Renegades (Renegades #1)(23)
Author: Marissa Meyer
“One of my poisons?” said Leroy. “Truly? What a coincidence.”
The Sentinel grasped Leroy by his jaw, turning his face upward. Nova’s fingers curled, recognizing how the tactic was so similar to the way he’d tried to intimidate her atop the rooftop.
Top-secret, high-tech Renegade experiment or not, he was still nothing but a mindless bully. Just another brainwashed minion for the Council.
“You can’t expect me to believe you aren’t connected with her,” he growled.
“I don’t care what you may or may not believe,” countered Leroy. He had begun to sweat—his blackened skin glistening. “As for my poison being found in her projectile, well … I’ve been selling practical poisons in this city for decades.” He smiled, revealing chipped and missing teeth. There was an aura of pride in the look. He might have been bragging about being a world-renowned tulip grower. “From pharmaceuticals to ridding one’s home of vermin, there are a thousand reasons one might have had one of my poisons, and not all of those reasons are nefarious or illegal. Have you considered that perhaps this Nightmare, whoever she is, might have purchased that concoction from one of my distributors?”
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.”