize herself. Bits of dust and chunks of loose concrete tumbled down the sides of the tunnel in small rivulets. The tracks vibrated under her feet, and for a moment Nova had the uncanny and horrifying thought that a train was coming—and she had nowhere to go.
The trembling stopped. A few more shudders passed underfoot before the earth stilled and quieted again.
Nova glanced down the tunnel, wondering whether it had been an earthquake—one buried deep underground, perhaps even a hundred miles away. Nothing to be concerned with. Surely these ancient tunnels had withstood far worse.
But then the silence was again broken, this time by a crash. The acoustics of the tunnels made it impossible to guess how far away the sound had come from, but it filled Nova with one certainty.
The Renegades were back.
She grabbed the gun and loaded a dart into the chamber, stashing the others into a pouch at her belt. Though Leroy hadn’t yet filled them with poison, she figured she could still find a way to make them useful.
She raced back in the direction of the platforms and tunnels where their train cars dwelled. As she neared the main platform, she forced herself to slow. She didn’t have her hood or mask to disguise herself as Nightmare, and she knew it would be foolish to give up her identity to the Renegades now.
As she rounded a corner, the walls began to shake again, which was followed by another crash—louder and closer this time.
Nova reached the back end of Cyanide’s train car and paused. She could hear things scattering across the platform and dropping down onto the tracks. A moment later, a small can of baked beans came rolling toward her, striking the side of the tracks only a few steps away from Nova’s feet.
“Come on out, Anarchists,” trilled a chipper, feminine voice. “It’s time for your performance review.”
Nova darted behind Leroy’s train car and crept to the other side. Peering around the edge, she spotted four figures on the central platform, where many of their rations and supplies were stored. Or had been stored—two of the massive industrial metal shelves had been thrown to the ground, leaving a mess of broken bottles, crushed boxes, and a thick stench of vinegar in the air.
She recognized the Renegade team immediately—one of the most high-profile teams in the city, with a reputation for having taken countless criminals into custody. Their leader, the girl who had spoken, was Frostbite. A few years older than Nova, she was athletic and pretty, with a bob of silver-white hair and silver-white skin that was so translucent Nova could see hints of her blue veins even in the tunnel’s dim lighting.