Page 138 of Supernova

Her lips moved this time, saying the words to herself.Just pull the trigger.

That was all she had to do and Ace would be proud and Captain Chromium would be devastated and the Anarchists would win. Her family would finally win.

Her own breaths came in strangled hiccups. She was that frightened little girl all over again, staring at the unconscious body of the man who had murdered her family. She was petrified, unable to squeeze her finger, to take that one small action that would avenge her family’s deaths.

Her father. Her mother. Evie. All that she had loved, stolen from her, so brutally, so carelessly.

Her arm started to shake.

This was supposed to be her revenge, and yet… it wasn’t the revenge she’d longed for. This was pain of an entirely new sort.

She couldn’t lose Adrian, too.

A roar came from below, followed by a crash. Ace turned back. The Captain had made it around the front facade and begun scaling the cathedral’s northern wall. The crash had been a saintly stone statue being thrown to the ground and shattering.

Ace’s hands curled into claws. He lowered himself onto one of the stone buttresses, snarling as the Captain launched himself from pillar to window arch, gargoyle to finial. Every time he landed, he punched a new hole into the stonework, forming handholds for himself as he pulled his body higher.

Ace lifted his hands toward the Captain, but Nova wouldn’t know what happened next.

A hand snatched something from her belt. She gasped and swiveled around. Honey had taken her knife.

“For all the diabolical schemes,” said Honey. “If you can’t do it, then I will!”

Honey grabbed Adrian’s forehead and yanked his head back. She reached around, prepared to drag the knife against his throat.

“No!” Nova grabbed Honey’s arm and wrestled it away. Swinging them both around, she gritted her teeth and shoved Honey back against the wall. “Please.”

It was a pathetic plea—a begging, desperate plea.

Honey’s expression was startled, though it quickly darkened. She shoved Nova away. Nova stumbled, but caught herself. She still held the gun, but she wouldn’t aim it at Honey. Her ally. Her friend.

“I thought we were past this,” Honey growled. “He’s a Renegade, Nova. He’s one ofthem.”

“I know,” she said, her voice sounding weak even in her own head. “I know.”

It was all she could think to say. Because Honey was right. And there was no way for her to explain that at this moment, she didn’t care. She couldn’t even ask Honey not to hurt him. She couldn’t suggest that they let him go, because where would he go? And what would Ace think?

But still.

Still.

She’d thought she could do it. She’d thought—for Ace. For the Anarchists. For her family. For this world. She could do it, if that’s what it took for Ace’s vision to come true. For the Renegades to be destroyed once and for all. For all prodigies to have freedom from tyranny. For the balance of power to tip back toward actual balance.

But she’d been wrong.

She couldn’t kill him.

She couldn’t do it.

And she couldn’t stand there and watch him be killed, either. Not this boy, who had given her a quiet, dreamless sleep. Who had given her a star. Who had given her hope.

Not him. Not Adrian.

Honey’s face twisted.

Then Nova heard the buzzing.

She had barely cocked her head when the first wasp landed above her elbow and drove its stinger into her skin.

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