Archenemies (Renegades #2)(78)
Nova studied the city beneath her. It was a good reminder of what she was fighting for.
But Callum was wrong about one thing.
Sometimes, things did have to be destroyed before something better could be built.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“HAVE I MENTIONED that you look ridiculous?” Max whispered, hiding behind Adrian as he peered around the corner.
“Do I?” Adrian looked down at the white hazmat suit. “To be honest, I sort of feel like an astronaut.”
“Well, you look like a walking air mattress.”
Adrian cast a smirk over his shoulder. He could tell Max was nervous. The kid always got irritable when he was nervous. “You ready?”
“No,” Max answered, his brow drawing tight. “This feels like breaking the rules. What if I run into someone? What if I … hurt them?”
“It’s four o’clock in the morning,” said Adrian.
“So, there could be security personnel and late-night patrol units coming and going and sometimes the healers come in early, and you know Nova is always around at weird hours and—”
“Max.” Adrian fixed him with his sternest look. “We just have to get to the elevator. It’s literally”—he estimated the distance—“fifty feet away, and the coast is completely clear. We’re not going to run into anyone.”
“But what if the coast isn’t clear when we’re getting off the elevator? We could be blindsided. Or—we could blindside someone else, I guess, would be more accurate—”
“No one’s getting blindsided. We’ve got the floor staked out, with blockades on the stairwells. It’s going to be fine.”
“What would Hugh and Simon say?”
The corners of Adrian’s mouth twitched, but not wanting to give away the surprise, he only said, “I’m fairly sure they would understand.”
Adrian fidgeted with one of the chromium cuffs on his wrist. He wanted to reach out and rumple Max’s hair—he had quickly grown accustomed to being able to show outward affection—but the thick gloves prevented it. It was doubly frustrating given that he didn’t believe he needed the hazmat suit. He had the tattoo now. He should be able to get close to Max without any trouble.
But the tattoos were still a secret that needed to be kept, and the last thing he wanted was for certain people to start asking questions about them. So, for now, the hazmat suit would have to do.
“Come on,” he said, opening the quarantine door.
With worried eyes, Max started to follow Adrian, but then paused. Turbo was gnawing on the strap of his sandals. “No. Stay here, Turbo,” he said, nudging the creature back toward the miniature shore of the bay.
Adrian checked each direction one more time, and ushered Max through. Turbo didn’t follow, just cocked his head and watched them go for a second, before skittering off toward his food bowl. The creature ate so much, Adrian was beginning to think they should have named him Oscar, Jr.
Their shoes thumped on the sky bridge as they passed over the lobby. Adrian could see the security booth inside the main entrance. The personnel had been given clear instructions, though, and no one called out to stop them as they made their way toward the elevator bank.
“That’s all they’ve talked about today,” said Max.
“Hm?”
Max pointed and Adrian followed the gesture toward one of the television monitors hung around the lobby. A news story was playing, and though the sound was muted, an icon of a pill bottle over the news anchor’s shoulder gave away the story.
A fourteen-year-old girl had died of a drug overdose two nights ago, a result of the illegal substance that was pervading the city’s drug market. The drug that was concocted, in part, from medications like those Hawthorn had stolen from the hospital. It was the eighth overdose that week. In addition to the rampant drug usage, the growing popularity of the substance was also being linked to increases in street violence, trafficking, and prostitution.
Perhaps most troubling was that the Renegades had done little to counter the growing epidemic of drug abuse or the flourishing black market. If anything, they seemed at a loss as to how to fight an enemy that couldn’t be knocked out with punches and laser beams.
On the screen, the most recent victim’s family was being interviewed, their eyes swollen with mourning. Adrian turned away and jabbed the elevator button. There was no way for him to know if the drugs that took that girl’s life had been developed from the same drugs Hawthorn had stolen, but he couldn’t help feeling the weight of his failure.
The elevator arrived, and they both shuffled in. He could feel Max’s anxiety every time the boy glanced up at the camera on the ceiling or the numbers above the door. His nervousness seemed to increase as the elevator rose. One foot was tapping rapidly against the floor. One hand kept brushing back an imaginary lock of hair from his forehead. He kept pursing his lips and shaking out his hands in an attempt to calm himself.
“I know this is weird for you,” said Adrian, his breath fogging up the inside of the suit’s face shield in a way that reminded him vaguely of being inside the Sentinel’s armor. “But it’s really not as risky as it seems. I swear. I wouldn’t do anything to put you in danger—or any of the Renegades.”
“But where are we going?” asked Max with a slight whine in his voice.