what they did to us. Our only obligation is to ourselves. And once prodigies are no longer governed by fear or arbitrary codes, they will recognize their place. We will soon be in a second Age of Anarchy, but this time we will not be villains. We will be gods!”
The Captain shook his head. “You’re delusional, Alec. You can’t defeat me.”
“I don’t have to defeat you, my old friend. You are going to defeat yourself. Soon, you will know what it means to feel powerless, just how you left me all those years ago. Cyanide, if you’ll do the honors?”
Cyanide reached into an inside pocket of his trench coat. Captain Chromium tensed, eyes narrowing. The villain pulled something small from the pocket and held it up.
Adrian leaned forward. “Is that a flask?”
Queen Bee shushed him.
The flask was lifted from his grip and sent drifting toward the Captain below. Hugh snarled and braced himself, angling the pike toward the flask as it came to hover an arm’s length in front of his face.
“My chief chemist has distilled a particularly potent batch of the substance you call Agent N,” said Ace. “We wanted to try a little experiment, to see if you are, in fact, invincible to your own poison. All you have to do … is drink it.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t,” Ace said slowly, “we’re going to kill your son.”
This, too, brought no reaction from the Captain, who had probably been expecting it. His voice remained steady, if also cut through with a new edge. “For all I know, he’s already dead.”
“You think I would waste a perfectly good hostage?” Ace swept an arm toward the bell tower. “Behold. Safe and sound.”
Queen Bee reignited the oil lantern, filling the belfry with its subtle, steady light and drawing his dad’s attention up to them. Relief brightened the Captain’s face.
“I’m fine!” Adrian yelled. “Don’t worry about me!”
He was surprised at how confident he sounded.
Beside him, Nova lifted the gun so his dad could see it, holding it against Adrian’s temple.
Adrian turned his head to look at her, not shying away even as the cool barrel pressed into his forehead. “You’re not fooling me with that.”
She ignored him, her focus on the scene below.
Ace chuckled. “As you can see, he’s very much not fine. Which leaves you with a decision to make. Sacrifice him to protect your own powers, or sacrifice yourself and save the boy you raised from childhood, who has already suffered so much in his young life. It is a difficult choice. Let us see how much you truly care for your greater good.”
Hugh scrutinized the side of the bell tower and the roof of the cathedral, and Adrian could imagine him trying to plot out another option. A way to be the hero, as he always was.
“Don’t waste our time,” said Ace. The flask bobbed in the air. “This deal comes with an expiration. Besides … it may not even affect you. Your invincibility may yet hold. How will we know if we don’t try?”
“Don’t!” Adrian yelled. “Don’t do—”
Queen Bee grabbed his head and slammed it against the stone window frame. He grunted and fell to one knee, his head ringing like the bell above. The blow throbbed through his skull and into his teeth.
She held him down with his head bent over the windowsill.
Adrian was about to lift his chin again, prepared to show Honey and Nova, Ace and his dad, just how defiant he could be, when he heard a click and felt the gun pressing against his scalp.
He released a dry laugh. “Come on, Nova.”
“Stop talking,” she growled.
He lifted his head as much as he could. Hugh was watching him, horror pulsing beneath his strong exterior.
Maybe he’d been wrong yet again. Maybe Nova would kill him.
Maybe that, too, would be its own sort of justice. He had trusted her so deeply. Welcomed her into the Renegades without hesitation. Begun to fall in love with her. It was, in part, due to his own blindness that she’d managed to cause so much grief.
Adrian forced himself to be calm. He let his body relax. He lifted his chin, pressing the back of his head hard against the gun. He held his dad’s gaze and tried to convey what they both knew to be true.
Hugh Everhart could not sacrifice himself. If Adrian was going to die today, he needed to die knowing that the Renegades would persevere. That they would stop Ace Anarchy. That they would