“The Renegades,” she whispered, her voice tinged with a hint of awe.
A wisp of a smile crossed her father’s features. “The Renegades,” he confirmed.
Nova pressed her cheek against Evie’s soft curls. The Renegades did seem to be helping everyone these days. One had chased down a mugger who tried to take Mrs. Ogilvie’s purse, and she’d heard that a group of Renegades had broken into one of the gangs’ storehouses and taken all the food to a private children’s home.
“And they’re going to help us?” she said. “Maybe we can ask them for medicine next time.”
Her father shook his head. “We don’t need that sort of help as much as some other people in this city do.”
Nova’s brow furrowed. She couldn’t imagine anyone needing that sort of help more than they did.
“But,” her father said, “when we need them … when we really need them, they’ll be here, all right?” He swallowed, and sounded more hopeful than convincing when he added, “They’ll protect us.”
Nova didn’t question it. They were superheroes. They were the good guys. Everyone knew that.
She found Evie’s pudgy fingers and started to count off each knuckle, while running through all the stories she’d heard. Renegades pulling a driver from an overturned delivery truck. Renegades breaking up a gun fight in a nearby shopping district. Renegades rescuing a child who had fallen into Harrow Bay.
They were always helping, always showing up at just the right moment. That’s what they did.
Maybe, she thought—as her father turned back to his work—maybe they were just waiting for the right moment to swoop in and help them too.
Her gaze lingered on her father’s hands. Watching them mold, sculpt, tug more threads of energy from the air.
Nova’s own eyelids started to droop.
Even in her dreams she could see her father’s hands, only now he was pulling falling stars out of the sky, stringing them together like glowing golden beads …
*
A DOOR SLAMMED.
Nova awoke with a start. Evie huffed and rolled away from her.
Groggy and disoriented, Nova sat up and shook out her arm, which had fallen asleep beneath Evie’s head. The shadows in the room had shifted. There were low voices in the hallway. Papà, sounding tense. Her mom, murmuring, please, please …
She pushed off the blanket that had been draped over her and tucked it around Evie, then crept past the table where a delicate copper-colored bracelet sat abandoned, an empty space in the filigree waiting to be filled with a precious stone.
When she reached the front door, she turned the knob as slowly as she could, prying the door open just enough that she could peer out into the dim hall.
A man stood on the landing—stubble on his chin and light hair pulled into a sleek tail. He wore a heavy jacket, though it wasn’t cold outside.
He was holding a gun.
His indifferent gaze darted to Nova and she shrank back, but his attention slid back to her father as if he hadn’t even seen her.
“It’s a misunderstanding,” said Papà. He had put himself between the man and Nova’s mom. “Let me talk to him. I’m sure I can explain—”
“There’s been no misunderstanding,” the man said. His voice was low and cold. “You have betrayed his trust, Mr. Artino. He does not like that.”
“Please,” said her mom. “The children are here. Please, have mercy.”
He cocked his head, his eyes shifting between them.
Fear tightened in Nova’s stomach.
“Let me talk to him,” Papà repeated. “We haven’t done anything. I’m loyal, I swear. I always have been. And my family … please, don’t hurt my family.”
There was a moment in which it looked like the man might smile, but then it passed. “My orders were quite clear. It is not my job to ask questions … or to have mercy.”
Her father took a step back. “Tala, get the girls. Go.”
“David…，” her mother whimpered, moving toward the door.
She had barely gone a step when the stranger lifted his arm.
A gunshot.
Nova gasped. Blood arced across the door, a few drops scattering across her brow. She stared, unable to move. Papà screamed and grabbed his wife. He turned her over in his arms. He was trembling while her mom wheezed and choked.
“No survivors,” the man said in his even, quiet voice. “Those were my orders, Mr. Artino. You only have yourself to blame for this.”