Page 13 of Renegades

A bug fluttered in the corner of her vision. Nova shooed it away.

She found her target again.

The Captain shifted, turning his head slightly in her direction.

It was the best shot she would have.

Nova started to squeeze.

Something landed on the end of the rifle. Nova lifted her eyes, focusing on the gold-and-black butterfly, its wings opening and closing as it perched on the barrel.

Nova’s gaze lifted skyward.

A swarm of monarch butterflies clouded overhead—hundreds, perhaps thousands of vibrant wings fluttering as they clustered above her.

“We have company.”

A beat of silence was followed by, “Renegades?”

She didn’t respond. The float was turning. Five seconds, maybe less.

Nova looked through the sights and found the Captain, found his perfect hair, his perfect smile, his perfect blue eyes—

A bundle of balloons passed between them, each emblazoned with the iconic RenegadeR.

She waited, frozen in time, sweat dripping down her neck.

The balloons passed.

Captain Chromium shifted his gaze upward, looking almostright at her.

She fired.

The Captain turned, just a hair.

The dart struck him in the temple. The needle tip snapped off.

Captain Chromium jerked to attention, searching the rooftops, signaling the others. Nova let out a stream of curses as she ducked behind the ledge.

A red hook flew from the side of her vision, attached to a thin wire. It wrapped around the gun and snatched it away.

Nova leaped to her feet.

A teenage girl, pale and freckled, stood at the corner of the roof, holding Nova’s gun in one hand and the glittering hook in the other. She wore the Renegade uniform—form-fitting charcoal-gray Lycra from her neck to her boots, piped in red and emblazoned with a smallRover her heart. Her hair was a mix of bleached white and pitch-black, pulled into a shaggy ponytail.

The butterflies swarmed beside her, cycloning until their wings became a blur, then solidified into the body of a second girl, wearing an identical gray bodysuit, with long blonde dreadlocks framing her face.

Red Assassin and Monarch.

Nova had met them once before, when they tried to stop her from robbing a small pharmacy for supplies Leroy needed, but there were more of them that time.

Nova lifted an eyebrow. “Where’s everyone else? Living it up in the beer garden?”

As soon as she said it, she heard ading, and the metal grate over the utility elevator squealed open.

A third Renegade emerged from the elevator—a boy with light brown skin and thick dark hair. He walked with a slight limp and a cane, faint tendrils of smoke following in his wake.

Smokescreen.

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