Page 109 of Archenemies

A caption read, “I was the doctor’s twenty-sixth victim.”

Holding the stapled pages by their spine, Nova flipped through the rest of the book. Images of the boy flashed by, along with a bunch of other children, being locked in jail cells and subjected to various tests by the scientist and his minion nurses. The last page showed the boy crying over the body of a girl—Patient Y. The final dialogue bubble read, “I will find a way out of this, and Iwillavenge you. I will avenge you all!”

At the bottom:To be continued…

Shaking her head, smiling openly now at this glimpse into Adrian’s eleven-year-old imagination, Nova reached for Issue 2 in the box. Her fingers had just closed around it when she heard a door open at the end of the hallway.

She froze.

Footsteps.

Immediately her brain clamored for an excuse.Adrian decided he wanted me to see these old comics after all. I was just going to bring them downstairs to look at and…

But her excuse went unneeded. The footsteps thumped down the stairs.

Nova listened, motionless. At some point during her search, the water had stopped running through the pipes.

She stuffed the comics into the box and closed it, pushing it back onto the shelf. She grabbed the folder detailing headquarters plans and the list of international dignitaries.

She approached the door and peered out. The double doors across the landing were cracked open, blue light spilling out along with the sound of the evening news.

She frowned. She had only heard one of them go downstairs, so the other was still in there.

Options: wait for them both to fall asleep, then slip in to search the room. Or create a diversion to lure them out.

The first option seemed the least risky.

She would wait. And if Adrian woke up in the meantime, well, she would just put him to sleep again.

She had all night.

When she was sure the coast was clear, she slid into the hallway and scurried back down the stairs, keeping close to the wall where there was less chance of making the old nails squeal beneath her feet. She reached the foyer and was rounding the column when she heard whistling again.

It was coming from the hallway. She would have to walk right by it to get back to the basement.

Flinching, she turned the other way and darted through thedoor into the dining room, closing it quietly behind her. Pulse thrumming, she took in the room with its fancy wood paneling and glittering chandelier and the scattered piles of junk mail. She considered diving under the table, but that would appear far too suspicious if she was caught. Instead, she slipped the file beneath a particularly chaotic stack of mail and rushed into the kitchen, where the dishwasher was running and the smell of garlic hung heavy in the air.

She could no longer hear the whistling.

She held her breath.

Then the door to the dining room opened, and the whistling started up again.

Cursing, Nova ran for the best hiding place she saw—the closet that Simon had said would be turned into a pantry someday.

She ripped it open. Her feet halted. She reeled back in surprise.

A wooden rod across the top might normally have held coats and jackets, but she found herself staring, unbelievably, at the Dread Warden’s black cape and Captain Chromium’s shiny blue bodysuit. Both were tucked into plastic bags with dry cleaner tags dangling from the hangers. Lumped together on the floor beneath them were six sets of Renegade-issued boots, and a utility belt, not unlike Nova’s own, hung from a peg on the back of the door.

Her jaw fell.

There it was.

The Vitality Charm, hanging around the neck of the Dread Warden costume, glinting in the kitchen’s light.

What was it doing in abroom closet?

Swallowing hard, she reached in and unhooked the chain from the hanger. It was heavier than she expected, roughly the size of a silver dollar, with the hand and serpent engraved into its dark surface.

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