Page 131 of Supernova

Nova still didn’t move. Still didn’t speak.

“Don’t be shy. Our guest asked you a question.” Honey got to her feet and grabbed the papers away from Nova, who didn’t resist. “Now, let’s see, where was it?”

As she started flipping through pages, Adrian realized what they were. His comics.

He sneered. “The Sentinel isn’t exactly a secret anymore, either, you know.”

“Patience, patience,” said Queen Bee. She flipped through the whole comic, the third and final one Adrian had made, the one whereRebel Z first donned the armored suit and transformed himself into a superhero intent on revenge. Reaching the end, she frowned and started flipping back the other way, turning the pages carelessly in her haste. He heard some of the paper rip. She reached the front again and heaved a sigh. Holding the comic up by just the front cover, she tilted her head to the side and started flipping through the pagesagain, as if this new perspective would help.

Adrian raised an eyebrow at Nova.

Groaning, Nova finally stepped forward into the room and yanked the pages out of Queen Bee’s hand. Dropping to her knees in front of Adrian, she set the third issue of the comic aside and found the first issue in the stack, the one where Rebel Z was captured by power-hungry villains, kept locked up, and tortured while all his friends suffered around him.

It was all sounding eerily prophetic.

Adrian tried not to think about that as he watched his old drawings flip past. Though he knew it hardly mattered at the moment, he couldn’t help cringing at the awkward facial features and the hands that resembled pudgy starfish.

Nova stopped on a page where one of the kidnapped kids was being tortured and turned the book around, holding it up for him to see.

He took in the drawing, and couldn’t help the twinge of surprise that coursed through him. One of the kidnapped children was dead, still strapped to a medical table while the doctor and a nurse watched in the background. A shadowy figure was rising up from the boy’s body, like a wisp of formless black smoke, but with a single bony hand pointing at the boy’s dead eyes.

It had been a long time since Adrian had seen the comics. He vaguely remembered the skeletal hands, the dark shadowy cloak. He vaguely remembered how this phantom creature was intendedto get stronger over the course of the series and become one of Rebel Z’s most feared enemies. He vaguely remembered what the creature became—a villain crafted from fear and death, who had no face, no soul, and a mean-looking scythe that Adrian had thought would be fun to use in future epic fight scenes.

It took only a second to guess at what Nova and Queen Bee were suggesting.

But… what they were suggesting was ludicrous.

“What’s your point?” he said, glaring at her over the top of the page.

Nova lowered the comic. “I think this is Phobia,” she said, with such tenderness that he felt his fury flare irrationally.

“That,” he said, nodding toward the book, “is the disembodied soul of a troubled kid who’s been used as a science experiment by an evil branch of the government.”

“Oooh,” said Queen Bee, clapping her hands. “I would read that.”

Sighing, Nova set the comic back on the floor. “It’s not just these comics. I’ve seen your drawings from when you were little. Really little. The phantom from your dreams? You drew it, a lot. And over time, it was turning intothis.” She pointed at the page again.

Adrian let out a hoarse laugh. “Hold on. You really think I created him? Phobia?”

Nova pressed her lips until they went white. There was so much pity in her eyes that Adrian wanted to scream. Had he really been relieved to see her only a few minutes ago?

“It fits the timeline,” she said. “It fits what little we know about Phobia. It explains why no one has any idea who he was or where he came from. He just… appeared, out of nowhere, and right around the time that you would have been old enough to start drawing him.”

“I would have been four!” he said. “Maybefive. I might be good, but I’m not that good.”

She shook her head. “It’s not about skill though, is it?”

He scowled, biting back his irritation. She was right. His superpower didn’t work based on how good of an artist he was. It worked through his intention, though what he believed his drawings could become.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I would remember creating… that.”

“Would you?” interjected Queen Bee. She was still smiling, as if she were enjoying a particularly saucy soap opera. “Do you remember every drawing you made when you were four years old,maybefive?”

He glared at her, even as his breaths began to quicken.

Of course he didn’t remember every drawing. His mom had once joked that Gatlon City would have to open a new paper factory with how many pages and pages of crayon scribbles he was creating.

“There’s also that phrase he uses,” said Nova. “The one he would leave on his victims?”

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