Funny, he thought, how he’d been so ready to write off their relationship as nothing more than a game to her back when she’d been arrested, but now he found himself resisting the idea. Maybe, after having gone through those doubts once already, his heart was refusing to go through them again. Maybe denial was easier.
His dangerous thoughts were interrupted by a cruel chuckle from Honey Harper.
“Jackpot,” she whispered.
A figure had appeared in the opening. A single silhouette, and one that Adrian recognized immediately. Broad shoulders, accented by armored pads. Muscled arms and legs in skintight Lycra. Hair glinting gold in the light, not a lock out of place.
Captain Chromium entered, his head high as he stepped through the tunnel into the wasteland. He carried a long chromium chain in one hand and the Silver Spear in the other, every bit the superhero who had first risen to power in the Age of Anarchy.
As soon as he crossed the threshold of Ace’s barrier, the wall rumbled and closed up tight behind him. An enraged cry could be heard from the Renegades left behind on the other side, and Captain Chromium paused. When he realized he was alone, he squared his shoulders and faced the cathedral, taking in Ace Anarchy and the villains gathered on the front towers.
He stopped halfway across the wasteland and plunged the end of the pike into the ground. He looked ready to destroy the Anarchists single-handedly, and Adrian almost believed he could do it.
“Hello again, dear friend,” said Ace, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. “Are you missing something? Or … someone?”
If the taunting had an effect on the Captain, it was impossible to tell. He kept his gaze locked on Ace Anarchy, cool and unflustered. “We’ve had this fight too many times already, Alec,” he said. The silence, combined with the enclosed dome, made for an echo that carried his voice all the way to the top of the bell tower. “Are we really going to have it again?”
“Oh, I hope so,” said Ace. “I have plans for a different outcome this time.”
“You know you can’t defeat me.”
Ace laughed. “It is refreshing to see that your arrogance has not changed in all this time. Let’s remember, last time we stood here, you only bested me with the help of a baby.”
Adrian shivered at the mention of Max.
“This is pointless,” said Captain Chromium. “You know you can’t kill me. What are you hoping to accomplish here?”
“Well, to start,” said Ace, “I’ve long harbored fantasies of chaining you to a tank and watching you sink to the bottom of the ocean, never to be heard from again.”
“All so you can have control over a city that doesn’t want you?”
“I’ll be satisfied with revenge at this point. Revenge for ten years of being powerless, while you ran around belittling who we are and what we are capable of. Your trials have turned prodigies into a sideshow, and the way you pander to the media is disgusting. You care more for your own reputation, for the citizens’ approval, than for taking care of your own. And maybe that was going well for a while. You were idolized. You were adored. But how has it been working out for you lately?”
“My job is to make this world safer for everyone, civilians and prodigies,” said the Captain. “Which would be a lot easier if we weren’t always having to defend ourselves from villains like you!”
“Those civilians treated as like abominations!” Ace roared. “Don’t you remember what it was like before I decided it was time for things to change? They hunted us! They tortured us! They murdered innocent babies, all in fear of what they might become! And they will turn on us again if we don’t keep them in their place.”
“What place is that? Should we just enslave them for our own purposes, then?”
“Why not?” said Ace. “You know it’s what they would have done to us if they’d been able to manage it.”
The Captain shook his head. “With you in power, all anyone knew was fear. I’ve worked too hard to clean up your messes. I won’t let you do this again!”
Ace scoffed. “I’ll admit, I did make some mistakes, but I’ve learned from them. It isn’t enough to destroy the existing world order. You must destroy it—and then rebuild the world to fit your vision.”
“No, Alec. We have been given a gift. We should use these gifts to better society, not just to stoke our own egos. Not just to put ourselves on pedestals.”
Ace chuckled in amusement. “How trite, coming from you. I have never known a time when you didn’t put yourself on a pedestal. Besides … you’re wrong, my old friend. We have no obligation to use our powers to help the people of this world, not after what they did to us. Our only obligation is to ourselves. And once prodigies are no longer governed by fear or arbitrary codes, they will recognize their place. We will soon be in a second Age of Anarchy, but this time we will not be villains. We will be gods!”
The Captain shook his head. “You’re delusional, Alec. You can’t defeat me.”
“I don’t have to defeat you, my old friend. You are going to defeat yourself. Soon, you will know what it means to feel powerless, just how you left me all those years ago. Cyanide, if you’ll do the honors?”
Cyanide reached into an inside pocket of his trench coat. Captain Chromium tensed, eyes narrowing. The villain pulled something small from the pocket and held it up.
Adrian leaned forward. “Is that a flask?”
Queen Bee shushed him.
The flask was lifted from his grip and sent drifting toward the Captain below. Hugh snarled and braced himself, angling the pike toward the flask as it came to hover an arm’s length in front of his face.
“My chief chemist has distilled a particularly potent batch of the substance you call Agent N,” said Ace. “We wanted to try a little experiment, to see if you are, in fact, invincible to your own poison. All you have to do … is drink it.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t,” Ace said slowly, “we’re going to kill your son.”
This, too, brought no reaction from the Captain, who had probably been expecting it. His voice remained steady, if also cut through with a new edge. “For all I know, he’s already dead.”
“You think I would waste a perfectly good hostage?” Ace swept an arm toward the bell tower. “Behold. Safe and sound.”
Queen Bee reignited the oil lantern, filling the belfry with its subtle, steady light and drawing his dad’s attention up to them. Relief brightened the Captain’s face.
“I’m fine!” Adrian yelled. “Don’t worry about me!”
He was surprised at how confident he sounded.
Beside him, Nova lifted the gun so his dad could see it, holding it against Adrian’s temple.
Adrian turned his head to look at her, not shying away even as the cool barrel pressed into his forehead. “You’re not fooling me with that.”
She ignored him, her focus on the scene below.
Ace chuckled. “As you can see, he’s very much not fine. Which leaves you with a decision to make. Sacrifice him to protect your own powers, or sacrifice yourself and save the boy you raised from childhood, who has already suffered so much in his young life. It is a difficult choice. Let us see how much you truly care for your greater good.”
Hugh scrutinized the side of the bell tower and the roof of the cathedral, and Adrian could imagine him trying to plot out another option. A way to be the hero, as he always was.
“Don’t waste our time,” said Ace. The flask bobbed in the air. “This deal comes with an expiration. Besides … it may not even affect you. Your invincibility may yet hold. How will we know if we don’t try?”
“Don’t!” Adrian yelled. “Don’t do—”
Queen Bee grabbed his head and slammed it against the stone window frame. He grunted and fell to one knee, his head ringing like the bell above. The blow throbbed through his skull and into his teeth.
She held him down with his head bent over the windowsill.
Adrian was about to lift his chin again, prepared to show Honey and Nova, Ace and his dad, just how defiant he could be, when he heard a click and felt the gun pressing against his scalp.
He released a dry laugh. “Come on, Nova.”
“Stop talking,” she growled.
He lifted his head as much as he could. Hugh was watching him, horror pulsing beneath his strong exterior.
Maybe he’d been wrong yet again. Maybe Nova would kill him.
Maybe that, too, would be its own sort of justice. He had trusted her so deeply. Welcomed her into the Renegades without hesitation. Begun to fall in love with her. It was, in part, due to his own blindness that she’d managed to cause so much grief.
Adrian forced himself to be calm. He let his body relax. He lifted his chin, pressing the back of his head hard against the gun. He held his dad’s gaze and tried to convey what they both knew to be true.
Hugh Everhart could not sacrifice himself. If Adrian was going to die today, he needed to die knowing that the Renegades would persevere. That they would stop Ace Anarchy. That they would end this war between heroes and villains … again. For good, this time.
He wished he could convey these thoughts to his dad. He believed in him and the organization he had created, even if he had fought against so many of their rules. He wasn’t afraid to die. He was a superhero. The son of Lady Indomitable … and also the Dread Warden and Captain Chromium. Being prepared to sacrifice himself for the greater good was a part of the job description.
And they both knew that Adrian was not the superhero this city needed. Captain Chromium was.
As he stared, he saw something enter his father’s eyes. An apology?
Driving the pike back into the ground, he grabbed the flask from the air and unscrewed the lid with his thumb.
“No!” Adrian screamed.
His father threw his head back and drank it.
Heart pounding, Adrian watched, they all watched, as Captain Chromium turned over the flask to show that it was empty before dropping it into the dirt.