“You,” Nightmare said, with a growl in her tone, “cost me a valuable connection when you went after the Librarian, and all the goods he’d stockpiled. Do you know how much work I put in to trading with him? How long it took me to cultivate that relationship? All for nothing, thanks to you.”
Adrian took a step back, moving out of the path between them. When neither paid him any notice, he stepped back again, then again.
“Blame me all you want for your sorry misfortunes,” said the Detonator with a one-shouldered shrug. “But let’s not forget that you started this all when you decided to go after Captain Chromium. The head honcho himself. If you hadn’t been so careless, the Renegades wouldn’t be after us at all, now would they? They wouldn’t have gotten your gun. They wouldn’t have traced it back to the Librarian, and it would be business as usual, now wouldn’t it?”
“Except they didn’t attack us after the parade, did they? They took the Puppeteer and they let the rest of the Anarchists off the hook. It wasn’t until you got lazy and impatient—when you decided to take a risk you shouldn’t have. You know what I think?” Nightmare raised the gun again. “I think the Anarchists will be better off without you.”
She fired again and the Detonator cried out and fell backward off the lip of the small wooden stage, disappearing into the tiny theater.
Adrian dived behind a rotting canoe, a leftover, he assumed, from the tunnel of love.
Nightmare kept shooting, letting off four more bullets until the revolver clicked over, spent.
When Adrian lifted his head, he saw that the front of the wooden theater was peppered with holes and splintered wood. The marionettes were swaying on their strings and there was a splatter of something dark against the backdrop, but he couldn’t tell if it was blood or dirt.
Nightmare holstered her gun and leaped from the roof, landing cat-like on the ground where Adrian had stood moments before. She hesitated, staring at the theater. Adrian couldn’t see her face around the drape of the hood, but he sensed her waiting, bracing herself. His tranquilizer gun was still in her other hand.
Clenching his jaw, he uncapped his marker as quietly as he could and drew himself a new gun against the side of the canoe. It was a hasty drawing, made messy by years of dirt crusted onto the wood, but he was glad to be armed again when it was finished. He sketched out a handful of extra darts and stuffed them into his pocket.
He had just finished when he heard the melodic clunking of hollow wood. Looking up, he saw the Detonator pulling herself up, shoving the marionettes out of the way. She collapsed over the ledge of the theater booth. When she looked up, her face was contorted in pain, her eyes seething with fury.
She hauled herself up onto the ledge, then tumbled gracelessly down to the other side.
The entire front of her shirt was covered in blood. More was dripping down her midriff and coating the bands around her arms.
Her nostrils flared as she forced herself up onto shaky legs. She cursed, then spat into the dirt between her and Nightmare.
She stumbled forward. One shaky, plodding step.
Blue sparks began to crackle at her fingertips.
Nightmare shifted back, stepping up onto the bottom step of the fun house.
“Ace never should have taken you in,” said the Detonator. The sparks began to converge into something no bigger than a tennis ball at first, but growing fast. “You might have had potential once, but now? You’re nothing but a disappointment.”
She took another step forward, then groaned, dropping hard to one knee.
Adrian brought up the gun, resting his hands on the edge of the canoe. He aimed first at the Detonator, then at Nightmare. He wasn’t sure what to do. They were fighting each other. They might kill each other.
The Detonator, he suspected, wouldn’t last long with those wounds.
But he still needed Nightmare alive.
Gritting his teeth, he targeted the Detonator again. The bomb hovering over her palm was as big as her head now, and still growing.
His eyes narrowed. Even at the library, he had never seen her compose an explosive device of that size. She was smiling now, a crazed, gleeful smile.
Adrian squeezed the trigger.
The dart disappeared into the grasses behind her. He cursed.
The Detonator laughed. “Now, you just wait your turn over there, sweetheart. I’ll get to you next.” The explosive was bigger than a basketball, glowing in bright, swirling blue.
“Ingrid?” said Nightmare, and the slight quiver to her voice brought Adrian’s attention back to her, even as he hurried to load another dart. “What are you doing?”