Archenemies (Renegades, #2)(29)
“I will give you information, but I ask for something in return.”
Adrian tensed. “I’m not in a position to bargain with you.”
“I don’t ask for much. You can even run my request by that Council of yours if you’d like.”
Adrian hesitated, but Winston kept talking without waiting for a response.
“When I was a child, my father gave me my first puppet—a wooden marionette with orange hair, like mine, and a sad face. I named it Hettie. Well, the last I saw of Hettie, he was fast asleep in his little bed right next to mine—on the subway platform at Blackmire Station.” His expression turned pleading. “Bring me Hettie, Mr. Renegade, and I promise I will tell you something you want to know.”
CHAPTER TEN
“ADMIT IT. You had a bit of a thing for him.”
Nova turned her face to Honey, her jaw dropping with disgust. They were crammed into Leroy’s beloved yellow sports car, Nova straddling the center console between Honey and Leroy. “I did not.”
Honey tittered, shooing Nova’s comment away with the tips of her glossy gold nails. “Psh. What girl your age doesn’t fawn over such golden-hearted righteousness, that boldness, that sheer … heroism.” Despite her mocking tone, there was a dreaminess in her eyes as she watched the city pass by their window.
Nova gaped at her. “Gross.”
Leroy snickered. “Believe me, it isn’t the heroics that Honey finds attractive, it’s the power.”
A shrill giggle escaped Honey and she leaned forward to peer around Nova at him. “Oh, the Sentinel’s obviously not for me, all those muscles and gratuitous masculinity.” She stuck out her tongue. “But Leroy makes an excellent point. Power like that, it does make my heart pitter-patter. If you claim otherwise, you’re lying.”
Nova shook her head and peered down the line of red stoplights stretched out before them, knowing that Leroy would ignore most of them. Luckily, this neighborhood was a ghost town this time of night.
“Absolutely not. There was nothing attractive at all about that pompous, arrogant, attention-craving—”
“Renegade?”
“Wannabe.”
Honey smirked. “Your protests speak volumes. But they haven’t found the body yet, have they? Who knows, maybe your Sentinel survived.”
Nova crossed her arms over her chest, sensing that she was fighting a losing battle. “I watched him get thrown in the river. That armor sank like it was made of concrete. No way he could have gotten out of it fast enough.” She hesitated, before adding, with some annoyance, “Though he has surprised me before.”
“Shame,” Leroy mused. “I was beginning to enjoy your heated griping on his egotism and … how did you put it that one time? That his personality was as interesting as a bloated carp?”
“That might have been a little harsh, in hindsight,” said Nova, “given the whole drowning thing.”
Leroy shrugged, but the jerkiness of the movement sent the car careening into the opposite lane. He smiled impishly as he course-corrected. “Regardless of your personal feelings, whatever they might be”—he cast Honey a sideways smirk—“I’m saddened by the vigilante’s death. He’d done more to benefit our cause than any underground villain these days.”
“The Sentinel? He made it his personal mission to hunt me down!”
“When the world believed that Nightmare was alive, yes, he was problematic. But since you were proclaimed dead, he’s been quite helpful, embarrassing the Renegades at every turn.”
Nova shook her head. She didn’t like to think of the Sentinel as being a benefit to their cause. She didn’t like to think anything positive about that inflated action figure at all.
But maybe Leroy had a point. The Sentinel had been active since the attack on the carnival, frequently showing up at the scene of a crime before even the Renegade patrol units arrived, though no one knew how he was finding out about the crimes so fast. He’d captured more low-level criminals than some Renegades had in their entire careers, and his success was largely thanks to his refusal to adhere to the Gatlon code authority. In fact, something told her that he would have had no problem shooting that guy who had held the barista hostage, potential risks or not.
But there was still something about him that made her skin crawl. The way he talked—like all the world should stop to listen and be enraptured by his brilliance. The way he was always striking those silly poses in between battles, like he’d read far too many comic books. The way he had tried to intimidate her during the parade, and how he’d threatened Leroy in the tunnels. He acted like he was superior to the Renegades, but he was nothing more than a hero reject with a power complex.
But it no longer mattered. He’d been a nuisance both to the Renegades and Nova, and now he was gone. Soon his body would be dredged up from the river, his identity would be revealed, and his story used as a bulleted talking point for the Council to remind people why vigilantism was a bad idea. Prodigies needed to join the Renegades, or they needed to keep their powers to themselves—at least, that’s what the Council wanted everyone to believe.
Annoyed with the conversation, Nova was glad when she finally spotted the cathedral looming at the top of its hill.
Or, what had once been a cathedral. Now it was merely a shell of a structure. The northeast side was relatively unscathed, but the rest had been demolished during the Battle for Gatlon. The nave and two elaborate towers that had stood at the west entrance had been reduced to rubble, along with the high altar, the choir, and both of the southern transepts. A handful of columns still stood around the open cloister, though they looked more like the ruins of an ancient civilization than destruction wrought only a decade ago.