Page 107 of Archenemies

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 toblock out the noise of the gunshots as her purpose became clear again. As she remembered why she was there. Why she wasreallythere.

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 forgetwhy.

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 thoughshe 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,amazingdrawings 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.

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