healing abilities, but if they really saw Winston as one of them now, then maybe the Renegades would take care of him. “I’m going to find someone. Just hang in there—”
“Nightmare,” he said, with a bit of a cough. He sagged, sitting back on his heels, grimacing at the movement. “I’m sorry. I … called you Nova … before.”
“It’s okay. I don’t think anyone’s paying attention. Can you walk? We have to get—”
“Nightmare…” He took her hand, and she realized he was crying. In that moment, she realized that she was, too. “We were friends, weren’t we?” He coughed. A bit of blood sprayed across his bottom lip. “I know I wasn’t always … a good friend … but I … I liked having you around, back then. When you were little. It was nice to be … a kid … again.”
Her breaths started to come in erratic gulps. “Of course. Of course we were friends.”
He smiled, but it was laced with pain. His eyes were losing focus. “I wanted to tell you…” He coughed. The ice in his chest jostled with each movement. “I’m no longer sure … I was meant to be … a villain.” His gaze softened affectionately as he squeezed her hand. She wasn’t sure when he’d started holding it. “I’m not sure you are, either. Maybe … none of us…”
A nearby explosion made Nova jump. She threw her arms wide, as if to protect Winston from the blast. A dozen steps away, a cloud of smoke was spreading outward, sending Rejects and prisoners and Renegades alike scrambling to cover their faces.
“Winston, I need to get to Ace. And then I’ll get you out of here, okay?” She faced him again. “Ace and I will…”
Her words faded away, settling with the smoke and dust.
Winston had slumped forward, barely supported by Nova’s arm and the ice that kept his chest from collapsing on itself.
He was already dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
NOVA STUMBLED TO her feet, feeling like her insides had been raked out with a fork. She spun in a dazed circle, expecting another attack on her life to come at any second, from any direction. She saw no sign of Leroy or Thunderbird. She saw Honey in the stands, having barged in when the fighting ensued, the cloud of wasps and hornets surrounding her so dense that her body resembled a living hive. She caught sight of Phobia at the same moment that his body transformed into a writhing pit of venomous snakes that darted at a group of Renegades, driving them apart. The prisoners, having been freed of their shackles, had joined the fight. She saw allies and enemies, doing their best to survive. Doing their best to maim and kill.
She saw a lot of blood. A lot of terror. A lot of fallen bodies.
Pulse running hot, she looked up, blinking dust from her eyes.
Ace.
If she could just get to Ace, she could put a stop to this.
She reached for the strap of the backpack and froze.
It was gone.
She reeled around, searching, frantic. There. Not far from Genissa Clark’s unconscious body. She raced toward it, then dropped, skidding through the dirt as her hand grasped the handles.
She immediately knew that something was wrong.
“No. No, no, no!”
The zipper was partially undone, and though she already knew the truth, her hands worked on autopilot, yanking it down the rest of the way.
Revealing an empty receptacle inside.
Nova threw the bag to the ground and searched out Ace, hoping that maybe he’d used whatever power he had left to call the helmet to himself. But no—when she spotted her uncle, he was half collapsed over the edge of the platform, his breaths coming in ragged gulps of air. The helmet was nowhere in sight. A thousand possibilities flashed through her mind, each more terrible than the last, as she desperately scanned the arena. She wanted to believe that maybe it had fallen out during the fight, maybe it had rolled beneath a chair or gotten buried in the mud or—
“Looking for this?”
Her head jerked up.
Magpie was standing in the front row of the stands, holding Ace Anarchy’s helmet.
“You really should keep a closer eye on your things.”
Growling, Nova ran for her, already calculating the best way to scale the short wall up to the audience seats. Magpie didn’t wait for her to catch up. She bolted up the steps, taking them two at a time.
She had a head start, but Nova was faster. She had just hurtled herself over the railing when