Page 96 of Supernova

“This is Hettie,” said Winston, holding the doll up for everyone to see. “My father made Hettie for me for my seventh birthday. A part of me thought I might be too old for dolls, but… there was something about this one. I loved it immediately.” He paused, a shadow eclipsing his expression. “A few months later, my parents were out one night, and I was being watched by a neighbor. A… longtime family friend who often babysat me. He took an interest in Hettie… suggested we play a game…” Winston paused and Adrian could feel his own chest tightening in the horrible silence that followed. Finally, Winston gave his head a shake and set the doll on the podium, as if unable to look at it. The doll’s shiny black eyes peered emptily into the crowd. “I didn’t understand it then, but the game became a foil for him to… to… molest me. For the first time. It… would not be the last.”

There were gasps in the crowd. Hands pressed over speechless mouths. Looks of pity and horror. From the corner of his eye, Adrian saw Ruby squeeze Oscar’s arm.

“I had never felt so powerless. So ashamed, and confused.” Winston was scrutinizing the doll as he told his tale. “I would not know that I had become a prodigy until weeks later when, at school, my anger boiled over, and I lashed out at a kid who was a grade olderthan I was, who had taken the last slice of pizza in the cafeteria. Before I understood what I was doing, I had my strings around him. I made him…” He paused, clearing his throat. “I made him bash his own face into the tray. It broke his nose.”

A long silence followed this statement.

“My powers began to change after that,” Winston continued. “They changed me inside and out. Since that day, I have hurt more children than I could count. Not in the way that I was hurt, but as victims, powerless under my control. I don’t tell you this story because I want your pity. I also don’t mean to justify the things I’ve done, or to make excuses for the role I played as an Anarchist and… a villain.” He uncurled his spine, no longer bending over the microphone. “I tell you this because many prodigies will insist that their powers are a gift. I believed this, too. My powers were my identity. They were the source of my strength, my control. I didn’t know until recently, until after my powers were neutralized by Agent N, that they were none of these things. They were a burden. A curse. They kept me in the head of a victim for all those years, and they turnedmeinto a monster, too. I know that I will never be free of the trauma I experienced or the memories of all the awful things I’ve done. But thanks to Agent N, I feel… for the first time, I feel like there might be a path forward. For the first time, I feel like I’m beginning to heal. To speak on my own behalf and maybe, someday, on the behalf of kids who were like me. I am so sorry for the hurt I’ve caused. I may never be able to make amends to the many children I used as puppets, but I do hope to make amends in as many ways as I can. I can’t say that other prodigies who are neutralized will feel the same way, but as for me, I am not sorry to be free of my powers.” He took Hettie and set the doll down on the floorboards of the stage, then held out a hand toward Captain Chromium.

The Captain stood and lifted the tall chromium pike that had been leaning up against his chair. The Silver Spear. He handed it to Winston.

Winston stood back, gripping the pike in both hands. “I am no longer a victim!” he yelled. With that, he swung the pike down. The flat end crashed into the doll. It shattered from the impact—its head caved in, one arm flew off the stage, a leg skidded off beneath Tsunami’s chair. Winston hit it again—two times, three.

He finally stopped after the sixth time, rendering the doll little more than broken pieces and battered clothing. Panting from the exertion, Winston handed the spear back to the Captain, then he craned his head one more time to the microphone. “But even more important than that,” he said, his voice full of emotion, “I am no longer a villain.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

EVEN ABOVE THEbuffeting wind, Nova could hear the crowd inside the arena erupt over her earpiece. She flinched from the noise—a thunderstorm of applause.

She used the moment to catch her breath. She wasn’t exhausted from scaling the exterior wall of the arena. Rather, she felt like she’d hardly breathed during Winston’s speech. She was supposed to be focusing on the job ahead, but instead she was caught up in his story. Her throat was dry. Her heart felt like it was strapped into a vise. She wondered how it was possible to live beneath the same roof—or, in the same subway tunnels—with a person for ten years and still know so very little about them.

As the cacophony within the arena quieted, Nova heard Phobia’s voice rattling in her ear.

“Traitor.”

She flinched. Though she knew Phobia was talking about Winston, it felt like an accusation of her and her sympathy, too.

She didn’t respond.

“Let him choose weakness and mediocrity if that’s what he wishes,” said Honey. “We need to focus on getting our Acey back.”

“Precisely,” said Leroy. “Nightmare, what’s your status?”

Shaking away the lingering feeling of heartbreak, Nova double-checked the reading on her laser measurer. “Almost in position,” she said, marking the exterior outline of her entry point. Precision was important. Cut the entry point too far afield and she’d end up with a hundred-foot free fall, right into the waiting arms of the Renegades. “Thirty more seconds,” she said, her own voice muffled behind the metal face mask.

“No rush,” said Leroy. “They’re just now bringing out the prisoners.”

Honey sighed heavily. “And knowing Captain Chromium, he’ll be droning on for at least another twenty minutes before anything exciting happens.”

Nova hoped the Captain was feeling particularly verbose.

Calculations complete, she hooked the laser measurer back to her belt and retrieved the diamond-bladed electric saw. She waited until the Captain’s booming voice filled her earpiece, being fed to the group by Cipher, one of Narcissa’s allies who was unknown to the Renegades and had no trouble getting entry to the event, along with sixteen others from their growing group, after Millie concocted fake media passes for them. They would be positioned around the arena, waiting to help Nova and the Anarchists complete their mission.

Nova’s objective was simple.

Get the helmet to Ace.

The curved roof of the arena vibrated beneath her knees, both from the buzz of her saw and the thundering speakers inside. She paused each time the Captain did, trying to sync the noise she was making to the times his speech grew particularly impassioned.

With one hand gripping the suction cup she’d attached to the roof, she finished the last cut. She gave a hard tug and the piece of roofing popped upward. She slid it away from the hole.

Exactly eight feet below her hung a platform for one of the lighting and sound system operators. She could see only the top of the woman’s head, covered in large headphones, her attention on the huge spotlight she was aiming toward the field below.

The beam of light was following the line of prisoners that were being led out from what had once been the arena’s locker rooms, where Nova had waited for her turn at the trials. The prisoners all wore the glaring black-and-white jumpsuits from Cragmoor prison. Their ankles were bound in shackles, each shackle chained to the next prisoner in line. Their hands were fully enclosed in chromium cuffs. A number of armed guards walked beside them, most of whom Nova recognized from Cragmoor, their weapons targeted at the more dangerous of the prodigies in the line.

Ace came last, and even from so high above, Nova could sense the buzz in the crowd as he appeared. His complexion was ghastly white, with deep purple bruises beneath his eyes. The skin hung from his bones as though it could slough off at any moment. He was broken and defeated, his back bent and his head heavy as he was led in on the chain of prisoners. A mockery of the prodigy he had once been. He was not a threat. He was not to be feared, not anymore.

Nova’s teeth ground, hating to see him reduced to this.

---