Phobia.

Adrian’s pulse thundered. For a heartbeat that felt like an eternity, he stared into the nothingness inside Phobia’s cloak, dread settling inside his core. Of all the Anarchists, Phobia had long struck him as the most frightening. Not only because his power revolved around the control of a person’s greatest fears, but because so little was known about him. No one knew his weaknesses, if he had any. He had never heard of Phobia being wounded, even during the Battle for Gatlon. He had once seen him struck with a giant shard of ice that would have impaled most humans, but Phobia only disappeared for a while, fading into black smoke. The effect had been temporary.

Still, Adrian held his ground. He struggled to think of his options. What could he draw that would aid in a fight against Phobia?

“I have tasted fear like yours before,” said Phobia, his voice a rasp and a hiss. “The fear of being powerless.”

Adrian tightened his jaw.

Screw it.

He tore open the collar of his shirt, popping a button from the fabric. His fingers pulled the zipper from the ink.

He started to tug it down when he heard someone screaming his name.

He froze.

His entire body caved in on itself. Filling with disbelief. And though he knew deep inside that it was a trick, and it was not to be trusted, there was no possibility of him not looking.

Not hoping, for all his miserable optimism.

He inclined his head and saw her.

The thick ropes of her hair framing frantic eyes. The golden cape whipping in the air behind her. That brave, beautiful face that could morph from stern to loving in the blink of an eye. From disapproval to laughter.

His mom was soaring over the cathedral, like she couldn’t get to him fast enough. All the horrors of the world were mirrored in her face, and she was coming to protect him, her only son, her life and love.

It was like watching a string cut on a puppet.

She was flying.

And then she was falling.

Plummeting toward the wasteland.

Her cries caught in the wind. Her arms flailed, getting twisted in the cape.

Adrian yelled and tried to run toward her, but his feet were cemented to the ground. It was his worst nightmare, all his worst nightmares come to life. His mother falling to her death and he was stuck, unable to do anything. He was losing her all over again, and he was completely, utterly powerless.

A shadow cut through his mother’s body moments before she collided with the earth.

The illusion shattered.

Adrian fell to his knees. Pain spiked through his leg as a piece of sharp stone dug into his shin. He blinked the tears away and watched as the shadow, a blur of movement, pivoted in the air and streaked toward the fence line.

Not a shadow. A swarm. Hundreds of monarch butterflies.

And in the distance, just now shoving their way through the fence, were Ruby and Oscar. Adrian didn’t think they had seen him yet.

Phobia turned toward them. His skeletal fingers curled around the handle of his scythe, then he dissolved into a cloud of black crows. They soared after the butterflies, driving them away.

With an exhausted cry, Adrian ducked and rolled behind the fallen arch. He landed on his shoulder. His eyes were watering. His body still shaking from the vision. It had seemed so real. Her voice. The terrified expression. The way his heart had yearned to get to her, to save her.

He took in a shuddering breath, trying to clear the thoughts from his mind.

It didn’t work. The memory remained, cloying and cruel.

But he reached for the zipper anyway, and let the Sentinel engulf him.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

ADRIAN FORCED HIMSELF up from the rubble. His legs were still weak, but the suit was supporting him now. The swarm of butterflies was nearly to the fence line and Adrian wondered whether Danna was fleeing for her life or trying to lead Phobia away from her friends. Either way, the flock of crows was gaining on her, their silhouettes almost invisible against the night sky.

Adrian knew the result of that food chain.

The birds passed over Ruby and Oscar. Ruby released a scream of rage and swung her bloodstone at them, knocking two birds from the air. One crashed into the fence, the other crumpled into the ground, one wing twisted at an odd angle.

The others seemed unbothered by their lost companions.

“Danna!” Ruby cried.

Adrian started to run. And then he started to fly, using the tattoos on the bottoms of his feet to launch himself forward.

Flame crackled around his fist. He could feel its heat through the armor, but it encouraged more than frightened him. The fire grew until it nearly claimed his entire arm. White-hot and churning, the flames licking at the air.

Oscar grabbed Ruby by the back of her uniform and hauled her out of Adrian’s way.

He blew past his friends and took to the air, thrusting his palm forward.

The fire blazed along his limb and shot toward the gathering of crows. It devoured them, swallowing their squawks and cries, igniting their feathers and talons. Extinguishing them.

Adrian landed hard on the ground just inside the chain-link fence. He collapsed to one knee, struggling for breath.

Beyond the wasteland, he saw a smattering of birds who had escaped the fire turn into wisps of black smoke. They faded away while the butterflies dived beneath the remains of a battered taxicab.

A flutter drew Adrian’s attention to the side and he saw one of the crows that had been knocked down by Ruby’s stone. Its wing was crippled, and it was staring at Adrian with one beady black eye, intelligent and calculating.

Adrian shuddered.

The bird dissolved into black ash, scattering to the wind.

He released a long, exhausted groan. He was not naive enough to think that Phobia was dead. But he hoped it was the last he would see of the villain today, at least.

A boot crunched in the dirt.

Adrian squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself, and stood. He turned to face them.

Smokescreen and Red Assassin. His teammates. His friends.

Ruby was gripping her wire in one hand, a ruby dagger in the other. Oscar had a charcoal gray cloud storming around him, obscuring the ground at his feet. They wore matching looks of apprehension.

Adrian could tell they didn’t want to fight him, but he didn’t think it was out of a sense of camaraderie.

No. They were afraid. They didn’t think they could win in a fight against him.

They would be right, he figured, though it was the first time he’d stopped to consider the possibility.

Oscar glanced at Ruby. A brief look, born of worry. He was planning a diversion, Adrian could tell. He would conceal Ruby with his smoke, drawing the brunt of the Sentinel’s attack toward himself. It was a risky maneuver, knowing what the Sentinel could do, but it was their best bet to take him down too. It would at least give Ruby a chance to move into a more offensive position. Maybe even launch a counterattack while the Sentinel was distracted.

It was a strategy they’d practiced dozens of times in the training halls. Their tiny gestures, the almost imperceptible way they arranged their limbs, was so familiar that Adrian was tempted to laugh.

Never would he have expected to see those tactics used against himself.

Adrian lifted his hands, fingers spread. The universal sign of supplication.

“I’m not your enemy,” he said. “I’ve never been your enemy.”

“Sorry, but we’re going to have to let the Council make that decision,” said Ruby. She gave the slightest of nods.

Oscar swiveled his hands, aiming to create a wall of smoke between Adrian and Ruby.

But in that same moment, Ruby gasped. “Wait!”

Oscar’s eyes widened.

Something fluttered in Adrian’s vision, just outside the visor. He blinked.

A monarch butterfly had landed on one of his fingers.

Another quickly followed, perching on his thumb. Then three more on the other hand.

Adrian held completely still as Danna’s swarm overtook him, alighting on his shoulders, his arms, his toes, even the top of his helmet, he guessed, though he couldn’t feel them. He was afraid to move lest he accidentally crush one beneath a metal limb.

As their expressions morphed from determination to astonishment, Oscar and Ruby gradually let down their guard. Ruby’s muscles relaxed, letting the weapons hang at her sides. Oscar’s smoke cloud dispersed into the air.

They gaped at him, and Adrian found himself fidgeting beneath their stares.

“Who are you?” Ruby finally asked.

He pressed his lips together. He didn’t have to tell them. He could shoo the butterflies away. He could be gone before they would think to stop him.

But was that really what he wanted? To continue with these lies forever? To never be able to trust anyone with this secret, not even his best friends? The team he trusted with his life?

Inhaling shakily, he reached for his helmet.

The butterflies left him. They swirled across the wasteland and took up watch on the toppled statue of a saint, their bright yellow wings the only splotch of color beneath the moonlight.

Adrian unlatched the visor. It hissed as it lifted up, revealing his face.

Their silence was pervasive. He tried to read their expressions, searching for disbelief and betrayal. But mostly they just seemed stunned.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Adrian said, and the words came out more pleading than he’d intended. “Especially not my dads. Or … or Nova either. I need to be the one to tell her.”

“Nova doesn’t know?” Ruby said, her own voice carrying a bit of a squeak.

Oscar answered for him. “Of course not. She hates the Sentinel.”

Adrian frowned, but couldn’t deny the truth of it.

Releasing a string of expletives, Oscar ran his hand through his hair. “How could you not tell us? I thought—all this time!”

“I know. I’m sorry. I wanted to. But after the parade, when Danna got hurt—”

“Because of you!” Oscar yelled. “She got hurt because of you!”

Adrian shrank back. “I know. It was an accident. I would never … I didn’t mean to.”

“And you were there,” Oscar continued, shaking his head. “At the library and … and chasing after Hawthorn. How did we not see it?”