Page 161 of Supernova

Nova fell to the ground, but her body had dulled to the constant battering and she stayed folded around the helmet, bracing to be thrown halfway across the roof again.

But another attack did not come.

Daring to lift her head, she saw Ace examining the fingers of his open hand, his face wrinkled, his hair gray and unkempt.

Agent N was working.

She had no time. Springing to her feet, Nova swiped one hand at her uncle’s, snatching the bracelet from him.

He hardly seemed to notice.

In the distance, the first buildings began to fall, slipping from the sky.

“Adrian!” she screamed, hurling the helmet as hard as she could across the roof.

Adrian caught it one-handed. “What—”

“For Max! Quick!”

Even as Adrian’s face tightened with confusion, he planted the helmet onto Max’s head. The kid gasped, both hands reaching up to pull it off.

“The city!” Nova screeched.

Max froze. He looked out at the city. At the hundreds of structures that were slipping from Ace’s control, being claimed by gravity, starting to plummet back toward the earth. A strip mall struck the ground with concussive force. A bank tower speared through Mission Street, forty floors of glass and steel caving in on themselves.

Max recoiled from the sight at the same time he lifted his arms toward it.

The crumbling buildings slowed their descent, and gradually stilled.

Max groaned. His entire body shuddered.

“Adrian, this too!” Nova threw the star.

Adrian caught it and immediately dropped it with a yelp, shaking his hand as if it had burned him.

He looked at Nova and she looked back, baffled.

Setting his jaw, he went to pick it up again, but Max stretched out his own hand and the star leaped into his grasp. There was a flash, and Nova saw those flickers of energy again, swirling through the wasteland like a brewing storm.

Max’s limbs stopped trembling as the star lent him strength.

In every direction, the buildings haltingly, tentatively, began to settle themselves back onto their foundations.

Nova exhaled, feeling the first wave of relief, when her fingertips began to tingle. She gasped and looked down at her open palm.

A sensation of fragility streamed through her limbs, even as a foggy, sleepy weakness seeped into her mind. It felt like powerlessness. It felt exactly like when she had once gotten too close to Max inside the quarantine.

She pressed a hand to the Vitality Charm under her shirt. It should have been protecting her, but…

The helmet.

It was amplifying his powers.

Perhaps the charm could no longer protect her.

Max, focused on resetting countless buildings back in place, seemed oblivious that he was even doing it. Nova took a step back, then another, wondering if she had the strength to get away from him before he absorbed everything.

She didn’t get far.

---