He couldn’t make himself believe it was all an act.
What if Nova—no, Nightmare—did care for him? Truly cared for him?
It wouldn’t matter.
Because she was a villain and an Anarchist. She was his enemy. She had lied to him about everything.
He choked back the bile that was suddenly stinging his throat.
He hated Nightmare. He loathed her to the core of his being.
He repeated these thoughts again and again, hoping that the unsettled twinge in his gut would go away if he just kept reminding himself of the truth.
I hate her. I hate her. I hate her.
“Sketch?”
His head jerked up. Tsunami was standing in the blackened frame of the row house’s front door, her white gloves smudged with silvery ash.
“We’ve deemed it safe for forensics and the cleanup crew to begin inspecting the home. You’re welcome to take a look around, too. But … as I’m sure you’ve noticed, there isn’t much to see.”
Exhaling, he nodded at Ruby and Oscar. Tsunami disappeared back into the house, but Adrian hadn’t taken two steps when he felt a hand on his arm.
“You don’t have to go in there, you know,” said Ruby.
His jaw twitched. “You heard Tsunami. It’s safe.” There was a definite undercurrent of resentment to his voice, but he didn’t care. He was resentful. And angry. And hurt.
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Ruby tilted her head, sympathy written across her face. “You can leave this to the cleanup crew. It doesn’t have to be you.”
“Actually, it does have to be me,” he rebuked. “I knew her better than anyone. I should have figured out the truth.”
“She fooled all of us, Adrian, not just you. She was my friend. She came out to watch my brothers compete in that silly Sidekick Olympics. She danced with Oscar at the gala. She—”
“She kissed me,” he interrupted. “She made me think that I…” He trailed off, just short of confessing the brutal words that had been clinging to him since the moment he’d found out the truth. I could be in love with her.
It wasn’t true, though. It wasn’t real. It had never been real.
Ruby tensed. “Adrian…”
“Besides,” he went on, “she didn’t fool all of us. Danna figured her out weeks ago.”
“Which was still a long time after she joined our team. Remember how Danna brought Nova a care package when she was in the medical wing? And didn’t she have dinner at your house, with your dads? Honestly, if she could trick the Council, then—”
“I should have known.” Adrian tore his arm away from her. “It’s so obvious, isn’t it?” He squeezed his eyes shut as memories flooded through him. The library. The carnival. His own basement. He shivered, and for the first time when he thought of that night, it wasn’t a good shiver. “I should have realized it sooner, and everyone is going to know that.” It hurt too much to see Ruby’s pity, so he turned to Oscar instead. Sadly, Oscar’s expression wasn’t much better. “It doesn’t matter now. We finally know who Nightmare is. She’s captured, and so is Ace Anarchy. Good against evil. Renegades win again.” He gestured toward the house. “Now let’s go see what else we can learn about our enemies.”
The moment Adrian stepped through the threshold of the row house, though, he knew they wouldn’t be learning much. The house was nothing more than a shell of stone walls, and even their surfaces appeared wilted, like they’d gotten too close to the sun. Tsunami and the others were down in the basement, standing on blackened dirt and ash between the high stone foundation walls, but he could see from their dismay that they were just going through the procedures now. No one really expected this investigation to turn up anything useful.
Adrian took a few steps inside, walking carefully along the narrow foundation wall. He was surprised to see a hallway and powder room to his left with the shreds of scorched wallpaper still visible on the plaster and a towel bar dangling from one screw, until he realized that he was seeing the abandoned neighboring home. The wall that had once separated them was gone.
He took another few steps, though he wasn’t sure why he bothered. At some point he became aware that Ruby and Oscar hadn’t followed him. They were still standing on the threshold, peering into the hollow space that had once been Nova’s home. There was nothing here.
Movement caught his eye and Adrian shifted, peering into the oval mirror that hung over a pedestal sink in the distant parlor room. The ceramic sink had a large crack running through it and half the mirror appeared to have warped from the chemical explosion, its surface now wavy and distorted. The movement had been Adrian’s own reflection caught in its surface.
Or that’s what he thought at first, until another face appeared in the reflection. A girl, pale and haunting and almost familiar …
He jolted in alarm, but before he could call out, the phantom was gone.
His own eyes stared back at him, wide and unblinking. He rubbed his palm into them, trying to clear the vision.
Great. Not only did he have to suffer through a broken heart and debilitating betrayal, but now he was having hallucinations of Nightmare, too?
Nightmare. He realized how fitting the alias had become.
Teeth clenching, he made his way back to the entryway. “This is pointless,” he muttered as he brushed past Ruby and Oscar. “Let’s get back to headquarters, see how Danna’s doing.”
He nearly crashed into a figure on the sidewalk. He drew back, startled. “Oh, sorry, Magpie,” he said, taking in the girl’s dust mask and perpetual scowl. “I was distracted.” He gestured indifferently toward the house. “Should be an easy one. There’s not a whole lot left to clean up.”
Shoulders hunched, he started to move around her.
“You must feel pretty dumb.”
He froze. A mixture of anger and embarrassment welled up in him at Maggie’s haughty tone. He wanted a quick retort to come to him, but that desire fizzled fast with the unavoidable truth. “Yep,” he muttered. “Among other things.”
Magpie leaned against a stair rail. Across the street, two more members of the cleanup crew were milling around a Renegade-issued van, unpacking crates of supplies.
“I never did like her,” said Magpie.
He gritted his teeth, recalling the way Nova had bristled every time Magpie was around. “I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual.”
“I did like that bracelet, though.” Magpie pulled down the dust mask as her gaze fixed on Adrian’s tight-closed fist. He recoiled instinctively. “What are you planning on doing with it, anyway?”
He looked down, and with some reluctance peeled open his fingers. Nova’s bracelet glinted up at him. The delicate coppery filigree that had encircled her wrist from the day he’d known her, and probably long before. The clasp he’d once fixed himself, before he had any idea who Nova was, what she was.
What she would mean to him.
And there was the star. Glowing faintly, casting its golden light on the dust that speckled the air around him. It was warm to the touch and there had been times since he’d taken it off Nova’s wrist that he could have sworn there was a pulse to it, almost as though it were alive.
He wanted to know why Nova had taken it from the statue in his basement. He wanted to know what it was, what it could do, and how it had come to exist at all. It hadn’t been in the painting, but it had been in Nova’s dream, the one he’d done his best to re-create.
It all made his head spin.
More than any of that, though, a deep part of him wanted to get rid of the thing and never see it again. Even holding it now, remembering that night in his handcrafted jungle, Nova breathing softly as she fell asleep in his arms, made his blood run cold.
She was Nightmare. She’d been Nightmare all along.
“I don’t know,” he finally said, clenching his fist over the bracelet again, cutting off the star’s light. “Give it over to Artifacts, I guess.”
“You can give it to me,” said Magpie, in a tone that was a little too rushed, a little too insistent.
Adrian tensed.
Realizing that she’d moved uncomfortably close, Magpie took a hasty step back. “I mean, to take in to HQ. I’ll submit it with the rest of … you know, whatever we find here today. Get it cataloged and … whatever. I can take care of it for you.”
Adrian’s fingers tightened. A subtle instinct warned him not to let the bracelet go. There was a meaning to it that he hadn’t uncovered yet.
Also, there was something about Magpie’s expression. A hint of desperation that unnerved him. A whisper of intuition told him she was lying. Would she really submit it to HQ?
Magpie’s hope darkened into a scowl and she held out her hand, palm up. “Come on, Sketch. This is my job, not yours.”
He stared down at her hand and found that small argument surprisingly persuasive. She was a part of the cleanup crew. She was a Renegade.
And he loathed the idea of carrying this star around for a moment longer.
“I doubt you’ll find anything else to take in,” he said. “But I guess that doesn’t matter.” Smothering his reluctance, he dropped the bracelet into her palm. Her hand snatched it back immediately, as if she was afraid he’d change his mind. “Don’t lose it. That bracelet meant something to No—Nightmare. It could be important to our investigation.”
Magpie’s frown didn’t budge. “Do you think I’m new at this?” She tucked the bracelet into a pouch on the leg of her uniform and marched into the desolate house without another word.
The knot in Adrian’s stomach loosened, just a little, to be rid of the thing. The sooner he could forget every blissful moment he’d had in the company of Nova McLain, the better.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE WAVES OF Harrow Bay crashed against the small boat, sending sprays of water over the edge. Inside the cabin, which was lined with plastic benches bolted to the floor, Nova stared out the condensation-slicked glass, trying to ignore the two guards who stood at either end of the cabin, never once taking their focus from her. Otherwise, she was alone, the only prisoner on this particular ferry ride, heading out to the infamous Cragmoor Penitentiary. She saw it rise out of the thick fog and murky waves like a medieval fortress, surrounded by jagged cliffs and an unforgiving sea. Nova shivered when she saw it, but that could have been the frigid air inside the boat.