Page 130 of Renegades

Her body began to slow.

Her lungs contracted, expelling her last breath.

She stumbled, grabbing the model of Merchant Tower for support.

She blinked at Max, but her vision had blurred.

Terror crossing his features, Max stood and tried to step over the arena, but his ankle caught and he stumbled, knocking over one of the great standing floodlights. “Go back!” he screamed. “Get out!”

But Nova couldn’t move. Her breaths wheezed as she slumped forward. Her eyelids were so heavy. Her brain was clouding over with… withexhaustion.

She felt like her limbs were full of sand. Like her skull was thick with fog.

She fell onto her side. Her shoulder smashed into the model of Gatlon City Hospital. Its north tower tipped over and shattered on the street, which was the last sound she heard before darkness engulfed her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

THEREWERETWOall-night eateries within a one-mile radius of Renegade Headquarters, and Adrian and the team were frequent patrons at both. Sometimes they just seemed like a better option than coming back to HQ and getting something out of the vending machines or snacking off the cold salad bar in the cafeteria, which stopped serving hot food after nine. Fighting crime burned a lot of calories and sometimes a superhero needed a gooey grilled cheese sandwich or a giant chocolate chip waffle smothered in whipped cream.

He didn’t know if cataloging data or whatever it was Nova was doing for the arms department burned a lot of calories, but Adrian did know that everyone needed to nosh when they were awake in the wee hours of the morning, and he doubted that an inability to sleep changed that.

As it was, he needed a distraction, anyway. Since the team was still technically on the Nightmare investigation case, which was fast becoming the Anarchist investigation case, they’d spent the last few days following every lead they could to try to find IngridThompson, the Detonator. Frequenting any business she’d ever been known to visit. Calling on any citizen that might have had a connection to her, no matter how tenuous—a classmate from high school, a long-ago neighbor. So far, everything had led to dead ends, and Adrian couldn’t help but feel like they were wasting their time. They needed something recent and concrete. Video footage or an eyewitness spotting or… he didn’t know. Maybe a stash of glowing blue explosives discovered in an abandoned warehouse. Somethingtangible.

In lieu of something that would further the case, though, Adrian had three nights of restless sleep and, now, a bag full of sandwiches from Mama Stacey’s Greasy Spoon. Since he didn’t yet know Nova well enough to be able to guess her preferred sandwich order, he’d brought an assortment—a grilled cheese, a turkey club, a roast beef, and a southwest chicken wrap. He felt like he had the major bases covered, sandwich speaking, and Stacey had thrown in six bags of potato chips because, quote, “Gotta keep our heroes fed.” Wink.

He still wasn’t sure what the wink meant.

Anyway, he hoped Nova would think the gesture was thoughtful. He hoped she wouldn’t be annoyed that he was interrupting her work. He hoped maybe they’d be able to sit and talk, because he kept thinking about the night spent in the office building across from the library and how it had been really nice to talk to her. To get to know her, at least a little.

The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to know her even better. Questions kept popping into his head when he wasn’t around her, but then vanishing the moment they were together, and all the conversations turned toward the investigation again. Questions like, where did she get her ideas for her inventions? And, what was the most bizarre thing she’d ever done to keep frombeing bored at three o’clock in the morning? And, did she have a boyfriend?

He was pretty sure he knew the answer to that last one. She’d never talked about a boyfriend. But then… she hadn’t talked much about her personal life at all, so he couldn’t be sure.

He’d even had this outrageous idea as he was leaving Mama Stacey’s. This fantasy of sneaking into Nova’s cubicle while she was gone and laying out the spread of sandwiches and napkins like a picnic. He could even draw some candles, except that would probably be too much, and he didn’t want her to think this was, like, aromanticthing.

Except a part of him sort of did.

His palms were damp by the time he got to headquarters and he kept having to switch the paper to-go bag from hand to hand so he could rub them dry on his pants. The scanner near the door recognized the signal from his communicator band and unlocked with a clunk. He pushed through the revolving door and immediately heard someone yelling.

Adrian glanced at the security booth, where the guard on duty was screaming into his communicator. “—only two healers on night duty, and they’re both on their way. But what was she thinking, going in there in the first place?”

Frowning, and wondering if something had happened to one of the patrol units, Adrian jogged down the steps into the lobby. His gaze shot up to the bay of windows where Nova had been working lately. He could see the light on in her cubicle, but her desk appeared to be empty.

His hair stood up on the back of his neck as he crossed the inlaidRin the tiled floor.

An erratic pounding made Adrian draw up short. He turned hisgaze toward Max’s quarantine, where a faint light was casting a glow across the lobby.

Max was standing at the quarantine wall. He was wearing plaid pajama pants but no shirt. One hand was wrapped up in cloth—perhaps the missing shirt—while he pounded the other fist against the glass. He was yelling, his face wild with panic, and it took Adrian a moment to understand him.

Adrian! Hurry!

The bag of sandwiches fell from his hand, hitting the floor with a crackle and thud, and then Adrian was sprinting up the stairs to the quarantine. As soon as he reached the sky bridge he saw a body lying inside the quarantine.

His heart jolted.

It was Nova.

She was unconscious.

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