Archenemies (Renegades #2)(129)

It would not save him, but if it could protect him until he could get to help—

Nova lifted her head. Frostbite had swooned and appeared only half conscious, but Aftershock was there, his arms wrapped around Frostbite’s waist as he dragged her away from Max.

Nova didn’t think as she grabbed the bloodied pike and charged toward them. Aftershock, startled, dropped Frostbite in a heap and prepared to face Nova’s attack.

But the Agent N had taken effect and he no longer had any powers. Without them, he had no idea what to do.

Nova jumped forward, preparing to slam the pike against his temple. He cowered, raising his hands in a pathetic attempt to defend himself.

Nova stopped the side of the pike half an inch from his ear.

Lowering the weapon, she pressed her forefinger to Mack Baxter’s forehead. He crumpled.

She spun back to Frostbite. The girl was on her hands and knees, attempting to crawl away from the Bandit. Nova pointed the tip of the spear at her nose. Frostbite paused.

“Go back,” Nova growled. “You’re giving him your power. All of it.”

Frostbite lifted her eyes, but nothing else. “Like hell I am.”

Nova snarled. Max was dying. Dying. And she didn’t care if he was a Renegade, an Everhart, the very prodigy who had taken Ace’s power and ruined him almost ten years ago. It was Max, and she would not let him die. “It could be the only thing that saves him.”

“It’s mine,” Frostbite growled.

“Fine,” said Nova. “I gave you a chance to be noble about it.” Reaching down, she scooped her fingers beneath Frostbite’s chin, gripping her throat. A startled groan escaped the girl and for half a breath she struggled to get away.

But then she fell limp. Fast asleep.

Nova dumped her beside Max. She couldn’t gauge how fast he was absorbing Genissa’s power, but the ice formations over his wound started to thicken.

She thought he was unconscious, but then his eyes fluttered open, meeting hers. She couldn’t tell if there was recognition there, but she knew there was a question.

Why was she helping him? She had the helmet. Why was she still there?

“Get away from him!”

Her head snapped up. Her pulse jumped.

The Sentinel stood inside the main entrance, his armored suit haloed by the moonlight reflecting off the glass doors.

Nova stood. Her heart felt brittle, her body on the verge of collapse. But her mind was sharp again, jolted awake when that pike had been driven into Max, and already she was assessing her options.

The pike was only a few feet away.

The helmet was on the ground behind her.

Another dart was loaded in the gun at her holster and she still had two more gas-release devices, though she couldn’t be sure the gas would penetrate that suit.

She had one destroyed quarantine, three unconscious former prodigies, and Max—dying at her feet.

“I said,” growled the Sentinel, as his right arm began to glow, “get away from him.”

Nova took a step back. Her heel brushed against the helmet.

As much as she despised the Sentinel and all his feigned superiority and self-absorption and the way he had hunted her like some obsessed stalker, she was pretty sure she knew one thing about the vigilante.

He was capable of good things.

Heroic things.

Like rescuing ten-year-old boys when they were dying.

She took another step back.

The Sentinel raised his arm. The concussion beam drove toward her. Nova ducked, barely dodging it, and grabbed the helmet off the floor.

Then she ran.





CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

HE WANTED TO CHASE after her.

A big, loud, furious part of him wanted to chase after her. To tear off her mask, to make her face him, to look him in the eye, to tell him why she would do this. To destroy Max’s home, his glass city, his everything, and then to attack him—to attack a child! What purpose— What possible point—

But he didn’t chase after her.

In part because he already knew the truth.

Max had helped to defeat Ace Anarchy, and now Nightmare had tried to exact her revenge against him.

And he didn’t go after her because …

Because …

“Max,” he said, the name overtaken by a sob. He fell to his knees over Max’s body and did his best to remember the training they’d had. How to deal with various injuries so they could keep their comrades alive long enough for a healer to get to them.

But he had never seen this before.

Max’s shirt had already been pushed up, revealing a deep gouge beneath his ribs. There was blood, but there was also ice. Flakes of brittle white frost creeping across the skin, forming a protective barrier over the wound.

Stolen from Genissa Clark, no doubt.

But even with the ice, the blood beneath Max’s body was sticky and thick. The wound was deep, and could have punctured an organ—his kidney, his stomach, his intestines.

How long did he have?

Adrian’s arms shook as he scooped them beneath Max’s body and lifted him as tenderly as he could.

Nightmare was gone. Despite his fury, he hardly remembered her leaving. There was only Max. Whose skin appeared thin as tissue paper. Whose chest barely rose with each breath.

Holding the kid close, he ran from the building. Out onto the street, where even now he could hear sirens approaching. The Council, the rest of the Renegades, having heard about Nightmare’s attack. Rushing to the scene of the crime.