Archenemies (Renegades #2)(12)
One cannot be brave who has no fear.
The same words that had been found on a small white card on his mother’s body, after she fell seven stories to her death.
“Yeah, well, I’m not giving up on finding my mother’s killer. Nightmare was an Anarchist. If she knew something, then maybe another Anarchist will, too, or another villain who was around at the same time.”
“Someone like Hawthorn?”
Adrian didn’t try to disguise his bemused grin. “Was she around back then? I haven’t had time to confirm that yet.”
Simon lifted a finger, nearly jutting it against Adrian’s nose. “I’m only going to say this once, Adrian. Do not try to go after Hawthorn by yourself. Or any of the Anarchists, for that matter. You understand? It’s dangerous.”
Adrian pushed up his glasses and opened his mouth to speak.
“And don’t try to tell me that dangerous is how superheroes are supposed to operate.”
Adrian snapped his mouth shut.
“We have methods in place for a reason,” Simon continued. “To help mitigate threats and damage. If you hear something about Hawthorn or any other villain, you call it in and wait for instructions. I want to find out who killed your mother as much as you do, but I’m not about to lose you in the process.”
Adrian forced himself to nod. “I know, Pops. I’ll try to be less … reckless.”
“Thank you.”
Adrian pressed his lips into a thin smile, biting back the words he really wanted to say. The suspicions that had been filling his head for weeks.
Despite the bomb that had supposedly killed her, despite the amount of destruction that had been wreaked at the carnival fun house that day, despite the fact that Adrian himself had witnessed the fight between Nightmare and the Detonator … despite everything, he had doubts.
His dads would call it denial. His team would call it his typical, uncanny optimism.
But Adrian couldn’t help it.
The truth was, he did not believe that Nightmare was dead.
CHAPTER FIVE
ADRIAN AND THE TEAM had been left off the patrol schedule for the rest of the week, owing for time to “recover from injuries and trauma,” so there was no reason to head into Renegade Headquarters in full gear today. Normally he wouldn’t have had to come in to headquarters at all, except that morning the Council had sent out a global communication to all Renegades in the Gatlon City division, requesting their presence at a mandatory meeting.
It was a mysterious message. Adrian couldn’t recall there ever being a meeting for the entire organization. Sometimes they implemented new rules in the code and summoned the patrol units to discuss them, or had department meetings with the administration, or the research and development teams, and so on—but everyone?
Unfortunately, his dads had already gone when he woke up, so there was no hope of needling information out of them.
Adrian turned a corner, walking beneath a strip of construction scaffolding as he approached the north side of headquarters. It was an overcast morning and the top of the building was lost in clouds, making the skyscraper appear endless.
His attention caught on a vehicle parked at one of the side entrances. It was an armored van, its back doors heavily fortified, and its sides lined with short, tinted windows. The side of the van read CRAGMOOR PENITENTIARY: PRISONER TRANSPORT.
Adrian slowed to a stop. Cragmoor was a prison located off the coast of Gatlon City that had been built to hold prodigy criminals, as most civilian prisons weren’t sufficiently equipped to handle a wide array of extraordinary abilities.
Maybe they were picking up a prisoner from one of the temporary holding cells inside headquarters. Although transfers like that were generally made at night, when the streets were empty of curious onlookers.
He continued walking, gazing into the windows of the van as he passed. He couldn’t see into the back at all, and the driver’s and front passenger’s seats were empty.
Shrugging to himself, Adrian made his way to the front of the building, where tourists were gathered around the main entrance, snapping photos of everything from the revolving glass doors to the nearby street sign and the place where the building disappeared into thick cloud cover high above. Adrian wove his way through the crowd, ignoring a couple of gasps and one low muttering, Was that Adrian Everhart? The fame wasn’t really his, anyway. People didn’t care so much about Adrian Everhart as they did about the son of Lady Indomitable, or the adopted son of Captain Chromium and the Dread Warden.
Which was fine. He was used to the attention, just like he was used to acknowledging that he’d done little to earn it.
He shoved through the revolving doors, smiling at the fellow Renegades he passed and jovial Sampson Cartwright at the information desk. He surveyed the lobby for any sign of Oscar or Nova, but when he didn’t see them, he headed up the curved flight of stairs to the sky bridge that connected to Max’s quarantine.
Max was almost always inside the glass gallery during the day, working on the extensive glass model of Gatlon City he’d been constructing for years, or watching the TV screens that dotted the lobby’s many pillars, but today Max was nowhere in sight. He must have been back in the private quarters tucked behind the enclosed rotunda.
Raising his hand, Adrian thumped hard on the wall. “Hey, Bandit, it’s me. Are you—”