She didn’t want an apology, or pity, or sympathy, or even kindness. She didn’t need those things from anyone, least of all a bunch of Renegades.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
NOVA STAYED ON THE ROOF for more than an hour, longer than she’d meant to, but when she realized she was expecting one of the Renegades—no, expecting Adrian—to come check on her, it sparked a sense of stubbornness that refused to ebb long after she knew she should have gone back down to their makeshift surveillance room.
She wasn’t waiting for him. Why would she?
Even as she stood on the roof, watching the silent stone facade of the library, the stillness of its black windows, the occasional car that breezed past on the street, she could feel the words heavy on her tongue, waiting for their chance to come out.
Why did you stop sleeping? he would ask.
And against every ounce of logic inside her, she would answer.
I fell asleep—the very last time I ever slept. And when I woke up, there was a man with a gun. He killed them both. He killed my sister. He tried to kill me. And the Renegades didn’t come …
After that, every time I tried to sleep I would hear it happening all over again, until, eventually, I stopped trying.
That was her origin story. The whole of it.
And it was none of Adrian’s business, or anyone else’s for that matter.
She couldn’t understand why talking about it had made her so defensive or given her such a strong compulsion to tell them the truth of her power and where it had come from. She’d never told anyone, not in so many words, though she thought Ace understood the gist of it, and of course all the Anarchists had figured out that she wasn’t one for sleeping not long after she’d moved into the cathedral. But she’d never had any cause to actually tell someone the story. She’d never really wanted to.
Why would she now?
Instead, she paced. Back and forth across the rooftop, enjoying the fresh air on her skin. Though she’d worn leggings and a simple T-shirt, civilian clothing, as instructed, she’d opted to wear the uniform boots she’d picked up at headquarters earlier that day. She figured she might as well use this reconnaissance mission to start breaking them in, though now she could tell it wasn’t necessary. They were, in fact, ridiculously comfortable, and a part of her hated the Renegades for winning even at this.
Finally, when she felt sure that any compulsion to give out unnecessary information was gone, Nova made her way back down to the fourth floor.
Ruby and Oscar had fallen asleep. Oscar had not moved from his spot on the pillows, and Ruby was now lying with her head beside his, but her body perpendicular, so they made a kind of right angle on the floor with nothing but their heads nearly touching. It seemed almost as though Ruby had gone out of her way to place herself in a position that wouldn’t suggest anything beyond the fact that she was tired and Oscar was hogging the pillows.
Though she could have moved her pillow to the other side of the blanket. If she’d wanted to.
Stepping over Ruby’s legs, Nova approached Adrian. He had pulled the desk in front of the window and now sat with his feet dangling over the side, with a sketchpad on his lap. He was drawing the library with quick, hasty lines, focusing mostly on the dark shadows that spilled from the alley.
Nova climbed up onto the desk and sat beside him, her toes tapping against the glass.
“You all right?” Adrian asked, without looking up.
“Fine,” said Nova. “The view from the roof looks pretty much the same as the view from here.”
“I know. I scouted it out yesterday morning.”
Her lip twitched and again she wasn’t sure what was more annoying—that he hadn’t followed her to ask about her parents, or that she still sort of wished he had.
“So, other than squiggly dinosaurs and bracelet clasps”—she glanced at the sketchpad—“what sort of things do you like to draw?”
He hummed in thought, sketching in a blur of shrubbery around the library’s foundation. “I draw a lot of tools and weaponry for the Renegades. Armor pieces. Handcuffs. Things that might come in handy when we’re out patrolling. Not just for our team, but for everyone. It’s really made a big difference in the things we can accomplish.”
“I bet it has,” said Nova, trying to keep any resentment out of her tone.
“But when I’m left to my own devices,” said Adrian, “I like to draw the city.”
“The city?”
He set down the pen and turned back the pages of his notebook. A number of them were blank and she wondered if there had been drawings there before—drawings that had since been brought into reality—until he arrived at a series of dark, detailed images. Unlike all the marker drawings she’d seen, these were done in charcoal. He handed Nova the sketchbook and she took it delicately, feeling her breath hitch.