It had been the last clue Nova had decided to leave, early that morning, not an hour before the park was meant to open. Wearing the boots she’d found remarkably comfortable as Nightmare, even if she had to admit they were not on par with the footwear she’d received as part of her Renegade uniform, she had trudged back and forth, back and forth, hoping to suggest a path frequently traveled.
Nova hopped down to join him.
He took the marker from his teeth. “They’re fresh,” he said, standing and peering toward the fun house. She could see the debate evident on his features before he lifted his wrist toward his mouth. “Send team communication. Insomnia and I are at Cosmopolis Park. We think there might be a connection between Nightmare and the abandoned fun house on the back acre. We’re going to investigate. So far there’s been no sighting of the villain, but we’re preparing for an altercation and might need reinforcements.”
He ended the message and let his arm hang. “Do you think she’s in there?”
“It would be a good place to lay low.”
Adrian started trudging through the overgrown pathways. They passed a graveyard of broken-down rocket ships and cars from one of the original roller coasters, now with prickly blackberry bushes sprouting around their metal carcasses. Though their paint was faded, the bright colors were still at odds with the dreariness of this corner of the park—the rusted tracks and mechanical gears, the broken bits of fence rails and food carts.
Adrian paused at a ticket booth that had once been white but was now so covered in filth and water damage it was difficult to tell. He sketched two sets of handcuffs onto the wood siding. He handed one to Nova and tucked the other set into his pocket. It occurred to Nova that if this day had really been about finding Nightmare from the start, he already would have had these with him. She stared at his profile as he set the point of the marker against the ticket booth again.
“Adrian?”
Hand stilling, he turned his head to look at her.
She swallowed. “Was this a date?”
His lips parted, at first in surprise, but then in hesitation as he searched for a response. Pulling the marker away from the booth, he used the capped end to scratch behind his ear. “Well. This was the first time a girl’s ever won me an enormous stuffed Dread Warden doll, so … you tell me.”
Her cheek twitched. “That wasn’t a real answer.”
“I know.”
They stared at each other, and Nova’s heart started doing acrobatics inside her chest.
“Would you have said yes,” said Adrian, “if it was?”
No, her brain said. Emphatic and aggressive. No.
While something else whispered back … Maybe.
But Nova, suddenly a coward, looked past Adrian’s shoulder and plastered a startled frown to her face. “I think I just saw something.”
Adrian spun around, simultaneously reaching his arm out to tuck her behind him, which was so obnoxiously gallant Nova found herself wanting to both shove the arm away and also take his hand into hers. In fact, as she stared down at the fingers that were just barely brushing against her own, she had the most absurd notion to lace her fingers through them and lift his hand to her mouth, to place one single kiss against those knuckles.
The flash of fantasy paralyzed her.
“Where?” said Adrian.
“Inside the fun house,” said Nova, the words feeling robotic and rehearsed. “Oh, wait. I think it might have just been that creepy doll up on the balcony.”
She lifted her eyes to the remains of a mannequin on the second floor. It was wearing a sodden clown costume—though someone had long ago taken its head.
They watched, unmoving, for a long while.
“Maybe we should go inside and look around?” she said.
Adrian nodded. “If we do see Nightmare, you know not to let her touch you, right?”
She shivered, looking again at his dark skin, his lithe fingers—touching her, but not really.
“I know,” she murmured, and moved back just enough to break the hesitant contact.
Reaching up, Adrian began to draw onto the side of the ticket booth again. Nova closed her eyes while she waited. She focused on her breath, trying to drown out the surge of sensations flooding her body. She needed to stop thinking about handsome smiles and small touches and kisses and dates. If Adrian liked her—really liked her—it was only because he didn’t really know her.
He would never like the girl beneath the lie. He would never like Nova Artino. And it didn’t matter to her anyway, because she could never fall for a Renegade.