Page 4 of Renegades

She’d leftEvie.

A shuddering gasp was met with a horrified cry, though she tried to swallow both of them back. Her hand fell on the closet door and she tried to gauge how fast she could get out to the living room and back, if there was any chance of snatching the baby up without being seen…

The front door creaked, paralyzing her.

She pulled her hand back against her mouth.

Maybe he wouldn’t notice Evie. Maybe she would go on sleeping.

She listened to slow, heavy footsteps. Squealing floorboards.

Nova was shaking so hard she worried the noise of her clattering bones would give her away. She also knew it wouldn’t matter.

It was a small apartment, and there was nowhere for her to run.

“The Renegades will come,” she whispered, her voice little more than a breath in the darkness. The words came unbidden into her head, but they were there all the same. Something solid. Something to cling to.

Bang.

Her mother’s blood on the door.

She whimpered. “The Renegades will come…”

A truth, inspired by countless news stories heard on the radio. A certainty, patched together from the words of gossiping neighbors.

They always came.

Bang.

Her father’s body crumpling in the hall.

Nova squeezed her eyes shut as hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “The Renegades… the Renegades will come.”

Evie’s shrill cry started up in the main room.

Nova’s eyes snapped open. A sob scratched at the inside of her throat, and she could no longer say the words out loud.

Please, please let them come…

A third gunshot.

The air caught in Nova’s lungs.

Her world stilled. Her mind went blank.

She sank into the mess at the bottom of the closet.

Evie had stopped crying.

Evie had stopped.

Distantly, she heard the man moving through the apartment, checking the cabinets and behind the doors. Slow. Methodical.

By the time he found her, Nova had stopped shaking. She couldn’t feel anything anymore. Couldn’t think. The words still echoed in her head, having lost all meaning.

The Renegades… the Renegades will come…

Doused in the stark lights from her bedroom, Nova lifted her eyes. The man stood over her. There was blood on his shirt. Later, she would remember how there had been no regret, no apology, no remorse.

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