She’d had more than one fantasy lately about being the one to excavate such a treasure.

If the rumors were even true.

A sparkle caught her eye and she paused, noting a fancy brooch pinned to a woman’s gray blazer. It was the iconic Renegade R, set in red rhinestones. Probably not real gems, but pretty enough to give her pause.

She angled her way forward, focusing on the jewelry. She pictured the sharp little pin pushed through the fabric of the woman’s lapel. She imagined the clasp peeling back. The pin popping free. The brooch slipping out of the fabric.

She bumped into the woman at the same moment the brooch tumbled down, landing in her open palm. She wrapped her fingers around it too fast and felt the stab of the pin against her finger. She flinched, but the woman was watching her suspiciously, so she changed the grimace into a brilliant smile and dashed off an effusive apology before ducking back into the mass of bodies.

She felt someone’s gaze on her then. Daring to glance up, she spotted a man tucked into the crowd, a worn trench coat draped over his bulky figure. He was staring at her like he recognized her, though she knew she’d never seen him before. One doesn’t forget a face like that—a patchwork of blotchy skin, with one cheek that drooped lower than the other, dragging down the left side of his mouth, missing eyebrows and raised scars crisscrossing his brow. She wondered what sort of sad superpower would manifest like that.

He smiled at her. A knowing, lopsided grin.

Feeling self-conscious and worried that maybe he’d witnessed the theft and was about to raise an alarm—which was extra risky now that everyone saw themselves as part vigilante—she pivoted and hurried off in the other direction.

She waited until she was half a block away before she opened her hand and inspected the brooch. Definitely cheap costume jewelry, but it would fetch a few bucks at the pawnshop, at least.

She held the pin up against her own shirt, right over her heart, and used her mind to slip the sharp point through the fabric and twist the clasp back into place.

Popping her finger into her mouth to suck off the drop of blood, she dug her other hand into her pocket to pull out the rest of the day’s treasures. A wallet, two watches, and a gold wedding band. She felt a little guilty over that last one, but without knowing what was to become of the Renegades, she figured she had to go into survival mode.

If she was good at anything, it was surviving.

She tucked away her findings, but kept out the last item she’d dug from her pocket, the good luck charm that was always with her, hidden away for safekeeping—a small silver bullet. The one that should have killed her. When she was just a baby, she’d been shot by a burglar breaking into her family’s apartment. That night, her parents had been murdered. That night, her older sister had disappeared, either run away or kidnapped, and never heard from again.

That night, her own dormant powers had been awoken.

Of course, she didn’t remember any of this for herself, only what the staff at the children’s home had told her. They said she’d been found by the landlord, drenched in her own blood and screaming her head off, the bullet clutched in her pudgy fist. They told her that was less than an hour after Captain Chromium himself had stopped by to investigate the crime and declared her and her parents dead.

And the Renegades wondered why everyone thought they were inept.

For years, she had dreamed of her sister coming to claim her. Of … anyone, really, coming to claim her. But eventually she had realized that no one was coming. No one cared about one more orphaned, unwanted prodigy.

She could only rely on herself.

Which was fine. She didn’t need anyone else. She was a survivor. The bullet was proof enough of that.

Squeezing her fist, she shoved the bullet back into her pocket and started making her way to the pawnshop to sell her goods before she got caught with them.

She knew she wasn’t a Renegade anymore. A lot of people were saying they didn’t even need Renegades now, just as they no longer needed to fear villains. There were no longer prodigies vying for power or non-prodigies being caught in the middle. They could reclaim control of their own city, their own society, their own lives.

But it was only a matter of time. The greed would come back. The power struggles. The conflicts. This phase would pass, and the problems would still be there. Only now, each side would have a bigger army, with stronger weapons.

When it happened, they would see that not everyone was willing to protect the innocent, defend the weak, fight for justice. They would realize that some prodigies are stronger for a reason. Braver for a reason. Some people were always meant to be heroes.

Just like some people were always meant to be villains.