His jaw clenched.
Most of the Anarchists’ identities had been known for years. Winston Pratt. Ingrid Thompson. Honey Harper. Leroy Flinn.
But Nightmare … she was new. A mystery. And a threat.
When he closed his eyes, he could see her, the slightest glint of her eyes visible in the shadow of her hood. Without expression. Without remorse. Without fear, even as she’d said those words—the words that had haunted him for years. Even now, he couldn’t be sure whether he’d imagined her saying them. That it hadn’t been part of a dream played out while he’d been unconscious.
One cannot be brave who has no fear.
He released a shuddering breath. It hadn’t been a dream. She had said them.
It couldn’t be coincidence.
“Nightmare,” he whispered, and it felt like the first time he said it. The first time he said the name and it meant something to him. She was no longer just another villain to be stopped. Another blight on their city to be dealt with. Now she was someone who might have answers. “Who are you really?”
* * *
THE DULLNESS OF HIS THOUGHTS had mostly evaporated by the time Adrian made his way back to Renegade Headquarters. He had drawn a new shirt for himself, with long sleeves to hide the tattoos, his chest and shoulder still throbbing and tender beneath the fabric.
He pushed his way through the rotating door of the main entrance and paused on the landing that looked out over the expansive lobby. It was a vast gathering space that was forever humming with activity and chatter and heavy boots thudding across the enormous R inset into the center of the floor. Renegades in gray-and-red uniforms passed doctors in lab coats and mingled with administrators in crisp suits. People rushed between the various departments, gathered in groups, stared at the screens that lined the walls as they replayed scenes from the Puppeteer’s attack again and again.
Hugh and Simon sometimes joked about how all this had started in the Dread Warden’s basement. They’d been teenagers—friends since childhood, both with extraordinary powers, both sick of watching their city being run by Anarchists and criminals. Until one night when they decided to do something about it.
As their escapades grew in boldness and publicity, four more prodigies joined the crew of vigilantes: Kasumi, Evander, Tamaya, and Adrian’s own mother, Georgia Rawles. The incomparable Lady Indomitable.
It was Evander who gave them the name that would solidify their place in history. The Renegades. Back then, as Adrian understood, they’d had no money, no headquarters, no influence. Nothing but a profound determination to change the world for the better. And they had done it all while subsisting on boxed macaroni and cheese and wearing cheap homemade costumes and taking turns sleeping on one another’s moth-eaten couches.
Though the original six were still considered the core group that had started the Renegades, their numbers continued to grow: more vigilantes joined the cause, more prodigies dared to fight against the villains who had torn their world apart.
Seeing headquarters now, it was almost impossible to imagine how it started in that basement, all those years ago. A couple of teenagers and a desire to change the world for the better.
And now—this. Eighty-two stories and eight sublevels of the world’s most comprehensive government and law enforcement facilities.
Okay, most of those floors actually didn’t have anything on them, but Hugh often talked about how glad they would be for all the extra space when they needed to expand. The tower had been built to be the main office building for an international bank or something equally dull, but now it held high-tech facilities and virtual-reality simulators, where Renegades could train both physically and mentally inside a variety of programmable situations. There was a full armory, where an assortment of weapons was kept behind a series of ever-increasingly impenetrable defenses, plus an entire floor dedicated to the storage and preservation of superpowered tools and artifacts. There were two floors dedicated to city surveillance and investigative work; the always-busy call center; prison cells for housing prodigy criminals who were too dangerous to be put into the regular city prison; lounge areas for off-duty Renegades; research laboratories; a full-service medical wing; and—their crowning glory—the Council Hall on the highest floor, where the Council passed laws and made decrees designed to strengthen the society they’d liberated from anarchy and protect the world from another collapse.
The Council acted like the only direction society could move was forward, away from those terrible years of chaos and crime, but Adrian sometimes had the feeling that the foundation of order the Renegades had built was more precarious than anyone wanted to admit.
Straightening his spine, he started down the grand staircase to the main floor and cut across to the elevators, heading for the medical wing. A few of the overhead screens switched to an image of Nightmare, waving down to the crowd from the basket of the hot-air balloon, her face eclipsed by the hood.
Renewed determination surged through Adrian at the sight of her. His mind started to replay the moment when Nightmare had stabbed him, with Ruby’s own blade, no less. He’d lost control. He’d thrown that flame, intending it for Nightmare, but he’d been blinded by rage, and he hadn’t been thinking about what might be behind her.
She called him a neophyte and she was right. It was an amateur mistake.
From the moment he heard Monarch’s scream, he knew she was badly hurt. He hadn’t been holding back, and much as he wanted to blame Nightmare for it, he couldn’t. The flames had been from his hands—the result of a power he’d barely explored. He had been cocky and careless and Danna was suffering for it.
When he reached the medical wing, he spotted Tamaya Rae—Thunderbird—through the windows of the first room. She was sitting on the edge of a bed while a healer tended to one of her black-feathered wings. She looked enraged, though all he caught were the words Puppeteer and balloon and pathetic fishing net!
He found Danna in the third room, lying on her side, unconscious. Much of her uniform had been cut away, revealing extensive burns along her left arm and torso. A mask was over her nose and mouth, probably filling her lungs with an elixir that would keep her body from transforming while she was unconscious, as sometimes happened when her brain went into fight-or-flight mode. She once told him that it happened to her a lot when she’d had nightmares growing up.
Nightmares.
Oh, the irony.
Adrian’s gut sank. He hadn’t had time to stop and see how bad her burns were during the fight, and now he was struck with the full weight of guilt from what he’d done.
Oscar and Ruby were there, too, sitting on a bench in the corner. Ruby’s head was resting on Oscar’s shoulder, and for a moment Adrian thought she might be asleep, but then her eyes peeled dazedly open. She spotted Adrian and sat up. The briefest flash of disappointment crossed Oscar’s face, but it was gone so fast Adrian thought he might have imagined it.
“Oh, now he shows up,” said Oscar, standing. “Dude, where were you?”
“I’m sorry,” said Adrian, feeling the apology down to his core. “I got your message about Nightmare and I was making my way to you guys when the Puppeteer showed up and I was stuck trying to get this group of kids to safety. There must have been a hundred of them there on a field trip. It was chaos.” He lightly scratched his wounded shoulder through his shirt, surprised by how easily the lie had come. “But I still should have been there with you. I’m so sorry. Is Danna…?”
Oscar blew out a frustrated sigh. “She got burned really bad in the fight.”
On the bed, Danna inhaled a shuddering breath. A machine on the wall beeped faster for a second, then fell again into a steady rhythm. Adrian walked closer, forcing himself to lift one of the cold compresses that had been draped over her burn wounds. Forcing himself to take in the damage he had done.
How much pain had she been in? Or had her body immediately gone into shock? Setting the compress back over her burns, he rubbed the flame tattoo through hi
s sleeve. Though it had been healed for weeks now, he imagined for a moment that he could feel it, like the flame was alive, like it was burning his skin.
He turned back to Oscar and Ruby. “Have the healers been to see her yet?”
Oscar nodded. “Yeah. They say she’s going to be okay, but it’ll take some time. It’s really bad.”
“Danna is our eyes when we’re on patrol,” said Adrian, scratching the back of his neck. “We’ll be at a huge disadvantage without her.”
“The really weird thing,” said Ruby, “is that wasn’t even Nightmare’s doing. That”—she pointed at Danna, then drew quotes in the air—“was ‘the Sentinel.’”
Adrian flinched at the venom in her tone. The small part of him that wanted to tell his team that he was, in fact, on the roof with them that day, quickly evaporated. “Who?”
“Some guy who showed up mid-combat,” said Oscar. “Faced off against Nightmare. He had an R on his suit, but…” He shrugged. “None of us have ever seen him before.”
Adrian kept his brow tight with confusion. “The Sentinel?”
“That’s what Monarch said, before they put her under. He was a fire elemental, I think.” Oscar frowned. “But it definitely wasn’t Wildfire.”
Wildfire was the only fire elemental they currently had on the Renegades, at least in the Gatlon City branch. Adrian had gotten most of his ideas for how to handle fire manipulation from watching him in the training halls.
Ruby yawned. “I don’t think it was that Islander prodigy, either. The one who trained here last year. Magma, was it? This Sentinel guy was fully covered, head to toe. Someone caught a photo of him from street level so they’re starting to circulate it, to see if anyone knows anything.”
“He also had superior jumping,” said Oscar, “and this suit, like something straight out of a comic book. Honestly, I think he might be from research and development—like maybe some sort of new super-soldier they’ve been working on down there, and it’s too classified for them to admit it yet.”
Ruby gasped and leaned forward excitedly, like she’d just uncovered a clue. “Or he could be a villain, masquerading as a Renegade. Maybe he’s trying to hurt our reputation. Maybe it’s all part of some complicated scheme that will lead to our ultimate downfall!”
Adrian and Oscar stared at her.
Ruby shrugged. “Maybe?”
“Maybe,” Oscar agreed.
Collapsing back onto the bench, Ruby threw an arm over her eyes, as if this outburst had sapped her last bits of energy. The bloodstone on her wrist reflected the room’s light, turning her cheek a rosy red. “That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.”
“But he was fighting Nightmare at first,” said Oscar, “before he attacked Monarch. Or maybe that was a mistake. Who knows?”
“Was anyone else hurt?” asked Adrian.
“Nope,” said Ruby, with a hint of defensiveness. “We’re grand. Positively stellar.”
“Nightmare got to her,” explained Oscar. “Put her to sleep.” He reached down and pet Ruby on the head. It was one of the most awkward gestures Adrian could recall him ever making, and Oscar could be a pretty awkward guy at times.
“Tattletale,” Ruby grumbled, swatting him away. “In case anyone’s wondering, I currently feel like someone’s filled my head with concrete.”
Adrian bit back the impulse to say he knew exactly how she felt. “That makes the fourth time this year a Renegade team has come in contact with Nightmare. She can’t be working alone.”
“She escaped on the Puppeteer’s balloon,” said Oscar. “Could be a new Anarchist.”
“But,” said Ruby, thrusting a finger into the air, “she threw the Puppeteer overboard. That’s not exactly a friendly greeting.”
“That’s their thing though, isn’t it?” said Adrian. “Even when they’re supposed to be working together, they still believe in trampling the weak to make way for the strong.”
Oscar shrugged. “Makes no sense to me, but then, they are villains. Who knows how they think?”
“On the bright side,” Ruby said, opening her eyes and flashing a mischievous grin, “I got Nightmare’s gun.”
Adrian lifted an eyebrow.
“They took it upstairs to have it inspected,” said Oscar. “She fired off one dart at the Captain, came this close to hitting him in the eye.” He pinched his fingers together. “That dart is being looked at too. Maybe they’ll be able to trace it back to wherever she got it from.”
Adrian looked away. He didn’t know how much information they could garner from the gun or the dart she’d used, but it was something. It was a start.
That morning, he had cared only about proving his abilities as the Sentinel. He had been excited to show them all what he could do. He had fantasized about taking off the Sentinel’s helmet and revealing himself to his team and the rest of the Renegades.
But he hardly cared about any of that anymore. One sentence from Nightmare had changed everything.
He had to find out who she was. He had to find out what she knew.
He had to find her.
CHAPTER FIVE
ADRIAN WAS BECOMING ANXIOUS, though he wasn’t sure why. Thunderbird had been brought to headquarters hours ago to be treated for her injuries, but the rest of the Council still wasn’t back. He would have known by now if they were hurt, so that wasn’t it. Maybe he was curious if they’d heard about the Sentinel. What they thought. If they were able to see right through him.
He spent some time making his way around the medical wing, checking on others who had been hurt in the fight against the Puppeteer, before heading upstairs to visit Max, who was probably feeling cut off from all the activity, like usual.
Max’s quarantine was built into a sky bridge that extended over the main floor of the lobby. It was quite possibly the fanciest room in the place—practically a luxury suite—with floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a breathtaking view of the river, and private quarters tucked out of sight with a master bedroom and bathroom complete with a soaking tub, though Adrian had the feeling Max didn’t use it all that often. Max didn’t seem to spend much time back there at all. He was always out in the main space of his enclosure. Always working on the glass city he’d been painstakingly constructing over the last four years.
When Adrian approached the quarantine, he spotted Max sitting cross-legged inside his model of City Park—one of the few spots of empty floor he could comfortably sit down on anymore. His eyes were glued to the screens outside his enclosure, watching the footage from the parade. His fingers were toying with one of the little glass figurines Adrian had made years ago—a horse-drawn carriage like those that took tourists through the park.
It had started as a game. Max was still a toddler when the quarantine was built for him, and Adrian was determined to try to make him feel as comfortable as possible. He’d seen how much Max loved building with a set of interlocking blocks the Captain brought for him, so he started making blocks himself, using his marker to draw new designs onto the glass and pushing them through to Max’s side.
As he got older, Max started making requests. He wanted blocks that mimicked tall spires and domed ceilings, or cables he could use to construct a bridge. Before Adrian realized what the kid was trying to accomplish, he saw the familiar skyline evolving before his eyes.
Max was ten years old now and the miniature city was mostly complete. It was a marvel, taking up the entire floor of the circular room. A nearly exact replica of Gatlon, created entirely of shimmering clear glass. But just like the real city, it was always changing. Being torn down, rebuilt, edited, and refined as the kid worked to make it authentic to the real Gatlon, a city he could only imagine being a part of.
Max caught sight of Adrian approaching and held up a pad of paper for Adrian to see. He had done his best to draw the Council’s parade float.
“Can you make that?” Max said, his voice muffled by the glass.
“What, no ‘hello’? No ‘glad to see you weren�
�t killed by a psychotic villain today’?”
Max lowered the sketchpad. “Reports have been circulating all afternoon, with most of the focus on Thunderbird, though I know Monarch and a few others also sustained injuries. The news is also providing updated reports on civilian casualties every few minutes.” He paused, before adding, for clarity’s sake, “Obviously, I would have known if you were hurt.”
Adrian grunted and lowered himself to the floor. “In that case, yeah, sure, I can make that, but the cloud’s not going to have actual lightning coming out of it. You’ll just have to use your imagination. You want some street food vendors too?”
Max’s eyes lit up. “Yeah. And the villain float. And the marching band?”
“What do I look like, a figurine factory?” He took out his marker and began to sketch the float, making it as detailed as he could recall from memory, though he’d been distracted when it had first come into view, caught up in trying to fix that girl’s bracelet.
He paused, the float half finished.
With everything that had come after, he’d nearly forgotten about the girl and the way she’d looked at Adrian when he’d fixed the clasp: not like his handiwork was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen in her life, but like she was trying to figure out if this was a con artist’s trick she needed to be wary of.
Maybe there were too many prodigies flooding into the city these days. The novelty of seeing someone with superpowers must be wearing off.
He finished drawing the float, adding wheels beneath it so Max could push it around the streets if he wanted to. “Here you go,” he said, pressing his hand against the drawing and forcing his will into the glass.
The drawing emerged on Max’s side of the window. A crystal-clear replica of the parade float, complete with rotating wheels.
The glass wall itself was left unchanged, the drawing wiped clean in the transition.
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