Nova leaned back and the footrest jutted upward. “Winston showed up.”
“Oh?”
“He wasn’t supposed to.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Nova stared up at the metal bars stretching down the length of the car. The aged yellow maps of the city. The ceiling that had started to crack on one side.
“He was captured by the Renegades.” She took a sip of tea. “It might have been my fault.”
Leroy didn’t respond. Nova listened to the sounds of his work. Measuring, pouring, mixing.
She set her tea down on the floor, then reached an arm upward and folded it behind her head, trying to stretch out the muscles. “I probably could have saved us both, if I’d really tried.”
Leroy stoppered one of the vials and wrote out a label for it. “If he’d been stronger than the Renegades, he wouldn’t have fallen to them.”
It was logical. Anarchist logic. Comfortable, blameless logic.
“Anyway,” said Nova, switching to the other arm, “Ingrid thinks the Renegades will raid us tonight, in retaliation, or maybe to find out if any of us were involved.”
“I trust you’ll be well hidden when they arrive.”
“Yeah, but … maybe you should put some of this stuff away?”
Leroy’s lips quirked to one side, making half of his face go slack with disuse. “Believe it or not, everything I do here is perfectly legal.”
Nova couldn’t tell if he was joking. “Yeah, well … don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Warning duly noted, with my heartfelt appreciation.” He pulled an empty jar and a funnel from a nearby cabinet. “Were they advertising the trials at the parade?”
“Like it’s a national holiday,” Nova grumbled, then added mockingly, “Do you have what it takes to be a hero? Ugh. Stab me with an egg beater.”
She took the kettle corn from her pocket, the bag crinkling and squealing as she pried it open. She held it out toward Leroy, but he just shook his head.
“The world needs heroes,” he said, lowering the goggles again to transfer the concoction into the bottle. They made his eyes look three times bigger.
“That’s what they keep telling us.” Nova popped a handful of popcorn into her mouth. “But we both know the world would be better off without heroes. Without villains. Without any of us, getting in the way of normal, happy people and their normal, happy lives.”
Leroy’s lips lifted in a subtle smile. “Have you ever considered trying out?”
She laughed. “What, to be a Renegade?”
“They don’t know who you are, what you look like.” He turned the flame of a burner to low and set a glass jar on top. “You would make a promising spy.”
“Except there’s no way I could pretend to respect those righteous, arrogant, pretentious … heroes long enough to learn anything useful.”
Leroy shrugged. “You could, if you wanted to.”
“Not to mention getting through their background check,” she continued. “Not just anyone gets to join their clique, you know. You really think they’d let in a girl with the last name Artino?”
He waved a hand at her. “Minor obstacles. It’s easy enough to get forged paperwork in this city. Are we villains or not?”
“You’ve given this some thought.”
He glanced up. “Only since they started promoting the trials again. Ace always used to say that knowledge is power, and he was right. Unfortunately, these days the Renegades have all the knowledge and the power.”
Nova picked up her near-empty mug and stood. “In that case, sending me to the trials would be a perfect plan. If only I had a death wish.”
“Give yourself more credit, little nightmare,” said Leroy. “I know I do.”
Nova grunted. “I’ll think about it,” she said, shoving open the door. “And don’t call me that.”
Leroy only smiled.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ADRIAN TOSSED HIS FEET onto the coffee table, a bowl of cereal cradled in his lap. It was his standard fare when his dads worked late, which happened more often than not, and after the day they’d had, he didn’t expect them home anytime soon.
Grabbing the remote, he turned on the late-night news. Shaky footage of the parade appeared on the TV screen—a video of the Puppeteer’s harlequin balloon drifting through the streets of downtown Gatlon while crowds screamed and stampeded to try to get away. The voice from an off-screen reporter was quoting the statistics. The numbers had grown since he heard them that afternoon and now they were saying there were sixty-eight casualties, with fifty-one civilians still receiving treatment at Gatlon City Hospital and two Renegades, including Council member Tamaya Rae, being treated for injuries at Renegade Headquarters. Luckily, there were no fatalities. The perpetrator, Anarchist Winston Pratt, known to most as the Puppeteer, was in custody …