her belt and hurled it at her attacker. Whiplash yelped as it caught her in the arm and dropped the handle of her whip. Her distraction gave Nova enough time to untangle her leg, and a second later she leaped for the woman, who bared her teeth and lifted her hands to meet Nova’s attack.
Her bare hands.
Big mistake.
The moment their skin met, Whiplash’s eyes widened in realization, half a second before they rolled back into her head and she collapsed into the dirt.
Checking the security of the backpack, Nova started running. Though her attention was focused on getting to Ace, she couldn’t help scanning the faces of Renegades as she bolted past, wondering if Adrian was near. But the only member of her team that she saw was the occasional glimpse of a monarch butterfly weaving in and out of the thrum.
When she spotted Ace again, she was startled to see him watching her. He was still bent over his knees, panting. His eyes carried an unfamiliar desperation. A pleading.
“I’m coming,” she whispered, as much to herself as to her uncle. “I won’t fail you. Not this time.”
Nova ducked out of the way of a barbed tail—Stingray?—then launched herself over a suspicious puddle of inky-black goo. Her feet touched the ground again, just in time for an enormous wave to crash into her, knocking her onto her side. The water eddied way, leaving her spluttering as the dirt floor thickened into sticky mud. She cursed Tsunami and climbed back to her feet, preparing to fight, but the Councilwoman was already fending off an attack from one of the freed prisoners.
Arm tingling as sensation returned to her muscles, Nova pushed the sopping-wet bangs back from her face and readjusted the weighted hood over her face. Between the mud and the drenched clothes, it felt like every step toward Ace was becoming more and more of a struggle.
She had just caught her breath when her own name pierced her ears.
“Nova! NO!”
She spun in time to see Winston Pratt throwing himself at her.
Nova reeled back, bracing herself for a fight.
But Winston didn’t attack her. Instead, he gasped and stumbled to one knee, gaping up at her in shock.
It took Nova too long to understand what was happening. It took her too long to notice the stain of red spreading across the front of his shirt. It took her too long to see the clear glass shard jutting from his chest, slicked with blood.
Distantly, she heard someone cursing. She looked past Winston and saw Genissa Clark gripping a crossbow. She dug out another projectile from a small cooler at her feet and loaded it onto the crossbow’s track. Not glass, Nova realized. Ice.
Genissa’s face was red with fury, her teeth gnashing as she lined up the sights with Nova’s heart.
Nova dove to the ground. The icicle whizzed past and shattered on something behind her. Nova pushed herself up and lunged at Genissa. The girl had another icicle in hand, but no time to nock it into the crossbow before Nova tackled her. They fell to the ground. Genissa swung the icicle, trying to stab Nova with the tip, but Nova grabbed her wrist and pinned it to the ground.
Nova’s body was aflame with anger. Her blood pumped with adrenaline as she replayed Winston’s panicked voice shouting her name.
In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to murder Genissa Clark.
Instead, she screamed, as loud as she could, the contempt tearing at her throat—“You are so lucky I don’t have time for this!” Then she pressed a hand to Genissa’s forehead and released her power like a sledgehammer into the girl’s skull. Genissa’s head dropped limply to the dirt, her lips parted, her pale skin coated in dust and muck.
Panting, Nova ripped herself away. Mere seconds had passed since she heard Winston call her name, and he had not moved. He was still kneeling in the dirt, his back to her, the white shard of ice prominent against the red stain on his clothes.
“Winston.”
She collapsed beside him, a hand on his shoulder. He met her gaze, and she could see him already losing the fight to stay with her. His skin was as pale now as when he had been the Puppeteer. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay. I can’t take out the ice just yet, because … the bleeding…” She sniffed and scanned the arena, wondering if there had been any Renegade healers in the audience. She knew none of the Anarchists’ new allies had