“Of course they’ll match!” She paused. “Wait. Why wouldn’t they match?”
Leroy’s footsteps quickened as he made his way up the dock, back to the shore and the road, eager to get out of the blustering wind. Nova kept pace, waiting, but he still had said nothing by the time they reached the car and slipped inside.
“Leroy,” said Nova, shutting her door. “Why wouldn’t the prints match?”
He did not look at her as he said, “Because we are going to alter yours.”
Her fingertips tingled with subtle apprehension. “How?”
Leroy turned to her with a hesitant look, like he knew he should have brought this up before. But before he could respond, Nova figured out precisely how he meant to alter her fingerprints.
Her gaze dropped down to the hand he had settled compulsively on the car’s stick shift. “Oh.”
“The pain will be tolerable,” he said, in what was perhaps meant to be comforting.
But it wasn’t the pain that worried her. “Won’t it be suspicious? To go in there with mutilated fingerprints?”
“Not as suspicious as a perfect match to the prints on that gun would be.”
She gave him a wry look.
Leroy sighed. “We will make sure you have a plausible explanation,” he said. “But … if you don’t want to do it…”
“Of course I’ll do it,” she said, more angrily than she’d intended. “It will hardly be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Leroy gave her a look that bordered on pity, then he lifted his hand, like he intended to give her a high five. The dome light inside the car hadn’t clicked off yet, and under its sickly yellow glow, Nova could see the poison start to leach out of his skin. First beading up in tiny pinpricks, then oozing together until his fingertips were coated in a blackish film. Nova didn’t know if it was some sort of poison or acid that his body discharged, or some chemical entirely unique to his own physiology.
It didn’t much matter.
She inhaled, bracing herself. Then she lifted her own hand and pressed her fingers into his.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE ARENA WAS ALREADY THUNDERING with chants and stomping feet, and the trials hadn’t even started yet. Adrian stood leaning against the wall just inside the opening that led out onto the field, looking around as the bleachers filled with people. The crowd was full of bright red signs handed out at the entrance, one side printed with HERO, the other—ZERO.
That was part of the fun, he supposed, for the non-prodigies who came to watch the trials. Though the decision of who was accepted into the Renegades was ultimately up to the teams themselves, the crowd could pretend to have a say by holding up their signs when each contestant went onto the field.
He had never liked trial days. This was the fourth annual and it still gave him a sense of unease in his stomach. There was just something so ridiculous about it all—that the future of a prodigy could be decided based on a few questions and a thirty-second demonstration of their power. Could that really be all it took to decide whether or not someone was fit to be a hero? Capable of fighting for justice, defending the weak, protecting the city? He seriously doubted it, and what’s more, he suspected that if he’d been forced to enter through the trials, he might not have made it.
Adrian had become a Renegade practically by default. He was the son of Lady Indomitable, and since her death he’d been raised by Captain Chromium and the Dread Warden. No one would have dared object to him being given a uniform, and because of that, he was given plenty of opportunities to prove himself and his abilities. Bringing his artwork to life had turned out to be damned useful time and again.
But useful wasn’t always what mattered at the trials. Not to the spectators, at least. They wanted to be dazzled and bewildered and maybe even a little frightened. They wanted explosions and earthquakes, and Adrian’s power would have left the crowd unsatisfied.
Unless he’d drawn a hand grenade.
Actually, a hand grenade would have been kind of awesome.
Nevertheless, he hadn’t been made to compete for a place in the Renegades, so he would never know whether he would have been chosen or not.
These days, it didn’t really matter what anyone thought of his powers, not since he’d altered his own ability by giving himself the tattoos. He was no longer just Sketch, a Renegade and an artist.
He was the Sentinel, with more powers than had ever resided in one being before, at least as far as he knew. He was like no prodigy anyone had ever encountered. He had been transformed.