Page 43 of Renegades

“Anywhere you like. That’s the beauty of freedom.”

He smiled, but it was a sad look, one full of that regret he’d mentioned.

Nova swallowed.Freedom.

She knew he was right. The thought had, in fact, crossed her mind a thousand times. No one knew what Nova Artino looked like, or even that she was still alive. No one knew that she had been raised by the Anarchists. No one knew that she was Nightmare.

“What are you saying?”

“We are here because you say you want to infiltrate the Renegades, so someday we might destroy them,” said Leroy. “And no one would be happier than I to see that come to fruition. But Icannot in good conscience go through with this without giving you an alternative. After tonight, you will have a new name, a new identity. You could leave Gatlon City. Or… you could stay. Get a job and an apartment. Start a real life, like everyone else is trying to do. You would have plenty of company if you made that choice.”

Nova shifted in the seat, crossing her arms over her chest. “And what? Leave you guys to defeat the Renegades without me? In your dreams.”

Leroy shook his head. “There will be no defeating them without you and what you might be able to learn. What you might be able to change.” His voice quieted. “I have little hope of ever seeing the freedom we once fought for.Killedfor. But you did not choose this life, Nova. Not like we did. You could still choose differently.”

Jaw clenching, Nova stared at one of the boats. Swaying back and forth, a ceaseless, steady rocking.

“The Anarchists are my family,” she said. “The only family I have left. I won’t be free until you are. I won’t rest until the Renegades are punished. For how they treat you. For how they betrayed my family. For what they did to Ace.”

Leroy fixed her with a studious look. “And if revenge does not bring you joy?”

“It’s not joy I’m looking for.”

Reaching around the steering column, Leroy switched off the headlights and pulled the key from the ignition. “Then let’s see if we can’t find what youarelooking for.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HERTHOUGHTSSPUNas she followed Leroy along the dark road’s narrow shoulder. Their conversation in the car was still tumbling through her thoughts. Was she doing this for them? For Ace or Evie or herself?

Or was she doing it for all of humanity? All the people who were too blind to see how they would be better off without the Council. Without the Renegades.

Maybe, she told herself, it can be both.

She wasn’t sure when she’d started to think of the Anarchists as her family. Certainly not during those initial months when she had loved only Ace, and thought only of her parents and her sister and herself. Though they had all occupied the same spaces within the cathedral, she had seen the Anarchists more like phantoms passing her in the nave or arguing in the cloister. There had been more of them then. Many died during the battle, some that she never even knew the names of. And by and large, they all ignored the foundling child Ace had dragged back with him. They were notmeanto her—Ace would not have tolerated that—but they didn’t go out of their way to be kind, either.

Once they were relocated to the tunnels, though, that began to change. There were so few of them left, all suffering the same defeat. It bonded them tighter than they had been before, even to little Nova. Suddenly, the remaining Anarchists took an interest in her.

Leroy learned about her interest in science and started to teach her chemistry, allowing her to play with his lab equipment and test out different concoctions. Ingrid trained her how to fight, with bare hands and whatever weaponry they could scrounge or barter for. Honey, afraid they were going to end up raising another savage like Winston, made it her purpose to guide Nova into being alady… or at least the sort of lady who knew how to mix a proper martini and apply eyeliner without stabbing herself with the pencil. As for Winston, for a while he became Nova’s only playmate, telling her fairy tales with shadow puppets and teaching her the fine art of hide-and-seek, where their new home offered endless hiding places.

And Phobia was… well. Phobia was Phobia.

He had never warmed to her, but then, he never seemed to warm to anyone else, either, so Nova learned even at a young age not to take his indifference personally.

Leroy approached a small, weary-looking dock. Nova could see the water foaming beneath them as they made their way over the rickety boards, damp with ocean spray. The air smelled of salt and seaweed and dead creatures washed up on the shore.

A single boat was moored at the end of the dock—twenty feet long, with nearly the full length of it taken up by an enclosed cabin. Its sides were speckled with barnacles and its flat roof was loaded with wooden travel trunks and a single rusty bicycle. A plastic chair sat on the small deck at its bow beside an empty wine bottle and a withered tomato plant sticking up from a repurposed milk jug.

There was no light coming from inside the boat and Nova wondered if they were expected.

Leroy reached over the edge of the dock and knocked on one of the dark windows.

From inside the boat, Nova heard the sounds of footsteps and the creak of old timbers. The same window that Leroy had knocked at thunked open a few inches, letting a warm yellow glow spill out onto the dock, and Nova realized that no light had gotten through before because the windows were all painted opaque black.

A pistol jutted out from the open window. “Who’s out there?”

“It’s only me, Millie,” said Leroy. “We’ve come for those papers.”

The gun shifted to the side and a woman’s eye peered out through the opening, small and surrounded by wrinkles. She scrutinized them both. “Where was I the first time I ever met Leroy Flinn?” she said, her voice dripping with suspicion.

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