But still, that relentless voice persisted, reminding her that this wasn’t real. This could never be where she belonged. Adrian Everhart was not meant for her and she was certainly not meant for him.

Except—that voice faded into background noise, replaced with the heat from his mouth and the press of his arms, and another, quieter voice made itself known. A voice that could have been trying to catch her attention ever since the first moment she had met Adrian and her heart had lurched at the sight of his open smile.

Why not?

Why couldn’t she belong here? Why couldn’t she have this? She would simply never go back. She would go on pretending to be Nova McLain, Renegade, for the rest of her life. No one would ever have to know. This could be real.

She kissed Adrian harder, and he moaned in response. If she could just hold him tight enough … If she could just make this moment last …

Bang. Bang.

Her eyes shot open. Adrian didn’t seem to notice, his fingers having discovered at that moment the bared skin of her waist. Nova trembled from the sensation, from the overwhelming convergence of too many desires crashing into her all at once.

The quiet voice of dissent was buried fast beneath her rising guilt. No, no, no. To choose Adrian would be to abandon the Anarchists, to abandon Ace.

BANG.

Choosing Adrian would be to abandon any chance of retribution for Evie and her parents.

Nova squeezed her eyes shut, tighter than before, hoping to block out the noise of the gunshots as her purpose became clear again. As she remembered why she was there. Why she was really there.

She had failed her family once when they needed her. She would not do it again.

Nova held herself against Adrian, her fingers gathering fistfuls of his shirt. Tears were building behind her eyelids. She had to do this. She had to.

And if she didn’t do it now, she might forget why.

As her body flamed in Adrian’s hold, Nova released her power into the place where their lips met. It rolled through her, gentle as she could make it. It had been a long time since she’d been kind with her power. Not since putting her sister to sleep all those years ago.

Still, the effect happened just as fast.

Adrian’s fingers loosened from her hair. His arms sagged. His head lolled to one side, breaking the kiss, and his body collapsed across the back of the couch, pinning Nova against the cushions. His breaths, which had been as erratic as hers moments ago, were already slowing.

Nova exhaled.

She stared up at the ceiling, her vision blurred with unshed tears. She spent a moment memorizing the weight of him and the warmth seeping through her clothes. They were tangled together—her knees curled around his hip, his arms trapped beneath her back. Her own fingers were resting on his neck and it was so easy to imagine how perfect this moment would be, if only it were real. Just a girl and a boy, cuddling, stealing kisses, falling asleep in each other’s arms. Everything so simple and uncomplicated.

If only.

She started to extract herself. She moved slowly, even though she knew he wasn’t going to wake up. As she shifted her weight off the couch and slid to the floor, Adrian readjusted himself, sinking into the sofa. The side of his face rubbed against the cushion, knocking his glasses askew.

Nova reached for his temples and pulled the glasses off his face. She folded down the sides and set them on the coffee table, then went and gathered a blanket from his tousled bed. She draped it over him, thinking of how he’d done this same thing while she’d been asleep. Had he paused to inspect her peaceful face, like she was doing now? Had he considered kissing her while she slept, like Nova found herself tempted to do? Her lips were still tingling, having been interrupted before the craving was satisfied.

But Nova knew that Adrian would never steal a kiss from her like that, and neither could she.

Instead, she stood and straightened her clothes, then scanned the room. She couldn’t be sure how much time she had. Using her power gently like that tended to shorten the duration of sleep, and her powers had seemed different lately too. Weakened slightly, ever since she’d been caught in the quarantine with Max.

But she should have an hour at least, maybe two. It would have to be enough.

Where was he keeping that pendant?

She peeked under his bed first, then through the drawers of a small desk, but all she found were old electronics, broken colored pencils, and an entire kit for tattooing, which she figured must be related to yet another one of his artistic endeavors. She flipped through his collection of video games, and through a chest of drawers full of T-shirts and socks and underpants, after which the visual of Adrian in black cotton boxers became nearly impossible to shake from her thoughts.

Cheeks burning, she approached a bookshelf in the corner, where a stack of worn sketchbooks was sandwiched between a collection of comics and a set of Disastrous Duo action figures. As a kid, she had once kept an entire chemistry set inside the carved-out pages of a geographical dictionary, so she figured it was as good a hiding place as any.

She pulled out a stack of sketchbooks and started flipping through them, but one after another, she was met with actual pages of actual books, with actual, amazing drawings on them. Cityscapes and portraits and pages upon pages of odd symbols—a series of tightly wound curls, like springs, and others resembling small flames—but there was no context for what Adrian had been thinking when he drew them. They were followed by some preliminary concept art for the mural in the next room.

Nova slammed the last sketchbook shut and crammed it back onto the shelf.

The medallion was somewhere in this house. It had to be. Adrian wouldn’t have given it—

Her breath caught.

Of course. He would give it away, but only to one person. He had told her as much. We should give it to Simon first.

Huffing, she stepped away from the bookshelf and sneaked around the sofa. She didn’t dare look at Adrian again, afraid the temptation to curl up beside him and forget her task would be too strong to resist a second time.

Squaring her shoulders, she made her way up the stairs.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

NOVA STOPPED TO LISTEN when she reached the foyer. She could still hear dramatic music coming from the movie, and after a long while of standing with her head cocked, she thought she heard a shower running somewhere upstairs.

Squaring her shoulders, she began to climb the oak staircase. The old steps groaned and creaked beneath her.

At the top, a pair of double doors stood to her left. The master bedroom, she assumed. Someone inside was shuffling around, whistling to themselves. Also the direction of the running water, she noted, though the whole house seemed to hum as the water rushed through the pipes.

Opposite the landing was another hallway. Nova slinked forward.

The first door she checked turned out to be a linen closet.

The second brought a smile to her lips.

A home office.

Nova slipped inside, leaving the door open just a crack so she would hear if anyone came down the hall.

She was sure that Simon hadn’t been wearing the Vitality Charm at dinner. If Adrian had given it to him, then maybe it was in their bedroom, or in his office back at headquarters. But she couldn’t very well search either of those places at the moment.

At least, searching their home office might turn up something useful while she waited, hoping the two Councilmen would fall asleep without her assistance.

She approached the large desk, which was overflowing with stacks of papers and files, one of which had toppled over onto a keyboard. Nova grabbed the top file and scanned the label, then the next, making her way through the stacks, searching for anything useful. But these all seemed to be drafts of laws the Council was considering or had already put into effect. Ongoing social projects throughout the city. Plans for future construction. Trade deals with foreign nations.

She turned to the drawers, finding one full of statistics and reports on crime rates of various countries. Near the top of the drawer was a list of the cities around the globe that had Renegade syndicates in operation.

It was a very long list.

Nova set the list aside and turned to a filing cabinet beside the wall. Inside were fat folders outlining plans and blueprints for headquarters and other Renegade-operated properties, from alarm system details to elevator permits. Nothing about the helmet. Nothing about Agent N. But still, it wasn’t bad information to have access to.

She pulled out a few documents to review later and set them beside the list of international syndicates.

She kept searching, though she sensed her luck, and time, were dwindling.

Turning toward the room’s built-in bookcases, she scanned the spines of enormous volumes of legal guides and political manifestos, all published before the Age of Anarchy. On the bottom shelf were a handful of photo albums, and she ignored the curiosity spiked by the chance of seeing adorable kid pictures of Adrian and grabbed a box instead. She pulled off the lid and froze.

A monster was leering up at her from the box.

Breath hitching, she set the lid aside and picked up the top sheet of paper, where a creature had been drawn in frenzied scribbles of black crayon. The creature itself was a formless shadow that stretched to the edges of the paper, leaving only the hollow whiteness to show through where its eyes should have been.

Empty, haunting eyes.

Adrian’s monster.

Nova picked up the drawing that had been beneath it. Another illustration of the creature—a floating mass of blackness. Two outstretched arms almost resembled wings. A bulbous head, the only detail of which was those eerie, watchful eyes.

She flipped through a few more drawings, though they were more of the same. Same, yet each with small differences. Some she could tell were made when he was very young, when his scribbles were more emotion than skill. But some of the later drawings developed details. Sometimes the wing-like arms ended in bony fingers or sharp talons. Sometimes it was a shapeless shadow, other times it was tall and thin. Sometimes its eyes were red, sometimes they were yellow, and sometimes they were slit like a cat’s. Occasionally the monster would be holding a weapon. A jagged sword. A javelin. Iron shackles.

How long had his dreams been wrought with this creature? It was almost a wonder he hadn’t developed insomnia himself.