Pushing herself off the wall, Ingrid sauntered closer until she stood nearly toe to toe with Nova. “I hope you mean that. Because this is your chance to prove it. To show me that what happened at the library was just”—she shrugged wistfully—“an unfortunate but temporary lack of judgment.”
Nova gawked at her. “Sure,” she said slowly, “if you mean your lack of judgment. If you had trusted me from the start, the entire fiasco wouldn’t have happened. The Librarian would be alive, we’d still have access to his stockpile and his distributors, and—oh yeah, we wouldn’t have revealed ourselves to the Renegades and been driven out of our own home.”
“Home?” said Ingrid, guffawing. “Those tunnels were never our home.”
“So not the point,” Nova shot back.
Ingrid peered down her nose at Nova, scrutinizing her. “Interesting you should mention the Librarian, given that the only reason I killed him was to protect you.”
“Right,” said Nova. “I’m sure you weren’t at all concerned with him giving up any number of your secrets. Exactly how many explosives have you and Leroy sold to the Librarian for overseas buyers? It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s an actual war crime, come to think of it…”
Ingrid’s lips curved. It was nowhere near a real smile, but it was a nice change from her scowl all the same. “There again, you and I have something in common. Although it doesn’t much matter at this point if the Renegades discover my crimes, I sense you’re still quite intent on keeping yours hidden. Now—picture this.” She stepped closer and rested an elbow on Nova’s shoulder, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Imagine a scenario in which the Renegades no longer cared to find the mysterious Nightmare. In which they lost interest in uncovering her identity. In which they left her completely alone.”
Nova narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “Sounds unlikely.”
“Not,” said Ingrid, lifting a finger, “if they have every reason to believe that Nightmare is dead.”
A chill swept down Nova’s spine, and she did her best to conceal it by shaking Ingrid’s arm off her shoulder. “Tell me this isn’t some roundabout way of threatening to kill me in my sleep. Because, you know…” She gestured to her head. “Sleep. Not really my thing.”
Ingrid let out a bellowing laugh, one that was far more boisterous than Nova felt her comment deserved. “You see?” she said. “Rooming with Honey has a tendency to make one just a little too melodramatic. No, no. I don’t want to kill you. I just want to fight you. Publicly. And in the end, the whole world, especially the Renegades, will be watching as we tear each other apart…” She shrugged. “Metaphorically speaking.”
Nova eyed her, struggling to parse out Ingrid’s meaning from her words. “You want to fake our deaths?”
“Not exactly.” Ingrid brightened. “I want to fake the deaths of Nightmare and the Detonator.”
Nova’s face must have been skeptical, because Ingrid ducked close to her again, her fingers painting an invisible picture into the air. “We’ll stage it to appear as though Nightmare is furious over the death of the Librarian, and she blames me. Or—the Detonator.”
“You are the Detonator.”
“Keep up. We find a public place, and ensure at least one Renegade is present. Not too many. We don’t want them getting in our way before we can finish. You and I fight, in full view of everyone, and in the end … you shoot me at the same time that I blow you up, and everyone sees it happen. Except you’ll be using blanks and I … well, I won’t really blow you up, but I can make it believable enough.” She winked.
Nova was still frowning. “And when there are no bodies?”
“We’ll stage it to appear that the explosions destroy us both. They won’t be surprised if there’s nothing left. Now, stop dwelling on insignificant details and focus on the big picture.” Her eyes burned, suddenly intense. “They would stop hunting us. They would stop hunting you. How much easier would it be for you to continue with your work inside the Renegades if no one was investigating Nightmare anymore?”
Nova swallowed, unable to form a counterargument.
“Besides,” Ingrid drawled, smirking, “you still owe me.”
“Owe you? For what?”
“Killing the Librarian.”
Nova laughed. “You didn’t—”
“Yes, I did. Say what you want about what happened that day. He would have told the Sentinel everything, and the Sentinel would have taken it right back to the Council. I protected you.”
“I wouldn’t have needed protection if it wasn’t for your asinine plan.”
“You wouldn’t need protection if you were capable of dealing with these situations when they come up. If you had the guts to take out Cronin yourself or Narcissa or even Captain Chromium for that matter. Face it, Nova. Despite all your talk, you’re afraid to make the tough decisions when they need to be made. That’s why you still need the Anarchists. That’s why you still need me.”
Nova clenched her jaw, angry sparks flickering across her vision. But her fury was overshadowed by the insecurities Ingrid’s words stirred up. Because of her hesitation, she had failed to kill the Captain. She wouldn’t have killed Cronin, even to save herself. She had chosen to let Narcissa go, knowing full well that she would endanger her mission going forward.
“You think about it,” said Ingrid, rocking back on her heels. “I’m sure you’ll make the right decision. How about I come back tonight and we can start hashing out the details? Right now…” She peered past Nova’s shoulder. “It looks like you have company.”
Nova glanced back.
Her heart launched into her throat.
Through a gap in the alley, past a chain-link fence and a half-disassembled car, a figure was strolling up the sidewalk.
She blinked rapidly, sure that the sight of him was some hallucination, some aftereffect of being in contact with Max, perhaps. Because what in this great city would bring Adrian Everhart here?
“Look at him, all distracted and nervous,” said Ingrid with a subtle coo in her voice.
Cursing, Nova turned and shoved Ingrid toward the wall, trying to push her out of sight. “Get back before he sees you.”