Most of his invitations were declined where Nova was concerned. So what was the point?
His shoulders sank, ever so slightly.
“About that,” said his dad.
Adrian turned to him. The Dread Warden peeled the black domino mask from his face and it was as if his dad had transformed. It wasn’t just the costume. The shift was in the relaxing of his posture. The ironic tilt of his mouth. Where the Dread Warden, famous superhero and founding member of the Renegades had stood, now it was just Simon Westwood, concerned parent.
“About what?” said Adrian.
“It is not our job, as superheroes, to scare people from time to time.”
Adrian chuckled. “It may not be written into our job description, but come on. What we do is dangerous.”
Simon’s tone hardened. “You’re right. And because it is so dangerous, it is of utmost importance that our behavior never veers into recklessness.”
“Reckless?”
“Yes, reckless. You can’t just leave your team behind like that, Adrian. Why do you think we organize recruits into teams in the first place? It’s your responsibility to look after one another, and your teammates can’t do that if they have no idea where you are.”
“We were all following the same objective.” Adrian gestured in the direction Nova had gone. “Nova ran off after Hawthorn too.”
“Yes, Nova McLain’s penchant for making rash decisions has been well documented, and to be perfectly honest, I hoped that spending time with you and your team would help her grow out of it.” Simon pushed his cape back from his shoulders. “Besides, in this particular case, it’s not a fair comparison. Nova still had Danna to watch her back. Whereas no one had any idea where you’d gone off to. It’s not like you, Adrian, and it’s got to stop.”
“I was trying to catch up to Nova and Hawthorn. I wasn’t sure what direction they’d gone, so it took me a while to find them, and then there was the whole Sentinel thing that threw a wrench in my plans, but…” He rubbed the back of his head. “It’s not like I ran off to Casino Jack for an afternoon without telling anyone. I was doing my job!”
“I’m not trying to start a fight about this,” said Simon. “You’re a great team leader, and we’re really proud of you. I just want to remind you that there are no lone wolves in the Renegades. There is no I in hero.”
Adrian rocked back on his heels. “You’ve been holding on to that one for a while, haven’t you?”
“So long!” said Simon, a smile brightening his face. “Actually, I’m pretty sure it was one of those sayings your mom used to say.”
Adrian chuckled. “She did like her two-cent parables.”
Though Adrian’s mother, the brave and wondrous Lady Indomitable, had been killed when he was a kid, her cheesy sayings still came back to him sometimes. Unbidden, but when he needed to hear them most.
Superheroes are only as good as their conviction.
Sometimes, a smile is the most powerful weapon we have.
When in doubt … fly.
Easy for her to say, of course, given that she could actually fly.
Adrian turned toward the cleanup crew. There were a dozen or so Renegades gathered around Oscar as he gave an animated reenactment of the fight with Hawthorn and the rest of the criminals. He was currently using his cane to swipe at an invisible enemy, which Adrian thought might have been his explanation of how he’d knocked out the guy who had taken the café server hostage.
They had worked as a team then, hadn’t they? And they had successfully rescued the girl.
He appreciated his team. Respected them. Even loved them.
But he wasn’t convinced that a superhero didn’t sometimes have to go off on their own. Maybe there weren’t any lone wolves in the Renegades, but … the Sentinel wasn’t a Renegade, was he?
“So,” said Adrian, turning back to Simon, “if you and Tsunami were looking for the Sentinel, who went after Hawthorn?”
“Hugh and Tamaya,” said Simon.
Hugh Everhart—Adrian’s other dad, the invincible Captain Chromium. And Tamaya Rae, Thunderbird. The only founding member other than Adrian’s mom who had the power of flight.
“Have we heard anything?” he said.
Simon checked his wristband and shook his head. “I’m worried the trail had gone cold by the time we got here. But her accomplices are in custody and we’ll begin interrogations immediately. One of them will talk.”
“What do you think they wanted all that medication for?”
Simon heaved a sigh. “The drugs they took are used to develop a powerful opioid. It’s a pretty lucrative business for those who are willing to produce and deal it. And of course, for every street dealer doling out these drugs, there are plenty of sick patients at the hospitals not receiving the help they need. The bag Hawthorn had was mostly painkillers, and it’s going to be difficult for the pharmaceutical industry to replenish the supply on short notice. It’s been hard enough to bring back legitimate drug production as it is.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Luckily, your team managed to keep a lot of those drugs off the street. It could have been much worse.”
Adrian wanted to accept the compliment, but he couldn’t help but focus on their failure more than their successes. They should have been able to stop Hawthorn. “Will you let me know once they have Hawthorn’s location? If you’re going to send a team after her, I’d like to—”
“No,” said Simon. “If Hugh and Tamaya don’t bring her in today, we’ll be assigning another unit to the case. Your team has sustained too many injuries. You’re taking a few days off.”
“But—”
“Don’t.” Simon held up a hand. “This is non-negotiable.”
“Are you saying that as my dad, or my boss?”
“Both, and also as someone who cares for Ruby and Danna. They need time to recover, Adrian.”
“Fine, then let me, Nova, and Oscar be a part of it.”
Simon scratched the dark whiskers on his chin. “Is this going to be Nightmare all over again?”
“We found Nightmare, didn’t we?”
“You almost got killed.”
“Yeah. I’m a superhero, Pops. How many times have you almost gotten killed? And you don’t hear me complaining about it.”
Simon groaned good-naturedly. “What now? Why do you care about Hawthorn? It was just another mission, Adrian. You guys stopped six of the seven perpetrators. We got back most of the medicine they took. You did well.”
“I like to finish what I start.”
“Is that all?”
Adrian drew back. “What do you mean?”
“I just wonder if maybe you’re trying a bit too hard to prove yourself these days, after what happened at the carnival.”
Adrian scowled. He hated being reminded of how he had failed at the carnival. True, he had found the Anarchist known as Nightmare, but he had also allowed the Detonator to play him like a pixilated character in an old video game. He had replayed those moments with the Detonator a thousand times in his mind, trying to figure out what he could have done differently to stop her. His hesitation had allowed the Detonator to set off two bombs, resulting in dozens of innocent people being hurt, and Adrian couldn’t help feeling responsible for each and every one of them.
It was Nova who had shot and killed the Detonator, putting an end to her terrorism. If Nova hadn’t been there, Adrian didn’t know what might have happened. He should have done more to stop her. He should have figured out sooner that killing the villain would deactivate the explosives.
Maybe it was because he had the Gatlon code authority echoing in his thoughts. Killing an adversary should always come as a last resort.
Nova had recognized that they were at the last resort. She did what needed to be done.
Why hadn’t he?
“I’m sorry,” said Simon, squeezing Adrian’s shoulder. “That was thoughtless of me. You and Nova both handled yourselves well, given the circumstances. I’m sorry you couldn’
t save Nightmare, but no one regrets that we no longer have to worry about the Detonator.”
“Save Nightmare?”
Simon lifted an eyebrow. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Adrian’s shoulder jerked and Simon dropped his hand. “I wanted information on my mother and her murder. I thought Nightmare might have that information. It had nothing to do with saving her. So she’s dead—it’s not exactly a tragedy.”
“Right. That’s what I meant. And I know … regardless of who she was and the things she’d done, her death was a disappointment to you. To all of us, if she truly did have information that would have solved Georgia’s murder.”
Disappointment didn’t begin to describe how Adrian felt at losing that tenuous connection to his mother’s killer. He knew Nightmare wasn’t the murderer—she was far too young for that—but he was convinced that she had known who it was. Even now, months after he had fought Nightmare on the rooftop overlooking the parade, her words often echoed through his head.
One cannot be brave who has no fear.
The same words that had been found on a small white card on his mother’s body, after she fell seven stories to her death.
“Yeah, well, I’m not giving up on finding my mother’s killer. Nightmare was an Anarchist. If she knew something, then maybe another Anarchist will, too, or another villain who was around at the same time.”
“Someone like Hawthorn?”
Adrian didn’t try to disguise his bemused grin. “Was she around back then? I haven’t had time to confirm that yet.”
Simon lifted a finger, nearly jutting it against Adrian’s nose. “I’m only going to say this once, Adrian. Do not try to go after Hawthorn by yourself. Or any of the Anarchists, for that matter. You understand? It’s dangerous.”
Adrian pushed up his glasses and opened his mouth to speak.
“And don’t try to tell me that dangerous is how superheroes are supposed to operate.”
Adrian snapped his mouth shut.
“We have methods in place for a reason,” Simon continued. “To help mitigate threats and damage. If you hear something about Hawthorn or any other villain, you call it in and wait for instructions. I want to find out who killed your mother as much as you do, but I’m not about to lose you in the process.”
Adrian forced himself to nod. “I know, Pops. I’ll try to be less … reckless.”
“Thank you.”
Adrian pressed his lips into a thin smile, biting back the words he really wanted to say. The suspicions that had been filling his head for weeks.
Despite the bomb that had supposedly killed her, despite the amount of destruction that had been wreaked at the carnival fun house that day, despite the fact that Adrian himself had witnessed the fight between Nightmare and the Detonator … despite everything, he had doubts.
His dads would call it denial. His team would call it his typical, uncanny optimism.
But Adrian couldn’t help it.
The truth was, he did not believe that Nightmare was dead.
CHAPTER FIVE
ADRIAN AND THE TEAM had been left off the patrol schedule for the rest of the week, owing for time to “recover from injuries and trauma,” so there was no reason to head into Renegade Headquarters in full gear today. Normally he wouldn’t have had to come in to headquarters at all, except that morning the Council had sent out a global communication to all Renegades in the Gatlon City division, requesting their presence at a mandatory meeting.
It was a mysterious message. Adrian couldn’t recall there ever being a meeting for the entire organization. Sometimes they implemented new rules in the code and summoned the patrol units to discuss them, or had department meetings with the administration, or the research and development teams, and so on—but everyone?
Unfortunately, his dads had already gone when he woke up, so there was no hope of needling information out of them.
Adrian turned a corner, walking beneath a strip of construction scaffolding as he approached the north side of headquarters. It was an overcast morning and the top of the building was lost in clouds, making the skyscraper appear endless.
His attention caught on a vehicle parked at one of the side entrances. It was an armored van, its back doors heavily fortified, and its sides lined with short, tinted windows. The side of the van read CRAGMOOR PENITENTIARY: PRISONER TRANSPORT.
Adrian slowed to a stop. Cragmoor was a prison located off the coast of Gatlon City that had been built to hold prodigy criminals, as most civilian prisons weren’t sufficiently equipped to handle a wide array of extraordinary abilities.
Maybe they were picking up a prisoner from one of the temporary holding cells inside headquarters. Although transfers like that were generally made at night, when the streets were empty of curious onlookers.
He continued walking, gazing into the windows of the van as he passed. He couldn’t see into the back at all, and the driver’s and front passenger’s seats were empty.
Shrugging to himself, Adrian made his way to the front of the building, where tourists were gathered around the main entrance, snapping photos of everything from the revolving glass doors to the nearby street sign and the place where the building disappeared into thick cloud cover high above. Adrian wove his way through the crowd, ignoring a couple of gasps and one low muttering, Was that Adrian Everhart? The fame wasn’t really his, anyway. People didn’t care so much about Adrian Everhart as they did about the son of Lady Indomitable, or the adopted son of Captain Chromium and the Dread Warden.
Which was fine. He was used to the attention, just like he was used to acknowledging that he’d done little to earn it.
He shoved through the revolving doors, smiling at the fellow Renegades he passed and jovial Sampson Cartwright at the information desk. He surveyed the lobby for any sign of Oscar or Nova, but when he didn’t see them, he headed up the curved flight of stairs to the sky bridge that connected to Max’s quarantine.
Max was almost always inside the glass gallery during the day, working on the extensive glass model of Gatlon City he’d been constructing for years, or watching the TV screens that dotted the lobby’s many pillars, but today Max was nowhere in sight. He must have been back in the private quarters tucked behind the enclosed rotunda.
Raising his hand, Adrian thumped hard on the wall. “Hey, Bandit, it’s me. Are you—”
Max appeared all at once, standing mere inches in front of Adrian on the other side of the glass.
Adrian yelped and stumbled backward, colliding with the sky bridge’s handrail. “Great skies, Max, don’t do that!”
Max started to laugh. “Your face!”
Glowering, Adrian pushed himself off the rail. “Very clever. I’m sure you’re the first prodigy with invisibility to ever do that to someone.”
“Originality is overrated,” said Max, pressing down his sandy-blond hair, though it puffed right back up again. His goofy grin didn’t fade. “That was so worth it.”
As his heart rate returned to normal, Adrian found himself starting to smile, even as he shook his head. Max was only ten years old, but he could be uncannily serious for his age. It was refreshing to see him pulling a childish prank and getting such an enormous kick out of it.
“I’m glad to see you’ve been practicing,” said Adrian.
“I’m getting really good at the invisibility thing. And also, I was able to fuse a penny to a nickel, which is cool because it’s harder with two different metals. Your power, though?” Max made a sour face. “I drew a worm yesterday and all it did was wriggle around for, like, five seconds, then died. I mean, come on. A two-year-old could draw a worm.”
“You didn’t get that much of my power,” said Adrian. “Maybe you’ll never be able to get your drawings to do much.”
Max grumbled something that Adrian couldn’t make out.
Max had been born with the rare gift of power absorption, meaning he stole the powers from any prodigy he came in close proximity to, hence why Adrian had long ag
o dubbed him “the Bandit.” Most of his abilities had been taken when he was just a baby: metal manipulation and matter fusing from his birth parents, who had been part of a villain gang; invisibility from the Dread Warden; and even telekinesis taken from Ace Anarchy himself during the Battle for Gatlon. Max had been too young to remember any of that, though. More recently, he got a touch of Adrian’s ability when Adrian had pulled Nova out of the quarantine that kept Max separate from the rest of the Renegades. Max said that he was sleeping less lately, which probably meant he’d gotten a bit of Nova’s power, too, though he had no interest in staying awake twenty-four hours a day, even if he could. He got bored enough as it was in his solitude.
For years, Max would experiment with his abilities only in secret, keeping the extent of them private, even from Adrian. He had been surprised to learn that the kid was actually a lot more talented than anyone had guessed, largely thanks to his own self-training. Adrian knew Max felt guilty for having a lot of the powers he had—like he didn’t have a right to any of them. But lately he seemed more eager to practice, and even to show off a little bit. Adrian was happy to see it. Max was the closest thing to a little brother he’d ever known, and he hated to think that Max might feel guilty for something he couldn’t control. No prodigy should be made to feel guilty for what they could do.
“Where’s Turbo?” Adrian said, scanning the city at Max’s feet.
“In the top of Merchant Tower.” Max gestured to one of the taller glass skyscrapers. “I made him a little bed in there and now he sleeps, like, all the time. I think you might have made him part sloth.”
Weeks ago, Adrian had drawn a tiny dinosaur, a velociraptor, to prove to Nova that Max hadn’t taken his powers from him. The creature had disappeared for a while, then one day showed up unexpectedly inside the pastries case of the small espresso stand in the lobby. There had been a great commotion over it and a lot of screaming, and someone from the janitorial crew ended up chasing the creature around with a broom for almost twenty minutes before Adrian heard about it and claimed the dinosaur as one of his creations. Max had asked if he could keep it, and just like that, he inherited a thumb-size pet.
Archenemies Page 4