Archenemies (Renegades #2)(38)

Nova’s mouth went dry as she stepped closer to the box.

There should have been some fanfare here. A spotlight streaming onto the shelf. A set of ropes keeping onlookers at bay. A pedestal. But there was nothing. Just a dusty box on a dusty shelf.

Why hadn’t the Dread Warden told her this when he’d said the helmet hadn’t been destroyed, when he said it was here, in the artifacts department?

No one is ever going to use that helmet to torment the people of this city again.

His words carried new meaning now. Nova had imagined a coded safe, a security system requiring retina scans and fingerprints, even armed guards keeping watch over the helmet.

She had never imagined this.

Imprisoned in a chromium cube. Forever.

She felt a light tug at her wrist. Her bracelet was straining against her skin, as if being pulled toward the box and the helmet inside.

Nova lifted her hand. The bracelet pulled harder, until the thin filigree dug into her skin. The empty prongs that had never received the gemstone they were intended to hold stretched outward toward the trapped helmet.

“Huh,” said Callum. “Never seen that before.”

Nova dropped her arm and took a hasty step back.

Callum’s attention stayed on her wrist. “What’s that bracelet made out of?”

“I don’t know.” She clapped a hand over the bracelet to hide it from view. It was the truth. She didn’t know what the material was. As far as she was aware, it didn’t have a name, and she wasn’t about to tell Callum that it was made from solidified bands of ethereal energy only her father had been able to access.

Just like she wasn’t about to tell him that it was made from the same stuff the helmet was.

“Copper, maybe?” said Callum, scratching his ear. “Can copper be magnetized? I’ll have to look it up. Anyway.” He swirled his hand toward the box again. “There you have it. The helmet that almost destroyed the world. Ready to head back?”

Callum led her out of the vault, chatting the whole time, though Nova didn’t hear a word. She ignored the awe-inspiring objects they passed. She barely felt the mask digging into her back.

What was she going to tell Ace? What would she say to the other Anarchists? Ever since they’d learned that the helmet hadn’t been destroyed, they’d been hinging their hopes on getting it back. On giving Ace back his strength, his power.

What were they going to do now?

There had to be some way to get inside that box. Captain Chromium wouldn’t have made it impossible to access the helmet. What if the Renegades needed it someday?

She couldn’t walk up to the Captain and ask him about it, but … she did know of one other person who might have an idea.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BLACKMIRE STATION. The defunct entrance to the abandoned subway had a hole in it the size of a small car, strung across with yellow caution tape. The sidewalk was littered with rubble from the explosion and there were still visible scorch marks on the wall. This was where the Anarchists made their escape when the Renegades had gone after them, after the Detonator’s attack at the library had made it clear that their group wasn’t as dormant as they seemed. Though regular patrols had been set up to search the tunnels and monitor various access points, in case any of the villains tried to return to their sanctuary, there had been no sign of them. Other than Nightmare and the Detonator, of course.

The last time Adrian had gone into the tunnels, determined to find out what their connection to Nightmare was, he was wearing the Sentinel’s armor. Even now, Adrian’s fingers twitched, itching to unbutton the top of his shirt and peel open the zipper tattoo that would transform him into the vigilante. He craved the security that armor would afford him. But he ignored the urge, knowing it was little more than paranoia, and maybe a bit of habit.

The tunnels were abandoned. Wherever Cyanide, Queen Bee, and Phobia had gone, they had not been reckless enough to come back here.

He crouched in front of a DO NOT ENTER sign that had long ago been spray-painted over with a warning to anyone who might not know who was lurking down those stairs.

A circle drawn around an acid-green A.

Adrian took out his marker and drew himself a flashlight.

He stepped over the tape and flashed the beam of light over the graffitied walls and the bolts sticking up from the concrete where a turnstile had once been. The stairs beyond faded into blackness.

He listened, but if there were noises inside the subway, they were buried beneath the sounds of the city.

But there wouldn’t be any noises, he told himself, other than the rats. There were no more villains down here. No more Anarchists.

He crept down the stairs, his sneakers thudding, the beam from his flashlight darting over old concert posters, broken wall tiles, and more graffiti, so much graffiti.

He passed a mezzanine with two offshoots—one set of stairs heading to the northbound rails, the other to the south. His wristband chimed quietly as he descended toward the lower platform, probably the last alert he would get before he lost reception so far underground. He ignored the sound, as he’d been doing ever since Hawthorn threw him into the river and Max pointed out that maybe, just maybe, this was the time to let the Sentinel go. The chime wasn’t the notification he got when he was receiving a message from his teammates or a patrol assignment from the call center. Rather, it was the alarm he’d set for himself, to be notified when one of the other patrol squads was being called for an emergency situation.