He exhaled and opened his eyes. “Thanks.”
“I think you’re getting stronger,” said Adrian. “That was steadier than usual. I’m pretty sure.”
“No, I’m not,” said Max in a matter-of-fact tone that would have disguised his disappointment from just about anyone else.
“Well … some telekinesis is still better than none, right?” Adrian scratched his temple with the capped end of the marker. “Did you want figurines of the Council to go on top?”
Max shook his head. “I still have the ones you made last year.” He glanced around. “Somewhere.” His expression darkened as he turned back to Adrian. “Did someone really try to assassinate the Captain?”
Adrian hesitated, but there was no reason to keep Max from the truth. He was a smart kid, and too observant for his own good. He watched the news more than he ever watched movies or cartoons, and even being stuck in this glass prison, he always seemed to know more about what was happening in the world than Adrian did.
“Yeah,” he said. “A villain who goes by Nightmare.”
“You’ve fought her before.”
“Not me. Oscar and the others had a run-in with her a few months back, and some of the other teams have seen her before too.”
“Why would she want to hurt the Council?”
Adrian started doodling marching band characters onto the glass. A drummer and a tuba player. A whole line of trombones. “Some people liked the way things were before the Renegades took over.”
“Back when everyone was always stealing things and stabbing each other?”
“I don’t get it, either. But I guess the people in power back then would have been living pretty good, right?” His brow knit together as he tried to picture the intricate coils on a French horn. Giving up, he gave the musician a trumpet instead.
“Do you think this new guy wants that too? To give the city back to the villains?”
“New guy?”
Max pointed at the screens. Adrian followed the look and a chill swept down his spine. The news was showing a photo of the Sentinel. It was a grainy image of him lobbing himself between rooftops, taken from the ground a hundred feet below. Captured in that moment it almost looked as though he could fly.
Though the picture quality was terrible, it was the first time he’d seen himself in the suit, and it was both eerie and comforting.
There was no way to tell it was him. There couldn’t be. No one had to know that he was the one who had failed to catch Nightmare. He was the one who had hurt Monarch.
“I don’t think…” Adrian hesitated. “We don’t know that he’s a villain. He might have been trying to help. He fought Nightmare, and they say he wears an R on his chest.”
“But he’s not one of us, is he?”
Adrian started pushing the marching band through to Max, one musician at a time. “I don’t know. Oscar thinks maybe he’s some secret weapon they’ve been developing upstairs.”
A commotion on the main floor drew Adrian’s attention to the bright entryway. The Council had finally returned, dragging the Puppeteer between them, wrapped in chromium chains. The Captain pushed the villain off to one of the waiting teams, giving orders for him to be taken up to the prison block. Tsunami went with them, holding a wall of water at the ready, should Winston Pratt try anything. He seemed to be in too much giddy awe being inside Renegade Headquarters to formulate an attack, though.
Blacklight slapped both the Captain and the Dread Warden on their backs, and even from up here Adrian could hear his boisterous voice saying something about Thunderbird as he, too, made his way toward the elevators.
Adrian stood. Captain Chromium glanced up toward him and his face softened, perhaps with relief, though there hadn’t been much reason for him to be concerned. As far as he knew, as far as anyone knew, Adrian had been down in the crowd watching the parade the whole time, and he could hold his own against a handful of brainwashed kids.
Still, he couldn’t help but smile back as he lifted one hand in a welcome-back salute.
He turned and knocked twice on Max’s window. Max waved good-bye without looking up, already organizing the band in front of the parade float.
Adrian made his way to the ground floor. The Captain weaved through the crowd that had gathered around him, everyone shouting questions about the attempted assassination, the Puppeteer, Nightmare, the Sentinel, but they all went ignored. The Captain met Adrian at the bottom of the steps and wrapped him in a quick hug, before pulling away and gripping Adrian’s shoulders. Adrian grimaced as he felt his stitches pull against the wound, but did his best to cover it with a smile.