Page 95 of Renegades

“Ruby!” Adrian yelled. Nova crept forward, but couldn’t spot him in the chaos and dust. “Are you okay?”

“Not Ruby,” came a groaning reply. “Red. Assassin.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Nova spotted him crawling out from the pocket of space left by one of the fallen shelves.

Then a flash of royal blue caught her attention. A glowing sphere was anchored to the back wall, the energy inside it beginning to crackle.

One of Ingrid’s bombs, preparing to detonate.

She saw Ingrid standing a dozen feet away from Adrian. Her face was cruel as she stared at him.

Nova’s heart jumped. She lifted the stun gun, but… who was she supposed to aim at? Was she a Renegade today, or an Anarchist? Who was she supposed to be protecting? Who was she supposed to stop?

Ingrid raised her hand, her fingers poised to snap.

Nova screamed, “Adrian, get down!”

Without hesitation, he fell to the ground.

Ingrid snapped.

The explosion shook the building, blowing chunks of the foundation outward. The blow knocked Nova off her feet. She flew backward, crashing into a wall of shelves. A flare of almost unbearable heat surged over her skin and she turned her face away,throwing her arm protectively over her head, at the same moment an avalanche of books tumbled around her shoulders.

It was a mere two seconds of pandemonium, and then it was over. Nova’s ears were ringing and when she dared to lift her head, the air was full of scattered papers and debris and smoke.

Smoke.

“Sweet rot,” she muttered, though she couldn’t hear her own voice inside her head. “Please let that be coming from Smokescreen.”

She grasped a shelf and used it to pull herself from the pile of books. Blinking rapidly to clear the dust from her eyes, she spotted Ruby first, pushing a fallen chair off her legs. Then Adrian, rising to his hands and knees and shaking away the debris that covered him.

The relief that washed over her was unexpected, a little disorienting, and completely overshadowed by the sight of Ingrid storming through the mess. She was holding a gun again—Nova didn’t know if she’d managed to retrieve the one Adrian had taken from her, or if this one was new. But she recognized the fury on Ingrid’s face. The enraged eyes. The roar coming from her twisted mouth, even if Nova couldn’t hear it.

Adrian looked up.

Ingrid lowered the gun, aiming for his head.

Still clutching her own weapon, Nova targeted Ingrid and fired.

It was an invisible force that knocked Ingrid off her feet, sending her sprawling over one of the toppled shelves.

Adrian’s head swiveled toward Nova.

“Fire!” she screamed, though it sounded like she was yelling into a pillow.

Though she hadn’t yet seen the flames, black smoke was billowing up from the pile of books closest to the gaping hole in the foundation. The heat from the blast was smoldering inside thosepages, waiting to combust, ready to burn through all the flammable material it could devour.

Adrian scrambled to his feet and shoved his hands into his pocket. His determined expression faltered, replaced with a frown. Pulling out his hands, he patted down his pockets, then his sleeves. Panic rising in his expression, he looked down at the floor, turning in a complete circle, before looking up at Nova and Ruby. He said something.

Nova shook her head, gesturing to her ear.

He said it again and this time she could make out the shapes of his lips—My pen.

She gawked in dismay. What was he going to draw, a fire extinguisher?

Wait—actually, that might work.

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