And it would be.
She’d been preparing for this moment for years.
Use that anger.
It wasn’t just to avenge Ace, though that might have been enough all on its own. It was to avenge her family, too, who the Council could have saved, but hadn’t.
It was to revitalize Ace’s vision. His dream of freedom for all prodigies, not just those who were willing to pander to the self-appointed Council and their autocratic laws.
It was because Nova knew that the Council was failing the people—was failing them even now—but no one was brave enough to say it.
Society would be better off without them.
The street below seemed to fall silent, blanketed by the purpose drumming inside her head. The Captain’s eye came into focus. Shocking blue and bearing faint wrinkles in the corner as he smiled. He wasn’t young anymore, like when he’d first formed the Renegades. The Council were getting older, passing their legacy on to a new generation.
“Pull the trigger,” she whispered to herself. Inhale. The trigger pressed against her finger.
They were getting older, but they still held all the power. All the control. More, perhaps, than they ever had when they’d prowled the streets at night, searching for criminals and villains.
More than when he’d taken that helmet from its rightful owner.
Exhale.
“Pull the trigger, Nova.”
The Renegades will come.
Nova flinched.
“What’s wrong?” asked Detonator.
“Nothing.” Nova licked her lips. Lined up the sights again. The float was turning the corner now. Soon it would pass out of sight. Soon he would turn away from her, his smile and charm greeting the next street of worshipers.
This was the best opportunity they would have to take down the Captain, and soon, the rest of the Council would follow.
While the Renegades scrambled to replace the Council, the Anarchists would rise again. Without the villain gangs interfering this time, they would show the people of this city what anarchy was meant to look like. True freedom. True independence. For everyone.
All she had to do was pull the trigger.
A bug fluttered in the corner of her vision. Nova shooed it away.
She found her target again.
The Captain shifted, turning his head slightly in her direction.
It was the best shot she would have.
Nova started to squeeze.
Something landed on the end of the rifle. Nova lifted her eyes, focusing on the gold-and-black butterfly, its wings opening and closing as it perched on the barrel.
Nova’s gaze lifted skyward.
A swarm of monarch butterflies clouded overhead—hundreds, perhaps thousands of vibrant wings fluttering as they clustered above her.
“We have company.”
A beat of silence was followed by, “Renegades?”
She didn’t respond. The float was turning. Five seconds, maybe less.
Nova looked through the sights and found the Captain, found his perfect hair, his perfect smile, his perfect blue eyes—
A bundle of balloons passed between them, each emblazoned with the iconic Renegade R.
She waited, frozen in time, sweat dripping down her neck.
The balloons passed.
Captain Chromium shifted his gaze upward, looking almost right at her.
She fired.
The Captain turned, just a hair.
The dart struck him in the temple. The needle tip snapped off.
Captain Chromium jerked to attention, searching the rooftops, signaling the others. Nova let out a stream of curses as she ducked behind the ledge.
A red hook flew from the side of her vision, attached to a thin wire. It wrapped around the gun and snatched it away.
Nova leaped to her feet.
A teenage girl, pale and freckled, stood at the corner of the roof, holding Nova’s gun in one hand and the glittering hook in the other. She wore the Renegade uniform—form-fitting charcoal-gray Lycra from her neck to her boots, piped in red and emblazoned with a small R over her heart. Her hair was a mix of bleached white and pitch-black, pulled into a shaggy ponytail.
The butterflies swarmed beside her, cycloning until their wings became a blur, then solidified into the body of a second girl, wearing an identical gray bodysuit, with long blonde dreadlocks framing her face.
Red Assassin and Monarch.
Nova had met them once before, when they tried to stop her from robbing a small pharmacy for supplies Leroy needed, but there were more of them that time.
Nova lifted an eyebrow. “Where’s everyone else? Living it up in the beer garden?”
As soon as she said it, she heard a ding, and the metal grate over the utility elevator squealed open.
A third Renegade emerged from the elevator—a boy with light brown skin and thick dark hair. He walked with a slight limp and a cane, faint tendrils of smoke following in his wake.
Smokescreen.
The corner of Nova’s mouth curled upward. “That’s a bit more like it.”
Detonator’s voice crackled in her ear. “What’s happening up there?”
Nova ignored her.
“Nightmare,” said Smokescreen, with a subtle incline of his head. “Long time, no see.”
“You’re about to wish it had been longer.” Nova reached for her belt and unclipped two of her heat-seeking throwing stars, an invention she had worked all last summer to perfect.
She threw them both at Red Assassin, knowing how dangerous she could be with that hook of hers. Red dodged. Monarch burst again into a swarm of butterflies.
A bolt of black smoke struck Nova in the face. She stumbled back, blinded.
“Nightmare, report,” said Ingrid.
Snarling, Nova reached for the transmitter behind her earlobe and shut it off.