When nothing else followed, Adrian turned his focus on her. She was staring into the quarantine but he didn’t think she was really seeing Max or the doctors or even the glass city. Her eyes were unfocused and haunted.
“Nova?”
“He saw me watching him, and I think it startled him. He fell and…” She gulped. “I think one of the buildings went through his hand.”
Adrian flinched.
“That’s when I ran in, to try to help. I didn’t … I didn’t know.” She blinked, clearing whatever thoughts were clouding her mind. “How long was I in there for?”
“I don’t know,” said Adrian. “You were unconscious when I got here.”
Nova fixed him with a look of disbelief. “Why are you here?”
He gulped, and realized then that he was still touching her, a hand on her arm, the other on her back. She hadn’t moved away, but now that he could feel every sensation through his hands again, he became intensely aware of it. The soft fabric of the uniform. The warmth of her skin through the cloth. He remembered taking her hand at the parade, drawing on her wrist, and how he’d been so blithe about it at the time. How it had seemed like nothing at all—just something nice to do for a stranger.
But now the idea of drawing on the inside of her wrist seemed unforgivably personal.
“I brought you sandwiches,” he said, and he knew it sounded ridiculous as he dropped his hands to his sides. “But I dropped them in the lobby.”
Brow furrowing, Nova glanced over the side of the bridge, and there it was. The paper bag, tipped over, one paper-wrapped, toothpicked sandwich having tumbled out onto the tile.
“I thought maybe you’d be hungry?” Adrian added, somewhat lamely.
Nova stared silently at the lonesome bag for what felt like ages, before she finally turned back to him. Her expression seemed to have cleared somewhat. “People don’t just lose their powers, do they? He steals them. He … absorbs them.”
Adrian nodded.
“So why aren’t you affected?”
He sagged against the rail. “I was. I am.”
Her voice became weak as she said, “We’re not prodigies anymore?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “We don’t get a lot of willing test subjects to help us figure out exactly what Max’s ability does, or how long it takes for it to become … permanent. But I do know there are people who have been around him and not lost their powers. At least, once they’re able to get away from him.”
Nova set her jaw and reached for Adrian, settling her hand firmly over his. There was something determined in the look, bordering on desperate. She reached behind him. Her fingers brushed against his low back and he jumped.
“Where’s your marker?” she said.
Adrian blinked at her. His marker?
Feeling his cheeks warm, he fumbled for the hidden pocket sewn into the lining of his left sleeve. He pulled out the marker and tried to hand it to her.
“Not for me,” she said, though she grabbed his hand anyway so she could hold it still while she ripped off the cap. “Draw something.”
He stared at her, realizing what it was she wanted. Though whether or not he’d lost his powers wouldn’t prove whether or not she had, he could see it was important to her. And, truth be told, he needed to know too. Even if he was afraid the result wouldn’t be what he wanted.
“What are you waiting for?”
“I’m scared,” he said, and he started to laugh when he said it, because he knew what was done was done and avoiding the truth wouldn’t change anything. But still. In this moment, for perhaps this last moment, he was still a superhero.
He and Nova both.
But Nova only let out an annoyed breath. “Don’t be a dolt.”
“A dolt?”
“Draw something!” she yelled, and her anxiety became clear, and for whatever reason, Adrian could see this was the thing she was latching on to, perhaps because her power wasn’t something she could so easily test. Would she ever sleep again? Would she sleep like a normal person? It could be hours, even days, before she knew for sure.
Schooling his face, Adrian picked up her hand, like he had at the parade, and flipped it over so her palm was turned upward. He started to draw, not really thinking about what he was drawing, just allowing himself to sketch whatever came to mind first.
And what came to mind was a dinosaur. A tiny velociraptor, no bigger than her thumb.
Relatively small, but surprisingly ferocious.