Page 15 of Renegades

The smoke was beginning to clear, and Nova spotted a rickety fire escape on the next building. Tucking the dagger into her belt, she sprinted toward the edge of the roof and jumped. Catching the fire-escape rail, she vaulted herself over it and onto metal stairs that shuddered and clanged beneath her.

Smokescreen’s voice cut through the fog. “Monarch!”

Nova paused long enough to look back and see Monarch reappear, though she immediately collapsed and pressed a palm over the cut in her thigh. The gray fabric of her uniform was darkening with blood.

Nova swung the duffel bag over her shoulder and hauled herself up the winding stairs, taking the risers two at a time.

She reached the roof and ran for the far side.

She was halfway across when a large figure leaped up from the street below, clearing the rooftop by a good twenty feet. Nova skidded to a stop, her panting breaths warming the inside of her mask.

The form landed in front of her with a clang.

Rather than a charcoal-gray bodysuit, he was dressed in something akin to armor—every limb protected, every muscle sculpted into the rigid shell, his face disguised behind a helmet and dark-tinted visor. The RenegadeRwas emblazoned on his chest, but the armor wasn’t like any Renegade uniform she’d ever seen.

Though she couldn’t see his eyes, she could feel them watching her. Nova took half a step back, scanning the figure from head to toe. There was no skin to be seen, only narrow seams between the armored plates that might be vulnerable to more traditional attacks.

“You must be new around here,” she said.

His head tilted. “I’ve been around long enough to know who you are… Nightmare.”

Nova’s fingers skimmed along the top of her belt, though she wasn’t confident any of her weapons would be effective. “Should I be flattered?”

Before the figure could answer, a bout of high-pitched laughter echoed off the high-rise buildings, pealing through the streets and alleys of downtown Gatlon. The sound was grating, shrill, and far too familiar.

Nova grimaced. “What is that idiot doing here?”

CHAPTER THREE

THEARMOREDSTRANGERturned his head toward the laughter, just as the curve of a hot-air balloon rose into view over the parade. The balloon was decorated in black-and-white harlequin, with an enormous acid-green Anarchist symbol painted over it. Its wicker basket carried one occupant—a man with wild orange hair, painted red cheeks, and deep lines drawn from the corners of his mouth down his chin in mimicry of a marionette.

The Puppeteer stood on the rim of the basket in a checkered suit, gripping the upright bars as it bounced and swayed beneath him.

“Oh,Reeeeenegades,” he shouted in a singsong voice. “Doesn’t anyone want to play with me?”

The cheers below turned to screams of fright, and he cackled again, holding one hand out over the crowd, tilting so far forward it seemed he would topple from the basket. “Eeny, meeny, miny…mo!”

Eight shimmering gold strings cascaded from his fingertips into the crowd, and though Nova couldn’t see where they landed, she knew he would be seeking out children in the chaos below. Thosewho were touched by his strings would turn into puppets he could control. After all these years, she still wasn’t sure if his power only worked on children, or if he just preferred them because a mindless, rabid four-year-old was so damned creepy.

“Tag!” the Puppeteer bellowed. “You’re it!”

The screams grew louder.

“Friend of yours?”

Nova glanced sideways at the armored figure. “Not exactly.”

The Puppeteer laughed again, and the stranger’s fists tightened. Nova couldn’t fault him for his irritation. She wasn’t exactly Winston Pratt’s biggest fan, either, and she’d been technically on the same side as him since she was six.

In one movement, Nova pulled the duffel bag around to her front and reached inside for the netting gun she’d engineered from a toy bazooka when she was eleven. The figure turned toward her at the same moment she lifted the gun and pulled the trigger, sending a net of nylon ropes soaring toward him. Its eight points spread out like an octopus. The stranger stumbled back in surprise, lifting a hand to defend himself as the net descended.

He dropped to one knee. The net wrapped around him, tangling around his limbs. The helmet twisted from side to side as he struggled to pull the ropes away, but every movement only drew them tighter.

“It was nice to meet you,” said Nova, tossing the bazooka back into the bag. She jogged past him, scouting out the next rooftop before making the easy jump.

“We’re not done.”

She glanced back. The stranger’s shoulders were hunched. He wrapped his gloved fingers around the knotted ropes, and smoke started to wisp between his fingertips.

---