Page 37 of Renegades

Frostbite moved forward until the toes of her boots hung overthe edge of the platform. “I don’t need to connect you to the attack on the parade,” she said, waggling her fingers. A new stream of ice shot toward Ingrid. The block of ice around her legs grew larger, expanding over her thighs and hips. “To attack a Renegade is an offense of the highest order. With your temper, it won’t be that hard to get you to lash out. Sort of like poking a rabid dog, now that I think about it.”

Ingrid hissed as the column of ice made its way over her abdomen. She had stopped tossing the bomb and was gripping it in one fist.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Frostbite. “You’ll insist it was self-defense. Except… without anyone being here to witness it, who’s going to believe your word over mine? An Anarchist versus a celebrated Renegade.” She clicked her tongue in feigned pity. “It seems you have a decision to make. Attack me, and we’ll arrest you. Or confess your involvement at the parade today, and we’ll still arrest you, but we’ll be a bit nicer about it.” She shrugged. “Or do nothing. What do you think will kill you first? The cold or suffocation? I’d bet on the latter, myself.”

The ice made its way over Ingrid’s chest and began to climb over her shoulders. Soon she would have no use of her arms, or her bombs, at all.

Nova squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think clearly despite the way her veins were pulsing, hot and steady.

These were the superheroes the world idolized? Maybe Ingrid wasn’t wholly innocent. Maybe none of them were, but then, the Renegades weren’t, either. Here they were, torturing Ingrid, trying to force a false confession. They had ruined Honey’s hives, caused destruction in their tunnels, torn through the supplies they needed for survival, all in an effort to find alegitimateexcuse to have them imprisoned.

Her finger slipped over the trigger. She opened her eyes and her vision seemed suddenly clear. Her mind free of obstructions.

She found Frostbite through the scope.

Maybe the darts weren’t poisoned, but that didn’t mean a well-targeted shot couldn’t do plenty of damage.

She focused on Frostbite’s eye, which was pale blue. Lighter than Captain Chromium’s, but not by much.

The trigger pressed into her finger.

She had just begun to squeeze when a cascade of fire, bright and blazing, roared across the tracks.

CHAPTER NINE

NOVAGASPEDANDPULLED BACK, peering over the edge of the train car.

The tracks were on fire.

No—it was a column of flame shooting out from the shadows. In seconds it had burned through the channel of ice between Ingrid and Frostbite.

Frostbite cursed and drew back, spinning toward the tunnel as heavy footsteps clanged off the walls.

Nova’s jaw dropped as he came into view, his armored suit somehow more ominous emerging from the darkness than it had been beneath the sunshine on the city’s rooftops.

The Sentinel.

“Much as I would love to see each of these villains behind bars,” he said, his voice steady and low, “something tells me the Council wouldn’t approve of your methods for arresting them.”

“And who are you?” Frostbite said, curling her fist and forming another long shard of ice. “The Council’s lapdog?”

“That’s funny,” said the Sentinel, without humor, “I’ve often thought the same of you.”

Nova relaxed her hold on the gun. She could see her suspicions mirrored on Frostbite’s face. His words suggested that he knew her, and not in a generic has-seen-her-in-the-papers sort of way.

“We are here on official Renegade business,” said Frostbite. “If you try to stop us, we’ll be plenty happy to arrest you too.”

A gauntlet of orange-tipped flames began to lick around the Sentinel’s left hand. “You’re not the only one on official Renegade business. The difference is that I take my orders direct from the Council itself.”

Nova scooted forward, not wanting to miss a word. She found herself staring at the chest plate of his armor. Was it a trick of the dim lighting in the tunnels, or the angle from the top of the train car? From here, it appeared that the gash in his shoulder armor was gone.

Her frown deepened. She’d stabbed him, right between the shoulder and the breastplate, yet she couldn’t see any sign of damage there. No blood dried onto the suit’s exterior. He wasn’t even acting wounded. Perhaps a little stiff in some of his movements, but not nearly as incapacitated as he should have been after a wound like that.

It was yet one more mystery about the so-called Sentinel, and one more shred of evidence that he wasnota normal Renegade. That he was something new. A soldier? An assassin? A weapon created by the Council, to be used for missions too nefarious to be assigned to a typical superhero?

“Direct from the Council?” said Frostbite, barking a laugh. “Do you think I’m an idiot? No one at headquarters has even heard of you. You’re an impostor. And that”—she lifted the shard of ice over her shoulder—“makes you an enemy.”

“Or it means you’re too low on the pay scale to be told everything we’ve been working on,” said the Sentinel.

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