Beyond a fence on the other side of the storage yard, he spotted the patrol vehicle with the red R painted on its hood—a van large enough that even Gargoyle would have been able to fit inside.
Adrian climbed halfway down the crane’s tower before dropping to the ground. He landed hard, sending up a thick cloud of dust. He approached the shipping containers from behind, making his way through the rusting labyrinth in the storage yard.
A crash made him freeze. It was followed by the roar of splitting earth. The ground trembled beneath Adrian’s feet, and dust was knocked from the towering containers, raining onto his helmet.
That had to be Mack Baxter—Aftershock.
A second later, he heard an enraged scream, and then the back of a container was blown across the path, not thirty paces in front of him. Hawthorn’s brambled tentacles emerged first, slithering out from the container like a giant octopus.
Adrian crouched, then launched himself into the air before Hawthorn could spot him. He landed on the roof of the nearest container with a tooth-rattling clang, but the sound was disguised beneath Frostbite’s shrill scream. “Stingray! Gargoyle!”
Hawthorn roped her extra limbs around the nearest stack of crates and hauled herself up them, lithe and quick. Seconds later, she was speeding across their rooftops, heading toward the water.
She was getting away.
Again.
Growling, Adrian fisted his right hand and thrust his arm toward her. The cylinder on the forearm of the armor rose out of his skin and began to glow white-hot as the laser prepared to fire. He was a better shot with the laser than he’d ever been with a gun, and she wasn’t too far away yet. He could hit her. He could—
Somewhere below, he heard Gargoyle roar, then Hawthorn screamed in surprise as the tower of crates she was running across swayed and toppled to one side. She yelped and reached out with two of the tentacles, grappling for the next container. The extra limbs caught, the thorns puncturing the metal with a shriek that made Adrian wince.
Hawthorn dangled for a moment, caught her breath, then with a loud groan hauled herself up to the roof.
She had just flopped onto her stomach when Stingray appeared at the other end of her crate, smirking. He said something Adrian couldn’t hear, and Hawthorn looked up, her expression frenzied.
One tentacle pulled back, preparing to lash out at Stingray, but she was too slow.
His tail whipped toward her, the barbed point jabbing her on the shoulder.
Hawthorn grunted and collapsed forward, sprawling face-first across the ridged top of the shipping container.
Swallowing, Adrian ducked into the shadows and dismissed the laser. The suit clunked as it sank back beneath its paneling.
The venom from Stingray’s tail acted quickly, immobilizing Hawthorn’s body and her extra limbs. Stingray jerked her arms behind her back and cuffed her wrists. He wasn’t particularly gentle as he shoved her body back over the side. Adrian expected her to smash hard onto the ground below—but Gargoyle was there, waiting for her. He caught her limp body, but dropped it just as fast.
Frostbite strode out from behind a container, and Aftershock appeared on the far side of the path, the ground rippling as he approached them.
“Nice work,” said Frostbite, tapping her palm against Hawthorn’s cheek. A glaze of frost was left behind when she pulled away. “Between arresting the mastermind behind the hospital theft and bringing in all the drugs from that laboratory, I’d say we’re nearly due for a promotion.”
Adrian shut his eyes, his heart sinking. He had come all this way for nothing. The fight had lasted only a couple of minutes, and the Sentinel clearly wasn’t needed. Maybe his fathers had been right to assign Frostbite to the case after all.
He sulked along the crate to avoid the telltale thumps of his footsteps on the metal. One of the containers he passed had windows roughly cut into the sides and covered with netting. He paused to peer inside and saw that the interior had been completely altered. From the outside it looked like an unassuming stack of abandoned shipping crates, but inside was an entire laboratory’s worth of tools and equipment. Bunsen burners and measuring cups, flasks and gallon-size buckets sporting various tubes and labels, and shelf after shelf of stolen pharmaceuticals.
They hadn’t just found Hawthorn. They had found her laboratory, the drugs, and the proof that they would need to not only show that she had stolen that medicine from the hospital, but also that she was using it to formulate illegal substances for sale on the black market.
Her trial would be a quick one.
Adrian backed away from the window. The disappointment he felt at having missed his chance to capture Hawthorn made it obvious that this really had been about wanting to prove himself. About wanting people to view the Sentinel differently. About wanting praise and admiration—from the public, yes, but from the Renegades too. From his peers and his dads.
Sighing, he prepared to jump down from the container when an odd noise made him hesitate.
He cocked his head, listening.
It was ticking.
Slow, steady ticking.
His pulse jumped and he swung around, his memory launching him straight back to the carnival and the Detonator’s glowing blue explosives set around the park.
A bomb. Hawthorn has a bomb.
He crept back to the window and peered inside, searching the laboratory. From his vantage point, he could see Frostbite standing just outside the far opening, and though the ticking must have been loud enough that they all heard it, she seemed as relaxed as ever.
Frostbite stooped and set something down on the ground. A triangular box of some sort.
Was that the bomb? Had Frostbite brought an explosive with them?
But … why?
Moving to the edge of the crate again, Adrian peered down into the valley between the containers. Frostbite, Gargoyle, Stingray, and Aftershock were standing around Hawthorn, who was on her knees, her hands latched behind her back and her six spiky limbs pooling beside her.
Adrian could see the device on the ground more clearly now, and the needle that swung steadily back and forth. Back and forth.
It was a metronome.
He was fairly certain it was Turmoil’s metronome. The Sound Deadener, which would keep any noise, no matter how loud, from traveling beyond the area in which the ticking of the metronome could be heard.
But what possible use could they have for—
“No,” Hawthorn whimpered, her voice slurred from the effects of Stingray’s poison, as Aftershock and Stingray grabbed the ends of her tentacles and stretched them away from her. “What are you doing?”
Frostbite spread her fingers and six streams of ice shot toward the appendages, freezing them to the ground and locking them in place. Hawthorn grunted and Adrian could see the muscles beneath her shirt undulating as she tried to retract the limbs into her body, but the ice held them as tight as handcuffs.
Adrian’s fingers curled around the edges of the crate.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” said Frostbite. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer them. If you don’t…” She tipped her head.
Gargoyle raised one fist, and it hardened into gray stone. His smile was hideous as he crouched beside one of Hawthorn’s tentacles and slammed the fist on top of it.
Adrian recoiled. Hawthorn’s scream tore through him, echoing shrilly across the shipyard.