Archenemies (Renegades #2)(118)

His smile faded thinking about it. His heart twisted to imagine Nova, small and frightened Nova, having to endure something so horrific …

And though he knew, logically, that there wasn’t a person on this planet who needed his protection less than Nova McLain did, he couldn’t help the overwhelming desire to protect her anyway. To keep her from ever having to suffer like that again.

He twirled the marker, contemplating what gift he could draw that would encompass all that. His dress shoes were clacking noisily on the pavement, a steady cadence that followed him down the familiar, dark streets toward home.

He had just discarded the most obvious, trivial ideas—jewelry, flowers, a new weaponry belt—when a small movement darted past his vision, nearly smacking into his glasses.

Adrian reeled back. At first he thought it was a bird, or one of those creepy giant moths that sometimes appeared out of nowhere in his basement.

But then he saw it. A black and gold butterfly, dancing around a lamppost a few feet away from him.

“Danna?” said Adrian, scanning the street for more stray insects. The butterfly seemed to be alone, and it crossed his mind that there was a chance it was nothing more than a common monarch butterfly.

One that just happened to be flittering about in the middle of the night.

Scratching his cheek with the capped marker, Adrian sauntered slowly past the lamppost.

The butterfly darted after him. It twirled once around his head, then alighted on top of a fire hydrant.

“Danna,” he said again, with more certainty this time.

The butterfly opened and closed its wings as if in response, though Danna had once told him that she couldn’t hear while in swarm mode—only see, and … sense things. It was hard to explain, she said.

Adrian peered around again, but the street was deserted. Parked cars and dark shop windows. There were mosquitoes and crane flies clicking against a neon sign, but no butterflies.

Where was the rest of her swarm?

Where had she been all night?

The butterfly fluttered toward Adrian. He held out his hand and it perched on his knuckle. Its antenna twitched and it seemed to be studying him, waiting.

“Okay,” he said, pocketing his marker. “You lead the way.”

Whether or not it could hear him, the butterfly left his hand, circled his body one more time, and took off.

Adrian followed.

Two miles later, he wished he had stopped by the house to put on different shoes.

The buildings changed from glass-and-steel office buildings to strip malls and warehouses to crammed-together apartments. Most of the trek was uphill and as the elevation rose, so too did the affluence of the neighborhood. It wasn’t quite the row of mansions that he lived on, but the streets held the memory of quiet suburbia. He could tell people still lived in some of the homes—some even had recently mowed lawns—though like most neighborhoods in the city, it showed signs of abandonment and neglect. Fences needing a fresh coat of paint. Broken windows hastily boarded up. Roofs covered in moss and pine needles from unkempt trees.

The butterfly never flew ahead so far that he couldn’t keep up, and it frequently had to pause and wait for him. He racked his brain to think of a reason why Danna wouldn’t transform back into her human form, and where the rest of her swarm could be. The only explanation was that the rest of her butterflies were trapped somewhere, preventing her from reforming. Maybe that’s what this was about. Was she leading him to her location so he could set her free? If so, maybe this wasn’t as ominous as he’d initially thought. Maybe one of her butterflies had gotten sucked into a vacuum bag, or had been captured by a kid and stuck in an empty juice carton for a well-intentioned science project.

But then the hill became steeper, and the neighborhood turned desolate, and he realized where she was taking him.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

He started to notice signs of a long-ago battle and the destruction it had wrought. Scorch marks on the pavement. Holes smashed through brick walls. An entire building with the windows blown out.

And then there were no buildings at all.

Adrian left the crumbling homes and apartments behind and stood at the edge of the wasteland. The Battle for Gatlon had leveled almost an entire square mile of civilization, and the debris had never been cleaned up. A chain-link fence had been erected around the perimeter, warning of possible radiation poisoning, which was enough to keep most tourists away.

In the center of the wasteland stood the ruins of the cathedral that Ace Anarchy had claimed as his home—his headquarters, of sorts. The bell tower was mostly standing, along with parts of the cloister and the northern part of the structure. But the rest had been demolished.

Adrian’s fingers twitched, itching to unbutton the top of his dress shirt and open the zipper tattoo that would transform him into the Sentinel.

But even now, he didn’t want to risk Danna finding out his secret.

The butterfly flew over the fence, and Adrian saw a place where someone had taken wire clippers to the metal links and pulled it back, just wide enough to slip through.

Curious tourists, he thought. Or some kids acting on a dare.

But he couldn’t be sure of that. He had no idea who would come here. This place had been left abandoned since the defeat of Ace Anarchy.

Why had Danna brought him here?

Gripping his marker, Adrian ducked through the opening. The metal scratched at his jacket and he felt a piece snag on his shoulder, ripping a hole in the seam. As soon as he was on the other side, he wriggled his arms out of the sleeves and left the jacket draped over the fence so it would be easy to find the opening again.