“Oh please. He’s caught up in his own thoughts—talking to himself, probably planning out whatever adorably pathetic thing he’s going to say when he sees you.”
“What?” Nova glanced back, but Adrian had already passed out of view.
“I trust you’ve noticed how he looks at you, observant as you are.” Ingrid’s grin turned teasing. “Be careful, little Nightmare. Renegade runs in the blood of that one, maybe more than anyone else in this town.”
Nova’s heart was still drumming, panic thundering through her veins as she pictured Honey in the kitchen, Leroy upstairs … but still, something about the look on Ingrid’s face gave her pause. “You know he’s the son of Lady Indomitable.”
Ingrid guffawed. “Of course I know that. She wasn’t the first superhero we killed, but she might have been the first one that really mattered.” Her cruel smirk made Nova’s blood run cold.
“You killed her?”
“Not me,” Ingrid said, as if this were obvious. “There was still something left of her, after all.”
“But you know who did. Was it an Anarchist?”
Ingrid stilled and peered at Nova, her gaze darkening. “What does it matter to you?”
Nova took a step back and shook her head. “It doesn’t.”
Then she turned and started to sprint back to the house.
“See you tonight!” Ingrid called after her, and Nova would have shot her with the stun gun again just to make her be quiet, except she didn’t have the time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
IT WASN’T A LONG RUN back to the house, and yet she was breathless as she barged through the back door into the kitchen, her pulse pounding in her ears.
The mason jar of honey had been left out on the counter, the sticky spoon balanced across the top, but Queen Bee was nowhere to be seen. Nova darted across to the staircase and was halfway up the steps when she heard a knock at the front door. She squeaked and barged into Leroy’s room. His lab equipment took up half the space, some concoction left bubbling in a copper pot on an electric burner. But Leroy himself had disappeared.
Spinning around, Nova ran across the space into the second bedroom she now shared with Honey, but it, too, was empty but for their sleeping bags and Honey’s air mattress and a few pieces of lingerie tossed haphazardly across the floor.
Nova’s gaze swept up to the attic access door in the ceiling. It was meant to be Phobia’s space up there, though she wasn’t sure how much he’d actually been using it.
Another knock sounded at the door.
Gulping, Nova headed back down the stairs, stopping to peer behind every door and into every closet she passed, but there was no sign of Honey or Leroy.
She was still shaking when she finally opened the front door.
Her first impression of seeing Adrian standing on the stoop of the row house was that he was trying very, very hard not to appear awkward, and it wasn’t working.
He smiled. Uncomfortable and uncertain. Nova was still far too frazzled to return it.
“Hi,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” she blurted in response.
Adrian started, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I was worried about you.”
Those simple words shattered Nova’s mounting frustration with him, but did nothing to dissuade the panic of him being there. Her shoulders drooped slightly, but try as she might, she couldn’t rearrange her features into something calm, confident, even welcoming. So instead, she just kept staring at him, her hand unable to release the doorknob.
“I sent you about a million messages…，” Adrian added, even as his gaze slipped down to her wrist. “Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that you might have just taken the band off.” Taking one hand from his pocket, he scratched behind his ear. “I was having visions of you passed out in a gutter somewhere.”
“Oh. Right,” Nova stammered, remembering the concerned messages she’d gotten from him while she was still at headquarters. “I, um…” She searched for an explanation. “I take it off to … shower.”
The moment she said it she became painfully aware of her very dry, unwashed hair and the fact that she was still wearing the same clothes she’d been in last night when he found her inside the quarantine. She cleared her throat and gestured vaguely back toward the house. “I was going to … but then I got distracted with some stuff…” She inhaled sharply and finally managed something close to a smile. “But I’m fine. As you can see. Not passed out. Not in a gutter.”