Page 86 of Archenemies

He tried to persuade himself that going after them, after Hawthorn, wasn’t worth the risk.

His fingers dug into his blankets.

Hawthorn would be captured. She would be brought into custody. The stolen drugs that hadn’t yet made their way to the black market would be confiscated.

Frostbite would get the glory, but that shouldn’t matter to Adrian. The point was that justice would be served, and a wrong would be made right. As right as could be at this point, anyway.

But for every logical reason to stay put, his brain threw back an excuse to go after them.

What if Frostbite’s team failed? What if Hawthorn got away again? They could use an extra hand. A backup, just in case.

He turned his head to the side. The light on his wristband was still blinking.

Adrian gnawed on the inside of his cheek, feeling the strain of the internal debate tugging at him.

Stay safe. Stay hidden. Let the Sentinel rest in peace.

But somewhere deep inside, he knew it wasn’t going to happen. He knew from the moment his dad had confessed that her team had been chosen over Adrian’s.

He would go after Hawthorn. He had to.

“Just to make sure,” he said, snatching up the wristband and bending it around his wrist again. “You won’t reveal yourself unless it’s absolutely, positively necessary.”

It wasn’t because he had something to prove. Not to himself or his dads or… or even Nova.

No, this wasn’t about him. This wasn’t about the Sentinel.

This was about justice being served.

***

IT WAS ALMOST NOONwhen Adrian reached the port, the signals from his wristband guiding him from rooftop to rooftop. His heavy boots thumped loudly as he landed on the cabin of an old crane that years ago would have been used to lift the shipping containers from arriving barges. Judging from the film of dirt on the cabin’s windows, he doubted anyone had used it for years. Frostbite’s tracking signal was coming from a stack of shipping containers that had long ago been left to rust once international trading had been halted. The industry had picked up significantly over the past decade, but a lot of the infrastructure that was in place before the rise of Ace Anarchy had been left to slowly deteriorate.

Beyond a fence on the other side of the storage yard, he spotted the patrol vehicle with the redRpainted on its hood—a van large enough that even Gargoyle would have been able to fit inside.

Adrian climbed halfway down the crane’s tower before dropping to the ground. He landed hard, sending up a thick cloud of dust. He approached the shipping containers from behind, making his way through the rusting labyrinth in the storage yard.

A crash made him freeze. It was followed by the roar of splitting earth. The ground trembled beneath Adrian’s feet, and dust was knocked from the towering containers, raining onto his helmet.

That had to be Mack Baxter—Aftershock.

A second later, he heard an enraged scream, and then the back of a container was blown across the path, not thirty paces in front of him. Hawthorn’s brambled tentacles emerged first, slithering out from the container like a giant octopus.

Adrian crouched, then launched himself into the air before Hawthorn could spot him. He landed on the roof of the nearest container with a tooth-rattling clang, but the sound was disguised beneath Frostbite’s shrill scream. “Stingray! Gargoyle!”

Hawthorn roped her extra limbs around the nearest stack of crates and hauled herself up them, lithe and quick. Seconds later, she was speeding across their rooftops, heading toward the water.

She was getting away.

Again.

Growling, Adrian fisted his right hand and thrust his arm toward her. The cylinder on the forearm of the armor rose out of his skin and began to glow white-hot as the laser prepared to fire. He was a better shot with the laser than he’d ever been with a gun, and she wasn’t too far away yet. He could hit her. He could—

Somewhere below, he heard Gargoyle roar, then Hawthorn screamed in surprise as the tower of crates she was running across swayed and toppled to one side. She yelped and reached out with two of the tentacles, grappling for the next container. The extralimbs caught, the thorns puncturing the metal with a shriek that made Adrian wince.

Hawthorn dangled for a moment, caught her breath, then with a loud groan hauled herself up to the roof.

She had just flopped onto her stomach when Stingray appeared at the other end of her crate, smirking. He said something Adrian couldn’t hear, and Hawthorn looked up, her expression frenzied.

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