Renegades (Renegades #1)(24)
Author: Marissa Meyer
“And whether or not they can be replicated,” said Ingrid, suspicion making her lip curl.
Phobia did not have an answer.
Releasing a slow breath, Nova rolled onto her back. Long ago, someone had spray-painted graffiti on the ceiling here and she found herself staring up into an ugly demonic face, its tongue lolling out.
They were right. If the Sentinel was a creation of the Council, who was to say there wouldn’t be more coming? That thought led to a host of concerns. If they could give someone superstrength, super-agility, and even the ability to make and control fire … who knew what else they could do?
One Sentinel she could handle. But an entire army of them? It would leave the Anarchists, well … powerless.
She shifted and felt something crunch against her hip. Reaching into her pocket, she wrapped her hand around a piece of crumpled paper.
“We should have killed him,” Ingrid said, and Nova heard the thuds and shuffles as they started to put their supplies back in order upon the shelves. “We should have killed them all.”
“And live the rest of our lives behind bars?” Leroy clicked his tongue. “That would be a shortsighted attempt at vengeance.”
“At least it would avenge my poor darlings,” said Honey.
“Nothing has changed,” said Phobia. “The Council is our enemy. The Renegades will fall easily once they are gone.”
Nova unfolded the paper in her hands. It was the flyer she’d been handed at the parade, advertising the Renegade trials. At the top was scrawled, in bold letters: DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?
Jaw twitching, she started to shred the paper to pieces.
Phobia was wrong. Things had changed that day. Thanks to Winston’s attack and her own botched assassination attempt, the Renegades would be on higher alert than ever.
And now they had the Sentinel to contend with.
Where twenty-four hours ago she had felt optimistic about their chances, now it felt as though any hope of someday reclaiming a real life for themselves was evaporating before her eyes. The existence of the Sentinel was proof that they didn’t know enough about their enemies, while the Renegades knew so much about them. Where they lived. The extent of their abilities.
But they didn’t know about her.
And if that was the only advantage she had, then she was going to use it.
CHAPTER TEN
OF THEIR GROUP, Leroy was the only one who had ever learned how to drive. It wasn’t necessary for most people in the city, who could walk to just about anywhere they really needed to go, and plenty of people still made their living carting others from place to place, especially after the collapse of the public transportation system.
Still, though Leroy claimed to have gotten a legitimate driver’s license before the Age of Anarchy started, Nova sometimes wondered if he just said that to imbue his passengers with a sense of confidence; in which case, it didn’t really work. Perhaps it was partly due to the fact that he sat so low in the driver’s seat she didn’t think it was possible he could see clearly over the dashboard, or perhaps it was because Leroy’s pleasant, toad-like smile never faded when he was driving, no matter how many people honked or cursed as they passed, no matter what mystery item thumped beneath the wheels, no matter how many pedestrians screamed and lurched out of their path.
“Where does this woman live, anyway?” she asked, glancing at Leroy from the passenger seat of his yellow sports car, a vehicle he claimed had been highly desirable back when he’d stolen it. (According to Leroy, it had belonged to a lawyer who had famously defended a man who had beaten a prodigy nearly to death. The lawyer had gotten the man off with nothing but a steep fine and some community service to answer for his crime. So stealing his car was as much a matter of justice as greed.)
Thirty years and exactly zero car washes later, the car more resembled an overripened banana than anything remotely desirable, at least to Nova’s eye. Rust was creeping around all its edges, there were countless dents and paint scratches on the exterior doors, and the ripped upholstery carried the distinct aroma of mildew.
“By the marina,” said Leroy, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
Nova scanned the buildings they passed. They’d left downtown and were making their way through the industrial district, where warehouses and storage yards had once been full of shipping crates ready to be loaded onto cargo ships or distributed to the rest of the country by endless trains and semitrucks. Though international trade was gradually returning to the city, most of these buildings were still deserted, home only to rats and squatters who, for whatever reason, weren’t eligible for Council-sanctioned housing. That, or they preferred to make their own choices about where and how to live their lives, whatever the cost.
Through gaps in the warehouses and defunct factories she caught glimpses of Harrow Bay, sparsely lit by a handful of boats on the water. Her eyes traveled to the horizon which blended almost seamlessly with the black sky. Though they were still in the city, the light pollution was dimmed out here enough that she could see a scattered sprinkling of stars and she found herself scanning for constellations she recognized. The Fallen Warrior. The Great Cypress. The Hunter and the Stag.
As a child, Nova had been fascinated by the stars. She would make up entire stories about the celestial beings represented in those constellations. Back then she’d even convinced herself that all prodigies, like herself and her dad and Uncle Ace, had in fact been born of the stars, and that’s how they’d gotten their superpowers. She’d never figured out exactly how that had come to be, but it had seemed to make perfect sense in her youthful logic.
She wasn’t sure what was more amazing—her childhood theory on how prodigies came to be, or the truth. That each of those stars was its own sun, thousands of light-years away. That to look at a star was to look back in time, to an age in which there were no prodigies at all.
Leroy turned a corner and the car passed over a series of train tracks before tipping down a long, steep hill toward the marina.
“How do you know this woman again?” asked Nova.
“Oh, I don’t, not really. But then—how much do we really know anyone? Can we say with absolute certainty that we even truly know ourselves?”
Nova rolled her eyes. “And again. How do you know her?”
Leroy grinned and jerked the wheel to one side. Nova stiffened and glanced out the window, but couldn’t see whatever it was he was swerving around. A second later, he had righted the car in his lane. “She was a member of the Ghouls,” he said, citing one of the villain gangs who had risen to power during the Age of Anarchy, one that had formed an alliance of sorts with the Anarchists. “I used to trade her disappearing inks for false documentation. Still do, when it’s needed.”
“She’s a prodigy, then.”
Leroy hummed his confirmation.
“Any powers I should know about?” Even when meeting a supposed ally, Nova liked to be prepared.
“Psychometry. Nothing dangerous.”
Psychometry. The ability to see into an object’s past.
“Well,” Leroy added with a chuckle, “nothing dangerous so long as you don’t get crushed beneath all her stuff. You’ll see when we get there. She told me once that it’s difficult to give things up, once you know what they’ve been through.”
“I’m not afraid of stuff,” said Nova, “as long as we can trust her.”
“Oh, I didn’t say that,” said Leroy. “But outside of family, she’s as close to trustworthy as we’re going to get. And”—he sighed—“I don’t believe we have any other choice.”
Nova settled deeper into the seat, staring at the weathered boathouses that blurred past.
Her mind settled on that one ephemeral word.
Family.
She had had a family once. Mom. Papà. Evie. When they were taken from her, she believed she’d lost everything. So much of her childhood was lost in a haze of pain and loss, mourning and anger, betrayal and a sadness so raw there were entire days in which she couldn’t summon the energy to eat, or even cry. Entire nights in which shadows terrorized her, becoming murderers and monsters.
There had been but one source of light in those first months. The only real family she had left.
Uncle Ace.
He had held her close so she couldn’t see the bodies of her family as he took her away from the apartment, stopping only to grab the unfinished bracelet her father had been working on. He hadn’t let her go until they arrived at the cathedral, what he and the Anarchists had called home in those days. It was the largest church in the city, which Ace had claimed long before Nova was born. At first, she found it haunting and eerie, with the lofted ceilings that echoed every footstep, the bell tower that had long ago fallen to silence and cobwebs, the paintings of dead saints that watched her pass with condemning eyes.
But Ace had done his best to make it feel like a home to her. She did not recall him talking very much, but he always seemed to be near when she needed a stable presence. Sometimes he held her hand or rubbed her back while she sobbed into his shoulder. Sometimes he would use his powers to distract her from her sorrow, making playful puppets out of the figures and statues that lined the sanctuary and chapel walls. And when her curiosity overcame her misery, he showed her every hidden alcove of the cathedral. The tombs beneath its foundation, full of bones and history. The massive organ where she was free to pound at the keys to her heart’s content, filling the vast space with chilling chords that perfectly fit her mood. He had taken her to the belfry and let her tug on the ropes to make the smaller bells chime, then showed her how he could move the massive central bell with his thoughts. Their music had pealed across the rooftops of the surrounding city blocks.