Page 57 of Supernova

“Max!”

Then Max turned again and started to run. This time, he didn’t hesitate. He launched himself from the edge of the rooftop, arms extended.

Adrian’s breath caught and he braced himself, prepared to jump forward and catch his brother at the first sign of danger.

But it wasn’t necessary.

Proud laughter tumbled from Adrian’s mouth, at the same time Max whooped with joy.

Adrian had been right. The Bandit could fly.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE PRISON CAFETERIAwas eerily silent, as usual. Nothing but sniffles as noses dripped from being out in the freezing wind and the click of plastic cutlery on plastic trays. Nova stood at the back of the line, envying how the pant legs of the jumpsuit in front of her actually fit the wearer. She kept having to roll hers up.

The line shuffled forward.

She shuffled with it.

Her attention switched to the nearest table, where a couple of inmates sat beside each other on the same side, facing the back wall of the cafeteria. To further discourage talking, all seats were on one side of the tables, so all inmates faced the same direction as they ate. Nova eyed their trays, though she wasn’t sure why she bothered. She had the menu memorized by now. Roll. Mystery vegetable. Potato. Fish. It must not have been Sunday, because she didn’t see anyone with a coveted slice of cheese.

An odd gesture caught her attention. One of the seated inmatestapped the handle of her fork twice against the side of the tray before scooping up some vegetables. A second later, the prisoner beside her used the tines of his fork to scrape against his tray’s corner.

Nova didn’t know what it meant, but she was sure they were communicating.

Someone grunted behind her, and realizing that the line had moved, she shuffled forward and claimed her own tray.

She sat at her usual place, between the usual peers who, as usual, did not try to speak to her. She scrutinized the room with renewed interest, though. Now that she’d noticed the sly exchange, she started to see more signs of it. At least, what she thought might be a secret language between the inmates. Some gestures were so subtle—a scratch on the nose, a scrape of a shoe, a spoon swirled counterclockwise over the table—that a lot of it could have been coincidental.

But she was sure that a lot of it wasn’t. The inmates had found ways to speak to each other, after all.

She wondered how long she would have to be here before she started to understand it.

“You know the Puppeteer?”

The question was asked so quietly, Nova almost thought she’d imagined it.

She glanced to the side, at a bald man whose skin and eyes were both neon yellow. Between that and the bold stripes of the jumpsuit, it was hard to look at him without squinting.

For his part, he kept his attention resolutely on his food.

Nova dug her fork into the fish, flaking it apart. Just before popping it in her mouth, she muttered simply, “Yeah.”

For a long while her neighbor was silent, and she thought that might be the end of the conversation.

But then—“He all right?”

She paused with a chunk of roll half demolished in her mouth. Was Winston all right?

After swallowing, she answered, “Don’t know. Haven’t seen him in a while.” She considered telling him that Winston had been neutralized. That the Renegades had stripped him of his powers. But she didn’t know if the inmates here knew about Agent N, and she didn’t think she could explain it in muttered half sentences.

Her neighbor kept on scooping food into his mouth.

Nova slowed down her own pace. Usually she ate quickly, so as to gulp down as much of the food as possible without actually tasting it. But it was so nice to speak with someone, to have any human interaction, that she was already dreading when it would end.

“They came for him weeks ago,” the man finally said. “Figured he’d be back by now.”

Nova thought about that. Wherehadthey taken Winston after he’d been neutralized? She supposed it made sense that they wouldn’t send him back to Cragmoor—he wasn’t a prodigy anymore. Had he been shipped off to that civilian prison upstate? Or a mental health facility? Or was he still at Renegade Headquarters, being subjected to yet more experiments that he hadn’t volunteered for?

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