But, no, if all went well, she would be wearing that charm as Nightmare, not Insomnia, and the fewer clues that connected her to her alter ego, the better.
“Nova?” he said, so quietly she almost thought she imagined it.
She turned her head up.
Adrian held her gaze for all of half a second, before he leaned down and kissed her.
Nova gasped against his mouth, overcome not just with surprise, but also by the current that jolted through every nerve.
Adrian pulled away, worried again. His eyes were a question. His lips an invitation.
Nova’s mouth felt abandoned. The kiss had been too short and already her hands were itching to touch him, her entire body aching to move closer.
Though she knew what she had to do and she knew this was a terrible idea, she reached her hand behind his neck and pulled his mouth back to hers.
The kiss escalated fast. Hesitant curiosity and then, from nowhere, a desperate, unfulfilled need. To be closer. To kiss deeper. To touch his face, his neck, his hair. Adrian’s arms circled her waist and he pulled her across him, turning Nova’s body so she was cocooned in his arms.
He hissed suddenly and jerked away.
Nova’s eyes snapped open, her heart catapulting into her throat. Adrian’s features were contorted in pain. “Adrian?”
“Nothing,” he said through his teeth, one hand pressing against his side. His face softened again as he peered at her.
“What—”
“Nothing,” he repeated, and then he was kissing her again, and concerns about whatever had hurt him dissolved. Nova was shaking, overwhelmed by so much physical contact all at once. His lips. A hand in her hair, another against her ribs. Her body half draped across his lap, his heartbeat drumming against her chest, and his lips, great skies, his lips …
And still, that voice whispered in the back of her mind, reminding her why she was there despite how she wanted to ignore it.
Adrian’s fingers curled against the back of her head. She was reclined so far now that she felt the arm of the couch beneath her shoulders. Nova squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to believe that this was the whole world. Just Adrian Everhart and every one of his magical touches.
But still, that relentless voice persisted, reminding her that this wasn’t real. This could never be where she belonged. Adrian Everhart was not meant for her and she was certainly not meant for him.
Except—that voice faded into background noise, replaced with the heat from his mouth and the press of his arms, and another, quieter voice made itself known. A voice that could have been trying to catch her attention ever since the first moment she had met Adrian and her heart had lurched at the sight of his open smile.
Why not?
Why couldn’t she belong here? Why couldn’t she have this? She would simply never go back. She would go on pretending to be Nova McLain, Renegade, for the rest of her life. No one would ever have to know. This could be real.
She kissed Adrian harder, and he moaned in response. If she could just hold him tight enough … If she could just make this moment last …
Bang. Bang.
Her eyes shot open. Adrian didn’t seem to notice, his fingers having discovered at that moment the bared skin of her waist. Nova trembled from the sensation, from the overwhelming convergence of too many desires crashing into her all at once.
The quiet voice of dissent was buried fast beneath her rising guilt. No, no, no. To choose Adrian would be to abandon the Anarchists, to abandon Ace.
BANG.
Choosing Adrian would be to abandon any chance of retribution for Evie and her parents.
Nova squeezed her eyes shut, tighter than before, hoping to block out the noise of the gunshots as her purpose became clear again. As she remembered why she was there. Why she was really there.
She had failed her family once when they needed her. She would not do it again.
Nova held herself against Adrian, her fingers gathering fistfuls of his shirt. Tears were building behind her eyelids. She had to do this. She had to.
And if she didn’t do it now, she might forget why.
As her body flamed in Adrian’s hold, Nova released her power into the place where their lips met. It rolled through her, gentle as she could make it. It had been a long time since she’d been kind with her power. Not since putting her sister to sleep all those years ago.
Still, the effect happened just as fast.
Adrian’s fingers loosened from her hair. His arms sagged. His head lolled to one side, breaking the kiss, and his body collapsed across the back of the couch, pinning Nova against the cushions. His breaths, which had been as erratic as hers moments ago, were already slowing.
Nova exhaled.
She stared up at the ceiling, her vision blurred with unshed tears. She spent a moment memorizing the weight of him and the warmth seeping through her clothes. They were tangled together—her knees curled around his hip, his arms trapped beneath her back. Her own fingers were resting on his neck and it was so easy to imagine how perfect this moment would be, if only it were real. Just a girl and a boy, cuddling, stealing kisses, falling asleep in each other’s arms. Everything so simple and uncomplicated.
If only.
She started to extract herself. She moved slowly, even though she knew he wasn’t going to wake up. As she shifted her weight off the couch and slid to the floor, Adrian readjusted himself, sinking into the sofa. The side of his face rubbed against the cushion, knocking his glasses askew.
Nova reached for his temples and pulled the glasses off his face. She folded down the sides and set them on the coffee table, then went and gathered a blanket from his tousled bed. She draped it over him, thinking of how he’d done this same thing while she’d been asleep. Had he paused to inspect her peaceful face, like she was doing now? Had he considered kissing her while she slept, like Nova found herself tempted to do? Her lips were still tingling, having been interrupted before the craving was satisfied.
But Nova knew that Adrian would never steal a kiss from her like that, and neither could she.
Instead, she stood and straightened her clothes, then scanned the room. She couldn’t be sure how much time she had. Using her power gently like that tended to shorten the duration of sleep, and her powers had seemed different lately too. Weakened slightly, ever since she’d been caught in the quarantine with Max.
But she should have an hour at least, maybe two. It would have to be enough.
Where was he keeping that pendant?
She peeked under his bed first, then through the drawers of a small desk, but all she found were old electronics, broken colored pencils, and an entire kit for tattooing, which she figured must be related to yet another one of his artistic endeavors. She flipped through his collection of video games, and through a chest of drawers full of T-shirts and socks and underpants, after which the visual of Adrian in black cotton boxers became nearly impossible to shake from her thoughts.
Cheeks burning, she approached a bookshelf in the corner, where a stack of worn sketchbooks was sandwiched between a collection of comics and a set of Disastrous Duo action figures. As a kid, she had once kept an entire chemistry set inside the carved-out pages of a geographical dictionary, so she figured it was as good a hiding place as any.
She pulled out a stack of sketchbooks and started flipping through them, but one after another, she was met with actual pages of actual books, with actual, amazing drawings on them. Cityscapes and portraits and pages upon pages of odd symbols—a series of tightly wound curls, like springs, and others resembling small flames—but there was no context for what Adrian had been thinking when he drew them. They were followed by some preliminary concept art for the mural in the next room.