abandoned vehicles and wrecked buildings. All peeling outward toward the city. Being dismantled, bit by bit. The glare from enormous floodlights that had been erected on a series of trucks cascaded over the wasteland, making Adrian squint against their brilliance.
As the hole grew larger, it revealed the city skyline in the distance and a night sky with the faintest haze of electric blue along the eastern horizon.
Media helicopters circled overhead. It was disorienting, after having the battle relegated to Ace’s small bubble, to suddenly be thrust back into the real world.
That is, until Ace snarled and waved his arm as if swatting at mosquitoes. Both helicopters careened off course, plummeting from the sky.
Adrian ground his teeth. No time to worry about whether or not the pilots had parachutes. He tightened his arm around Max and started moving again, when he heard a new sound—a war cry, blaring from all directions.
His heart leaped. The Renegades had been waiting outside the barrier, desperate to get in. Now, with the wall torn down, they wasted no time in charging across the wasteland. The sight was mesmerizing—wave upon wave of identical gray uniforms. Thousands of superheroes from every corner of the world. Even many of the Renegades who had been neutralized at the arena were still among them, ready to be heroes with or without superpowers. He spotted Tamaya Rae, wingless and hoisting an electric trident that he recognized from the artifacts department.
She wasn’t the only one. The mob was brandishing an assortment of weapons and artifacts. Powerful ones.
They must have raided the vault.
The mob raced forward, more unified than ever. Though it was chaos, Adrian couldn’t help but seek out the people he cared for most. He found them easily, as if drawn to them. Simon. Ruby. And in the wasteland, preparing to join them—Oscar and Danna.
He was glad the villains had abandoned Ace and the cathedral. Seeing the Renegades now, Adrian knew this fight would have become a massacre.
Now, the only enemy left was Ace.
“Isn’t that charming?” said the villain, watching the Renegades come. The way he said it, unconcerned, even amused, sent a chill into Adrian’s bones. “Unfortunately … I fear they’re too late.”
Ace let the chromium chain slip from his hand and cupped the star in both palms. It flashed, and for a moment, Adrian saw streaks of energy in the air, flickering all around them, as far as he could see. Then Ace stretched his hands toward the city.
CHAPTER FIFTY
THOUGH SHE COULD barely stand, Nova forced herself away from the wall. One knee buckled and she half fell onto the hard stone. A chip from a broken spire caught under her kneecap and she flinched. Planting both hands on the ground, she pushed herself back up. Wobbled unsteadily for a moment, then kept going. One foot in front of the other, even as a wave of dizziness washed over her. Step by step, even as her muscles rebelled.
Movement in the distance made her hesitate, the small momentum she’d picked up nearly sending her crashing down again. She barely caught herself.
Her jaw fell as she took in the sight.
Beyond the cathedral, beyond the wasteland and a rush of Renegades, more Renegades than she’d ever seen in her life, the city skyline began to rise upward. Hundreds of buildings shuddering, undulating, lifting into the air. Nova watched a multistory hotel torn from its foundation. She saw the stately courthouse, with its Roman pillars, disconnect from the imposing front steps. She saw the enormous backlit G on top of the Gatlon Gazette building topple over, while the structure underneath swayed upward. Building after building succumbed to Ace’s power, sending bits of concrete raining down on the streets below. Plumbing pipes ruptured, spewing water and sewage into the craters of empty foundations. Wires and rebar dangled from the bases of the levitating structures.
The power grid was disrupted, plunging whole swaths of the city into blackness. It was like watching someone flick off the lights neighborhood by neighborhood.
From the sudden blackness came screams. The screams of people who appeared at their apartment windows and saw the ground suddenly too far away. The screams of those below as they sensed the ominous weight of the buildings above them, with nothing to keep them from falling.
It was the screams that made the Renegades in the wasteland hesitate. They turned to see what was happening. To their city. To the people they’d sworn to protect.
A strange sense of déjà vu flickered through Nova’s memory, and she thought