“That’s their thing though, isn’t it?” said Adrian. “Even when they’re supposed to be working together, they still believe in trampling the weak to make way for the strong.”
Oscar shrugged. “Makes no sense to me, but then, they are villains. Who knows how they think?”
“On the bright side,” Ruby said, opening her eyes and flashing a mischievous grin, “I got Nightmare’s gun.”
Adrian lifted an eyebrow.
“They took it upstairs to have it inspected,” said Oscar. “She fired off one dart at the Captain, came this close to hitting him in the eye.” He pinched his fingers together. “That dart is being looked at too. Maybe they’ll be able to trace it back to wherever she got it from.”
Adrian looked away. He didn’t know how much information they could garner from the gun or the dart she’d used, but it was something. It was a start.
That morning, he had cared only about proving his abilities as the Sentinel. He had been excited to show them all what he could do. He had fantasized about taking off the Sentinel’s helmet and revealing himself to his team and the rest of the Renegades.
But he hardly cared about any of that anymore. One sentence from Nightmare had changed everything.
He had to find out who she was. He had to find out what she knew.
He had to find her.
CHAPTER FIVE
ADRIAN WAS BECOMING ANXIOUS, though he wasn’t sure why. Thunderbird had been brought to headquarters hours ago to be treated for her injuries, but the rest of the Council still wasn’t back. He would have known by now if they were hurt, so that wasn’t it. Maybe he was curious if they’d heard about the Sentinel. What they thought. If they were able to see right through him.
He spent some time making his way around the medical wing, checking on others who had been hurt in the fight against the Puppeteer, before heading upstairs to visit Max, who was probably feeling cut off from all the activity, like usual.
Max’s quarantine was built into a sky bridge that extended over the main floor of the lobby. It was quite possibly the fanciest room in the place—practically a luxury suite—with floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a breathtaking view of the river, and private quarters tucked out of sight with a master bedroom and bathroom complete with a soaking tub, though Adrian had the feeling Max didn’t use it all that often. Max didn’t seem to spend much time back there at all. He was always out in the main space of his enclosure. Always working on the glass city he’d been painstakingly constructing over the last four years.
When Adrian approached the quarantine, he spotted Max sitting cross-legged inside his model of City Park—one of the few spots of empty floor he could comfortably sit down on anymore. His eyes were glued to the screens outside his enclosure, watching the footage from the parade. His fingers were toying with one of the little glass figurines Adrian had made years ago—a horse-drawn carriage like those that took tourists through the park.
It had started as a game. Max was still a toddler when the quarantine was built for him, and Adrian was determined to try to make him feel as comfortable as possible. He’d seen how much Max loved building with a set of interlocking blocks the Captain brought for him, so he started making blocks himself, using his marker to draw new designs onto the glass and pushing them through to Max’s side.
As he got older, Max started making requests. He wanted blocks that mimicked tall spires and domed ceilings, or cables he could use to construct a bridge. Before Adrian realized what the kid was trying to accomplish, he saw the familiar skyline evolving before his eyes.
Max was ten years old now and the miniature city was mostly complete. It was a marvel, taking up the entire floor of the circular room. A nearly exact replica of Gatlon, created entirely of shimmering clear glass. But just like the real city, it was always changing. Being torn down, rebuilt, edited, and refined as the kid worked to make it authentic to the real Gatlon, a city he could only imagine being a part of.
Max caught sight of Adrian approaching and held up a pad of paper for Adrian to see. He had done his best to draw the Council’s parade float.
“Can you make that?” Max said, his voice muffled by the glass.
“What, no ‘hello’? No ‘glad to see you weren’t killed by a psychotic villain today’?”
Max lowered the sketchpad. “Reports have been circulating all afternoon, with most of the focus on Thunderbird, though I know Monarch and a few others also sustained injuries. The news is also providing updated reports on civilian casualties every few minutes.” He paused, before adding, for clarity’s sake, “Obviously, I would have known if you were hurt.”
Adrian grunted and lowered himself to the floor. “In that case, yeah, sure, I can make that, but the cloud’s not going to have actual lightning coming out of it. You’ll just have to use your imagination. You want some street food vendors too?”
Max’s eyes lit up. “Yeah. And the villain float. And the marching band?”
“What do I look like, a figurine factory?” He took out his marker and began to sketch the float, making it as detailed as he could recall from memory, though he’d been distracted when it had first come into view, caught up in trying to fix that girl’s bracelet.
He paused, the float half finished.
With everything that had come after, he’d nearly forgotten about the girl and the way she’d looked at Adrian when he’d fixed the clasp: not like his handiwork was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen in her life, but like she was trying to figure out if this was a con artist’s trick she needed to be wary of.
Maybe there were too many prodigies flooding into the city these days. The novelty of seeing someone with superpowers must be wearing off.
He finished drawing the float, adding wheels beneath it so Max could push it around the streets if he wanted to. “Here you go,” he said, pressing his hand against the drawing and forcing his will into the glass.