Page 99 of Renegades

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Won’t be going that way.”

She ushered him back the way they had come, to the open window she had climbed through. She stuck her head out and analyzed the fall. It wasn’t too bad… for her.

“Do you know how to tuck and roll?”

The kid whimpered. “Can’t you… can’t youfly?”

She stared at him. “If I could fly, why would I—” She lifted her hands, still cloaked by the gloves, then groaned. “Never mind. Listen. You’re going to climb onto my back and I’ll scale the wall back down. You’re going to have to trust me, okay?”

Though the kid’s face was full of fear, it was overshadowed by pure, inexplicable hope. “You’re a Renegade,” he said. “Of course I trust you.”

Nova’s gut clenched and every instinct wanted to argue that point.Don’t. Don’t trust them. They don’t deserve it.

But she bit back the reply and had started to crouch down so he could climb onto her back when she heard yelling.

Wrapping a hand around the kid’s wrist, Nova peered out the window again and spotted Ruby and Oscar running through the overgrown ivy below.

“Nova!” Oscar yelled, then flinched. “By which I mean, Insomnia! You need to get out of there!”

Relief pulsed through Nova’s veins. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled back, “I found the kid! Look!” Turning, she scooped the kid beneath his armpits and held him up in the window for them to see.

Ruby clasped a hand over her mouth. She and Oscar traded looks, but it was a short-lived silent discussion.

“Hold on,” said Ruby, unwinding the wire from her wrist. She stepped away from Oscar and started to twirl it like a lasso in the air. “Stand back!”

Nova jumped away from the window, pulling the kid with her. A second later, Ruby’s bloodstone flew over the sill. As soon as it jolted backward, the points of the gem peeled open, transforming it into a grappling hook that snagged tight to the windowsill.

“Cool,” the kid murmured.

“Have you ever done a zip line?” said Nova, peeling off her gloves and stuffing them back into her satchel.

“A what?”

“Nothing. Come on, it’s just like playing on the monkey bars. Hand over hand. If you fall, that guy with the cane will catch you, okay?”

The kid peered at the thin wire, then down at Oscar, his brow creased with uncertainty.

“He’s a Renegade too,” said Nova. “He can bench-press, like…” She considered. “I don’t know. A lot. More than you weigh, for sure.”

Seemingly comforted, the boy swung one leg over the sill. Nova helped him get started, showing him how to reach out with his hands while keeping his ankles locked around the rope.

He was halfway down and she was just beginning to relax, debating whether she would traverse the rope, too, or take the faster route of jumping, when Oscar yelled up to her, “Where’s Adrian?”

She tensed. “He’s not with you?”

Oscar shook his head. “We haven’t seen him since you came out of the basement.”

Nova leaned back from the window and glanced around. The air inside the library made her feel like she was inside a sauna. A smoky, stifling sauna.

Adrian wouldn’t still be in here, would he?

Unless the smoke had gotten to him. Unless he was unconscious somewhere, dying of smoke inhalation, or trapped beneath a burning bookcase, or—

A scream cut over the roar of the fire. Nova stilled. It wasn’t Adrian.

But that only meant that someone else was still in the library.

She followed the screaming to the far corner of the third floor, where a walled-off room stood off from the main stacks, its contents visible through a glass window in the shut door. A sign beside the door readRARE BOOKS AND FIRST EDITIONS.Nova threw it open and found a room mostly clear of the smoky haze that had filled up the rest of the building, though it immediately began to spill in through the open doorway.

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