How Much I Know - a Renegades | Marissa Meyer fan fiction

Chapter 21

Mara watched the patrol team's conversing, entranced. They worked so well together as a team. It was honestly making Mara jealous.

"My mom eventually got me a drawing teacher so I could actually make things other than multicolored scribbles..."

Adrian talked without a care in the world. He had no idea that two villains were watching him from behind the wall. He had no idea that his new team member was the most wanted supervillain in Gatlon. He had no idea how much his dads were doing behind his back. He had no idea.

Her thoughts made Mara's heart ache. Here was this innocent boy who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn't fair to spy on him like this, did it?

She looked at Kahless, seeing her intently focused on the scene ahead of them. She looked so assured of herself. Kahless was positive that she was doing the right thing. Mara wasn't sure; had never been sure. Maybe no one ever knew anything, anyway.

Villain. The term suggested evil, and maybe a hint of hurtful intent, but the Anarchists didn't have that intent, did they?

Hero. That referred to goodness and care. But were the Renegades heroes? Was she? Was anyone?

Maybe there was nothing righteous or kind in the world. Maybe perfection was a myth. Maybe it always had been, but people had been too wrapped up in their own uneventful lives to notice.

Mara felt herself hyperventilating. Truths were hard to realize, but she had to suffer for so many others. She needed to learn the truth of the world; sacrifice herself so that there might be happiness in someone's heart.

But it would never be her own heart, her own happiness.

Never.

She kept smiling and nodding along with Adrian's story, a well-practiced act of hers and her father's. It was surprising how little attention could go into attentiveness.

Mara was lost in her own thoughts that she almost missed the story Nova had started telling. She clamped an internal hand over her straying mind and forced herself to focus. This was Nova. Mara should listen to her origin story.

"When I was six, I had a nightmare." Mara shivered at the direct mention of Nova's alias. "It scared me so much that every time I closed my eyes I would remember that dream, and I wouldn't have the slightest hope of sleep. So eventually I stopped trying."

Mara braced herself for the wave of pity that always flowed through her whenever someone shared an unfortunate personal story. As expected, the wash of feeling enclosed her for a few seconds, and she froze. Her face tightened and her arms stiffened. She had always hated this part of the process because she couldn't help the person while she was drowning in their own sorrow. But she also knew that it was necessary to have the feeling because she would be a liar if she couldn't understand other's pain.

Mara recovered from her brief ordeal, and sculpted her features once again into quiet joy, just in time to see Nova hastily make an excuse and walk up to the rooftop. Mara wondered what had happened.

She started to get up, to join Nova on the roof, but Kahless grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. "She needs some time to collect herself. She probably wouldn't appreciate company right now."

Mara frowned. Why wasn't she the one giving the emotional advice? Had she really been that out of it that she didn't even notice people's emotions?

"Work on your skills, Mara," Kahless teased.

Mara was so disoriented from sympathy that she didn't even reply.

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"Mara, wake up!"

She was shaken awake by Kahless. Mara groaned. "What is it?"

"It's morning! The library is opening!" she said excitedly.

"Okay, fine," she said and stumbled up from the floor. She must have fallen asleep sometime during the night. Gazing toward the library gave her the sight of the Closed sign an Open one.

"Did something happen?" Adrian asked, worried. Mara rushed to the hole to see the action.

"The library is open," Nova replied, bored.

"Oh, okay," he said. "We should probably wake up Oscar and Ruby." He looked down at them, their hands almost touching. He shook his head.

"What is it with them?" Nova asked.

"I'm pretty sure they like each other but neither of them wants to admit it," he replied.

"Okay," Nova said. 

She went over and kicked Oscar in the shin. Not hard, but enough to make him groan and say, "What'd you do that for?" Nova smirked. 

"Get up."

She went over and did the same with Ruby. "Ugh, Nova. I liked my dream."

Again, Nova smirked. "Wake up; the library is open."

It was a few minutes, but soon Mara saw Ingrid Thompson, known as the Detonator, walk into the library. The villain pointedly gazed at the room the Renegades were watching from. She looked suspicious, to say the least.

"That was not the plan," Mara hastily whispered to Kahless.

Kahless nodded. "I have no idea what's happening." She looked at Mara worriedly. "This is not good."

Mara nodded, the same expression of dread chiseled on her face.

"That's the Detonator!" Oscar said. It knocked Mara out of her daze. She peered through the hole in the wall again. Nova had the same worried expression that Kahless and Mara had.

"Um, that's Ingrid Thompson all right," she said. Mara knew she was just stalling for her decision.

"What should we do?" Ruby wondered.

"I think we should follow her in, just to make sure she isn't causing any trouble," Nova suggested. Mara realized that Nova was making it easier for Ingrid. It made sense.

"We're supposed to call for reinforcements..." Adrian began, but Nova started to talk again.

"By the time the Renegades get here the Detonator could have killed everyone in the building and our surveillance would all be for not."

The team nodded. "That sounds reasonable. Let's go!" Adrian said.

"Let's go be heroes!" Oscar cried.

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"Should we stay here?" Mara asked when the Renegades had left. She could talk normally now that the team wasn't there listening.

"It would look suspicious if we were in there. Especially wearing this." She pointed to her uniform.

"You're right. But I feel like this isn't going to end well," she continued.

"I agree, but we'll only make it worse going with them."

Mara agreed with the logic but the stress enveloped her as she stared at the library where she'd worked for the past few years. She fidgeted as she watched the Renegades barge in the door.

This would not end well, she knew.