“I will,” said Hugh. “It will be fascinating for us all to hear what else we might have been neglecting down there.”
Once they reached the far wall of windows, Adrian checked the distance between them and Max and unlatched the face shield. Hugh tensed as he watched Adrian pull off the hood, but Adrian flashed him a grin. “We’re far enough away.”
When Adrian showed no sign of having his powers drained, Hugh conceded with a nod. “Listen, Adrian, there’s something I thought you should know. Sooner than later.”
Adrian’s eyebrow shot upward. “Oh?”
“There’s been a breakthrough in the Hawthorn case.”
Adrian stood straighter. “What? When?”
“Early yesterday morning. After … that unfortunate fatality.”
“The girl that overdosed?”
“Yes. We told Hawthorn’s allies that if we’re able to trace the drugs she bought to the ones that were stolen, they could be charged with aiding in involuntary manslaughter. One of them started talking. Gave us a few leads on where Hawthorn might be hiding out.”
“That’s great,” said Adrian. “I’ll notify my team immediately. We can…” He trailed off as Hugh started to shake his head. Adrian’s enthusiasm waned. “You’re not giving us the case, are you?”
“We’ve already put Clark’s team on it.”
It felt like being punched in the stomach. Adrian groaned. “Frostbite? Seriously?”
“I know you don’t get along with her, and I don’t blame you. They’re … a frosty bunch.” Hugh quirked a grin at his pun. Adrian did not return it. “But they’re a good team, one of the most effective we have. I trust them to handle it.”
Adrian scowled, knowing it made him look like a petulant child. He was tempted to say that the only reason Frostbite brought in so many criminals was because her team didn’t play by the code—he’d witnessed as much when he’d seen them bullying the Anarchists in the subway tunnels and trying to frame them with a false confession.
But he resisted the urge, not only because he had no evidence of Frostbite’s transgressions, but also because he felt the shame of his own hypocrisy. The Sentinel didn’t follow the code either, and it was a part of the reason that he, like Frostbite’s team, was so good at bringing criminals to justice. Catching bad guys was easy when you didn’t have to deal with the inconvenience of evidence and trials.
Maybe that was part of why he disliked Genissa Clark so much. Maybe he was jealous that she could get away with what she did, whereas he was treated like a pest to be eradicated.
“I wanted you to hear it from me, before word gets around,” said Hugh. “This choice isn’t because we don’t trust you and the others, Adrian. But this is a high-profile case, as you know, and—”
“You need the best,” Adrian muttered.
Hugh frowned, but didn’t disagree.
Adrian sighed. “The important thing is that Hawthorn is caught and brought to justice. It doesn’t matter who brings her in. After all”—he glanced back at Simon, remembering what he had been told after the hospital heist—“there is no I in hero.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
IT WAS NEAR DAWN by the time Adrian got home and trudged down the stairs into his bedroom. He knew he shouldn’t be so cranky after the night they’d had. After he managed to give Max something he had given up on wanting—quality time with Simon, and soon, quality time with his friends too. After his dads gave the okay for Adrian to tell people about the medallion, at least.
But all of Max’s joy couldn’t overcome Adrian’s irritation, to know that Frostbite’s team—of all the patrol units in the whole organization—had been chosen to go after Hawthorn. His jaw ached from grinding his teeth all the way home.
Pacing back and forth across his worn carpet, he held up his wristband. He had finally turned off the notifications from the call center, removing some of the temptation to put the Sentinel’s suit back on. He was trying to trust the system, to put his faith in the code, just like his dads wanted him to. He was trying to give the Renegades the benefit of the doubt—to believe that they were enough to protect the city, to bring justice to the wrongdoers of their world.
But today, he couldn’t resist.
He pulled up the map of the city and did a quick search for Frostbite.
His jaw clenched as a small signal blinked on the map. She was on active duty, moving down Raikes Avenue. As he watched, she turned north on Scatter Creek Row, moving fast, so she had to be in a patrol car.
He tried to puzzle out her destination based on the direction she was heading. Maybe Hawthorn was camped out in an old boathouse by the docks, or in one of the warehouses near the port, or in an abandoned train car by the defunct tracks.
Screwing up his face, Adrian forced himself to take off the wristband. He tossed it onto his bed, then flopped down beside it, burying his face into his pillow with a frustrated groan.
He told himself to let them deal with it.
He tried to persuade himself that going after them, after Hawthorn, wasn’t worth the risk.
His fingers dug into his blankets.
Hawthorn would be captured. She would be brought into custody. The stolen drugs that hadn’t yet made their way to the black market would be confiscated.
Frostbite would get the glory, but that shouldn’t matter to Adrian. The point was that justice would be served, and a wrong would be made right. As right as could be at this point, anyway.
But for every logical reason to stay put, his brain threw back an excuse to go after them.
What if Frostbite’s team failed? What if Hawthorn got away again? They could use an extra hand. A backup, just in case.
He turned his head to the side. The light on his wristband was still blinking.
Adrian gnawed on the inside of his cheek, feeling the strain of the internal debate tugging at him.
Stay safe. Stay hidden. Let the Sentinel rest in peace.
But somewhere deep inside, he knew it wasn’t going to happen. He knew from the moment his dad had confessed that her team had been chosen over Adrian’s.
He would go after Hawthorn. He had to.
“Just to make sure,” he said, snatching up the wristband and bending it around his wrist again. “You won’t reveal yourself unless it’s absolutely, positively necessary.”
It wasn’t because he had something to prove. Not to himself or his dads or … or even Nova.
No, this wasn’t about him. This wasn’t about the Sentinel.
This was about justice being served.
*
IT WAS ALMOST NOON when Adrian reached the port, the signals from his wristband guiding him from rooftop to rooftop. His heavy boots thumped loudly as he landed on the cabin of an old crane that years ago would have been used to lift the shipping containers from arriving barges. Judging from the film of dirt on the cabin’s windows, he doubted anyone had used it for years. Frostbite’s tracking signal was coming from a stack of shipping containers that had long ago been left to rust once international trading had been halted. The industry had picked up significantly over the past decade, but a lot of the infrastructure that was in place before the rise of Ace Anarchy had been left to slowly deteriorate.