Adrian’s shoulders fell. He cursed quietly beneath his breath.
Nova lowered her head. The pain that came with the memories was coupled with guilt. She had relived that night countless times in her thoughts, all the while knowing—she could have stopped it. If she had been brave. If she hadn’t run. If she hadn’t hid.
She could have put the man to sleep. Saved Evie, at least, if not her parents.
But she’d been a coward, and …
And she’d been so sure. So sure that the Renegades would come. It was her faith in them that had destroyed her family, almost as much as the hitman himself.
“After that, every time I closed my eyes, I would hear those gunshots in my head. I couldn’t sleep. After a while, I stopped trying.”
Even recently, when she had briefly fallen asleep inside Max’s quarantine, the nightmare had plagued her. The hitman looming over her. The cold press of the gun to her forehead. The gunshots echoing through her skull.
BANG-BANG-BANG!
She shuddered.
Adrian rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “Nova,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry. I knew they were killed during the Age of Anarchy, but I never thought—”
“That I witnessed it? I know. It wasn’t something I thought belonged in my Renegades application.”
He nodded in understanding, his expression heavy with sorrow.
And though telling the story brought her sadness, it also brought anger. The resentment that had crowded out her own sorrow for the last ten years.
Where were the Renegades? She wanted to shout. Where was the Council? Where were your dads?
She clenched her teeth and peered down at their entwined hands. His was warm and solid, while her hand had gone limp.
“My mom was murdered too,” he whispered.
She swallowed. “I know.” Everyone knew. Lady Indomitable had been as much a legend as any superhero.
“I didn’t see it happen, of course. No child should have to go through that. But I did”—his brow scrunched in pain as he spoke—“for a long time, I wondered if maybe it was my fault. At least, in part.”
She jerked, startled at how his words mirrored her own guilt. “How could it have been your fault?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, but…” He grimaced. “Remember how I said I used to have really vivid nightmares? The ones with the monster? Well, part of that recurring dream I had was where my mom would leave our apartment, flying out through the window to go save the day somewhere in the city, and I would be watching her go, when … this shadow would come over her and she wouldn’t be able to fly anymore. I would watch her fall. I would hear her scream. And I would look up and the monster would be on the rooftop, just … staring at me.”
Nova shivered.
“I had that dream more times than I could count. It got to where I would throw tantrums every time my mom put on her costume. I didn’t want her to go. I was so terrified that she wouldn’t come back. And then, one night, she didn’t.” He met Nova’s gaze. “When they found her body, it was clear the fall had killed her, and there was a look of … of terror on her face. For a long time I thought that my dreams had made it come true. Like maybe they were prophetic or something.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Nova, squeezing his hand. “They were dreams, Adrian. It was just a coincidence.”
“I know,” he said, though Nova wasn’t sure if she believed him, or if he believed himself. “But she could fly. How could she have fallen so far without being able to…” He lowered his head. “No villain ever took credit for her death, as far as I know. Which is unlike them—a lot of the villain gangs liked to brag about their victories. And killing Lady Indomitable … that would have been a victory worth bragging about.” His voice turned sour, and it was clear that this mystery had haunted and frustrated him nearly as long as Nova’s past had tormented her.
“You want to find out who did it,” she said slowly, “so you can have revenge.”
“Not revenge,” said Adrian. “Justice.”
She shivered. He said it with conviction, though she wasn’t sure he would recognize the difference in his own heart.
And what of her own heart, she wondered.
Did she want revenge against the Council, or justice?
Her whole body felt heavy thinking about it.
This wasn’t for her. This moment of peace. This sense of safety. This world with no heroes and no villains, where she and Adrian Everhart could sit holding hands inside a childhood dream.
This world didn’t exist.
Rubbing his forehead, Adrian let out a sigh. “I’m sorry. This,” he said, gesturing around, “is supposed to be a dream, not a nightmare.”
A faint smile twitched at the sides of her mouth. “It is a dream, Adrian. The first I’ve had in a long time.”
His eyes shone at her words. Then he fished his marker from his jeans pocket and glanced around. “I have an idea,” he said, turning to a crumbling stone wall. He began to sketch. It amazed Nova that he could create something real and tangible out of nothing. He could go on like this forever, creating a dream within a dream within a dream.
He drew a set of large headphones and pulled them from the stone. He held them out to Nova. “Noise-canceling headphones,” he explained. “Not even gunshots can get through.” He nudged her shoulder with the headband.
Nose wrinkling with doubt, Nova took the headphones and slipped the padded cuffs over her ears. Instantly the world, which had already been quiet, dimmed to impenetrable silence, fed only by the thundering of her own pulse, the drum of her own heartbeat.
Adrian’s lips moved. A question, she thought, but Nova shook her head at him.
Adrian grinned. He lay down, extending his arm over the patch of moss. An invitation.
Nova hesitated for far less time than she should have, then sank down and settled her head into the crook between his shoulder and his chest. It took a moment for her to get comfortable with the headphones on, but when she did, she realized that there were two heartbeats now drumming against each other. Though the aromas from the jungle had filled the room, this close to Adrian she could smell the chemical tang of paint mixed with an undercurrent of pine-scented soap.
Her attention landed on the star. It never dimmed. Never brightened. Never changed at all. Just hovered, peaceful and constant.
And this boy, this amazing boy, had made all of this.
She remembered why she had come there that night. To find the Vitality Charm. To protect herself in the upcoming fight with Agent N. To fulfill her duty.
It could wait. Just one more hour. Maybe two. Then she would put Adrian to sleep and she would continue with her plan.
For now, in this strange, impossible dream, it could wait.
Steadily, slowly, their heartbeats fell into sync. Nova listened to them thumping in tandem for what might have been an eternity. She was still staring at the star when, unexpectedly, it winked out and Nova fell into a quiet, dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
SHE AWOKE TO THE SOUND of birds. In that hazy place between sleeping and waking, it seemed entirely normal that the city’s cooing pigeons and squawking crows had been exchanged for the trill and chatter of far more exotic creatures.
The tranquility lasted for only a moment. Eyes snapping open, Nova jolted upward, one hand sinking into moss and the other landing on a discarded pair of headphones. A blanket tumbled around her hips.
“Great skies,” said Adrian. He sat a few feet away, his back against the statue. A large sketchbook rested beside him, a pencil settled in its gutter. From her vantage point she could make out an upside-down, half-completed toucan.
He smiled. “For someone who never, ever, ever sleeps, you sleep like a pro when you want to.”
Nova palmed her eyes, trying to rub away her drowsiness. “Time is it?”
“Almost five,” he said. “At night. You’ve been sleeping for nearly twent
y-four hours straight. Which, by my estimate, still means you’re nowhere near caught up.” His expression turned serious, that little wrinkle forming over the bridge of his glasses. “I tried calling the number in your file, to let your uncle know where you are, but it said it’s been disconnected. Is there another number I should try? He must be worried.”
She blinked at him in bewilderment, unable at first to distinguish between the pretend “uncle” mentioned in her official paperwork and Ace. Her head felt like it was filled with fog and she wondered if everyone woke up this … this groggy. That was the word for it, right? Groggy?
How did people stand it?
“No, it’s fine,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s used to me disappearing at night and not coming back for days. Hard to be cooped up inside while everyone else is sleeping. Plus, now, with patrol duty…” She raked her fingers through her hair, working out a few snags. “Anyway, I’ll … uh … check my file. The number probably got entered wrong.” She rubbed her lashes again and was surprised to find flecks of white caught in them. “Have I really been sleeping for…” She froze, a sting of panic coursing through her limbs. “Do you think it’s because of Max? Is this some sort of aftereffect?”
“What, we can’t give credit to my magically efficient, noise-canceling headphones?”
Nova frowned, even as her fingers fell on the headset.
But then she realized he was joking. “Actually, the thought crossed my mind too. It could be related. Max mentioned having some mild insomnia since you were in the quarantine that day. We know he got a small portion of your power. So maybe now you’re capable of sleeping, but you can sleep by choice, not out of necessity? Or maybe the … conditions have to be right.” He cast a wistful look at the headphones.
Nova curled her fingers around them. Even now, all these years later, she could hear the gunshots inside her head, deafeningly loud. She wasn’t convinced that a set of headphones would allow her mind to rest, after ten years of terrors.
Or perhaps it didn’t have much to do with the headphones at all. She flushed, remembering how it had felt to lay her head against Adrian’s chest. To listen to his heartbeat. There had been a feeling she couldn’t recall having experienced since she was a child.
The uncanny sensation of being safe.
Adrian was watching her, his expression serious. “It’s all right, Nova,” he said, leaning toward her. “It’s been weeks since you came in contact with Max, and this is the first time you’ve slept since then. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that still makes you a prodigy.”
She blinked, realizing how drastically Adrian had misinterpreted whatever he was seeing on her face. He thought she was worried about her powers, but that was a long way from the truth. She knew her true power—Nightmare’s ability to put people to sleep—was intact. She wasn’t afraid of that.
No, what she feared was something far, far worse, and had much more to do with the way she had sunk so easily into oblivion while in the arms of Adrian Everhart.
She was afraid, even now, of the way her fingers were twitching to reach out and touch him, when she never felt compelled to touch anyone, unless it was to disarm them.
And she might have been terrified of how hard it was to keep her gaze from straying to his mouth, or how her own traitorous lips had started to tingle, or how her own heartbeat had become an entire percussion section inside her chest.
Adrian’s eyes narrowed, just slightly. “What’s wrong?” he asked. A little suspicious, a little uncertain.
“Nothing,” she whispered.
Everything, her mind retorted.
What was she here for?
Not to sleep. Not to tell Adrian all the secrets she’d kept locked up her entire life. Not to be reminded for the umpteenth time how things might be different, if only …
Well. If only things were different.
What was she doing here?
Her gaze darted up to the boughs of the surrounding trees, where she spotted an all-white parrot. “The birds are new,” she said, eager to change the subject. To think about something else, before her mind tracked to kissing again.
Adrian didn’t respond for a moment, and she desperately wanted to know what was going through his head.
Had he thought about kissing too?
Her fingers curled around the blanket that had been tucked around her while she slept. Twenty-four hours. He must have been awake for ages now. How long had he been sitting there while she slept? Had he been watching her? And why was it that the possibility normally would have been annoying, if not downright creepy, but now all it did was make her worry that she might have said something incriminating in her sleep? Or, worse … drooled.
No. No, that wasn’t worse. She mentally shook herself, telling her thoughts to get themselves in order.
This was why sleep was dangerous. It addled her senses, and she needed to be on full alert. It made her vulnerable, regardless of how safe she had felt in Adrian’s arms.
“It felt like it needed wildlife,” said Adrian, “and I had some free time. And now I know that I can only draw so many parrots before losing interest.”
She shook her head warily. If Callum ever got ahold of Adrian’s sketchbooks, he would be beside himself. “You’re incredible, you know that, right? I mean … you can create life. First that dinosaur, and now an entire ecosystem?”
Adrian laughed, and though his skin was too dark to be sure, she was almost certain he was blushing. “I don’t think of it like that. I can create … the illusion of life.” He tracked the blue wings of a bird as it hopped across the canopy overhead. “I have a vague idea of how birds fly, and I know they eat bugs, and if they were chased by a falcon they would run away. But they’ll never learn or grow beyond what they are now. They won’t build nests or hatch eggs. They’re more like … like automatons, than real birds.”
Nova peered at him and tried to feel like his humble comments were warranted, but she knew he was underselling himself.
Typical Adrian.
Before she could respond, someone shouted from what seemed like miles away—
“Adrian! Dinner’s done!”
Nova tensed, surveying their jungle sanctuary.
She had forgotten, completely forgotten they were indoors at all, and not in the overgrown ruins of a long-dead city.
They were at his house. His mansion. The one he shared with the Dread Warden and Captain Chromium.
And his dads were here.
Adrian, too, seemed momentarily shaken. “Right,” he said, closing the sketchbook over the pencil. “Are you hungry?”
Her lips parted. Suddenly her breaths were coming in short, uncomfortable bursts.
Dinner. An everyday family dinner.
With them.
Shutting her mouth again, she forced herself to nod. “Yeah. Actually, I’m famished.”
“Me too.” Adrian stood and offered a hand, which she pretended not to notice as she pulled herself up using the crumbled stone wall. She wasn’t ready to touch him again. She didn’t want to know how much she would enjoy it.
By the time she turned back, his hand had slipped into his pocket. In addition to the long-sleeved tee, he had changed out of his jeans into gray sweatpants, and there was something so intimate and relaxed about it that she almost found him even more handsome this way.
And he was handsome.
She’d noticed it before. A million different times, it seemed. The high cut of his cheekbones. The full lips that so easily gave way to that subtle smile. Even the glasses, thickly framing his dark eyes, added an air of ease and sensitivity to his features that made her mouth run dry when she stopped to think about it.
She was beginning to think she might really be in trouble.
She followed Adrian through the lush foliage and drooping vines. He pushed aside the leaves of some prehistoric-looking plant, and there was a plain wooden door set into a plain white wall.
Nova glanced back one time, wishing she had taken
the time to admire the statue, and the star—what she was beginning to think of as her star—before she crossed over the door’s threshold and returned to reality.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
NOVA FOLLOWED ADRIAN out of the basement and back up the narrow staircase, her mind churning as she tried to determine the likelihood of this being a trap.
Not much, she thought. She had been asleep for an entire night and day, and as uncomfortable as that made her, she had to admit that nothing had happened. She had not been attacked or captured.
And yet, her hackles wouldn’t lower, not completely. There was always a chance. A chance that Winston had finally revealed Nova’s identity, or that some incriminating evidence had been dredged up on her while she slept. Twenty-four hours was more than enough time for something to go wrong.
Adrian nudged open the door at the top of the stairs and Nova braced herself as she stepped into the imposing foyer again. The mansion, though, seemed as quiet and orderly as before.
She followed Adrian into a formal dining room, with wainscoting on the walls and a crystal chandelier dangling over a cherry wood table, which was large enough to seat twelve or more. Rather than being set with fine china and silver cutlery, the table was littered with newspapers, many still wrapped in rubber bands, and piles of junk mail, and two issues of Heroes Today magazine.
Adrian nudged his way through another door and the sounds of life engulfed Nova. Dishes clinking. A fan whirring. The steady beat of a knife against a cutting board.
The moment she stepped into the open-concept kitchen, her eyes darted not to the two men who were cooking, but to the large arched windows surrounding a casual breakfast nook, and a door that might have led to an exit … or maybe a pantry. To the block of kitchen knives on the granite countertop, and the cast-iron skillet simmering on the stove, and the row of bar stools that would shatter against Captain Chromium, but might be able to stun the Dread Warden if swung with sufficient force.
Once she had mapped out all possible exits and deduced enough potential weapons that she could feel confident she wasn’t powerless, not even here, she dared to greet her hosts.
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