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.
She forced her burning eyes open and saw a blur of yellow, then Monarch was beside her. A knee collided with Nova’s side and she fell to the concrete, rolling from the force of the blow. Nova used the momentum to jump back to her feet, shutting out the pain in her ribs, blinking through the stinging tears that blurred her vision.
Something hooked beneath her chin, pulling tight against her throat—Smokescreen’s cane. He yanked her against him. Though he wasn’t a big guy by any means, his arms felt like iron as his cheek pressed against the side of her hood. “Your days of villainy are over, Nightmare.”
She scoffed. “You sound like you’ve read too many comics.”
“You sound like you think that’s a bad thing,” he retorted.
She felt around for his hands on either end of the cane, but the gloves of his uniform overlapped with his sleeves, leaving no vulnerable skin exposed.
Smokescreen’s hold on her tightened. “Are you working alone?”
In front of her, Red Assassin caught one of the throwing stars on her wire, flinging it at a heat vent. It stuck with a metallic clang. The second star boomeranged over the alleyway and zipped back toward her. She pinwheeled the ruby hook in front of her and stabbed the star into the concrete with the gem’s point before it could rise again.