Archenemies (Renegades, #2)(49)

Adrian put the throwing star back into the box and slid it up onto a table.

Nova exhaled. “At least we don’t have to worry about her anymore, right? The other Anarchists are scary enough, but I sure am glad Nightmare’s been taken care of.”

“I suppose…,” Adrian said.

Nova frowned at him. “What do you mean, you suppose?”

He shrugged. “We haven’t really proven that she’s dead.”

Goose bumps raced down her arms. “What?”

Adrian started pawing through a trunk, mostly filled with cheap magic tricks and plastic party favors. “They never found a body, or … any evidence at all that she was killed.”

“Because she was obliterated,” said Nova, more forceful than she’d intended to be. “The Detonator’s bomb destroyed her. No wonder there was nothing left!”

“Maybe. I mean, it definitely caused a lot of damage, but … shouldn’t there have been something? Body parts? Blood?”

Nova gawked at him. All this time, all these weeks, she’d felt sure about this one thing, at least. This one thing that had actually gone right. She had faked her own death. The Renegades believed that Nightmare was gone. They had called off the investigation. It was one less thing for her to worry about, and she’d embraced it heartily.

And Adrian didn’t believe it?

“But … but no one could have survived that explosion.”

“You did.”

She froze.

“You were in the fun house when the bomb hit.”

“I … I was on the opposite side of the fun house,” she whispered. “And I was protected by a giant metal cylinder.”

Adrian’s lips tilted upward again, but she could tell he was humoring her. “I know. You’re probably right. She’s probably dead. I just … wonder about it, sometimes.”

“Well, don’t.”

He chuckled, but quickly became serious again. Sliding the cardboard box beneath the table, he stood. “You know, we never talked about what happened that day.”

Nova’s pulse jumped, and just like that, she was back in the neglected corner of Cosmopolis Park, and Adrian was telling her how worried he’d been when he thought she was dead, and he was stepping closer, and her breaths were coming quicker—

“Do you want to talk about it?” His eyes were on her, unsure.

Heat climbed her neck and blossomed across her cheeks. Did she want to talk about it?

No, not really.

She wanted to pretend like it hadn’t happened. She wanted to start over.

She wanted him to try to kiss her again, because this time, she wouldn’t run away.

“I … I’m sorry,” she said, wetting her lips. “I think I just … I just got scared.”

It was true. It was still true. She was scared. Scared that she felt this way for Adrian Everhart, a Renegade. Scared that she couldn’t quite escape it, no matter how many times she reminded herself that he was the enemy.

Scared that even now, she knew that she wasn’t trying to get close to him only because Ace had suggested it. If anything, that was just a convenient excuse to do exactly what she’d wanted to do all along.

“Of course you were scared,” he said. “I was terrified.”

“You were?”

“But you were braver than I was. I completely froze up, and you…” He trailed off.

Nova stared at him, perplexed. She was brave? He froze up?

“But still, even if the Detonator was a monster, I know it couldn’t have been easy. You killed someone, and—” He lifted both hands like he was trying to calm her, but Nova wasn’t upset. She was baffled. “You did what you had to do, but it couldn’t have been easy, and … I just … if you want to talk about it, you can talk to me.”

“About … killing the Detonator,” she said, as her thoughts reshuffled and fell back into place.

Here she was, dwelling on an almost-kiss, and Adrian wanted to talk about the time she’d killed someone.

“I’m sorry,” Adrian said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I just thought—”

“No, it’s fine. I mean … I was offered trauma counseling, if I wanted it, but I don’t really feel like I need it.” And she wasn’t about to spill her innermost thoughts to a Renegade psychiatrist, even if she did need it. “The thing is, killing the Detonator wasn’t hard.” She exhaled, and wanted to move closer to Adrian, but there was so much stuff between them. So much baggage. Her entire past life laid out at their feet, and she couldn’t bring herself to wade through it. “It wasn’t hard at all. She was hurting all those people, and she would have hurt so many more.” Her palms were becoming damp, but she forced herself to hold Adrian’s gaze and tell him the truth, what she had known even then was the truth. “She would have hurt you.”

Surprise warmed his features. “Nova…”

She turned away, her heart fluttering with the way he was looking at her.

Then—“Nova.”

She glanced up again, and Adrian was suddenly grinning. He pointed to something behind her.

Nova peered up. Her shoulders fell.

Winston’s puppet, Hettie, was perched on the topmost shelf over Nova’s old desk, its wooden legs dangling over the side, its sad eyes watching them as though it had been listening in on the whole conversation and found it severely disheartening.