Page 85 of Renegades

“But you could sleep before then?” said Ruby, her gaze on the library.

“Sure. Not as much as most kids. But… some.”

“Could you still, though? If you wanted to?” said Oscar. “Or is it impossible for you to sleep anymore?”

Nova shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I wanted to.”

“What happened when you were six?” asked Adrian.

She met his gaze, and the memory was right there. The dark closet. Evie’s crying. The man’s remorseless stare.

“I had a dream,” she said. “I dreamed there were these tiny little squiggly dinosaurs that kept trying to bite my toes and when I woke up, I thought, that’s it. Never again.”

Oscar and Ruby laughed, but Adrian’s gaze only softened. “What a nightmare.”

She shivered.

“Your parents must be saints,” said Oscar, pulling her attention toward him. “To put up with a kid that never slept? I hope you were good at entertaining yourself.”

His words struck her in the chest. She flinched, and Oscar blanched, his eyes widening in horror. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

The unexpected apology caught Nova off guard, and the sting of his words was quickly replaced with suspicion. Did they know? How did they know?

“Your papers mentioned, um…” Oscar rubbed the back of his neck.

Adrian cleared his throat. “You live with your uncle now, right?”

Nova’s gut clenched again, even though she knew Adrian’s question had been well intentioned. An attempt to draw all their thoughts away from the single explanatory line they must have read when they reviewed her fake papers.Both parents were killed by an unknown villain gang during the Age of Anarchy. Currently resides with Peter McLain, paternal uncle.

“Uh, yeah,” she stammered. “He took me in after…” She swallowed. “They died a long time ago.”

“How old were you?” Ruby asked, her voice soft, though her attempts to be calming only made Nova’s hackles rise.

She fixed her gaze on Ruby. “Six.”

From the corner of her eye she saw Adrian tilt his head curiously.

Six when her parents died. Six when she stopped sleeping.

How had this edged so treacherously close to the truth?

Without looking at him, Nova pulled herself to her feet. “I’m going to go scout out the roof. We might have a better view of the alley from up there.”

Ruby and Oscar traded looks and she could tell they wanted to stop her. Or maybe apologize, though the words didn’t come, and Nova was glad for it.

She didn’t want an apology, or pity, or sympathy, or even kindness. She didn’t need those things from anyone, least of all a bunch of Renegades.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

NOVASTAYEDONTHE ROOFfor more than an hour, longer than she’d meant to, but when she realized she was expecting one of the Renegades—no, expectingAdrian—to come check on her, it sparked a sense of stubbornness that refused to ebb long after she knew she should have gone back down to their makeshift surveillance room.

She wasn’t waiting for him. Why would she?

Even as she stood on the roof, watching the silent stone facade of the library, the stillness of its black windows, the occasional car that breezed past on the street, she could feel the words heavy on her tongue, waiting for their chance to come out.

Why did you stop sleeping?he would ask.

And against every ounce of logic inside her, she would answer.

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