Page 96 of Archenemies

“What does it do?” said Nova, which might have been a strange question. What did any star do?

But Adrian merely shrugged. “It’s your star. You tell me.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. Was it her star?

“I don’t know. I woke up before anything happened.”

A part of Nova wanted to reach out and touch it. The star emanated a comforting warmth, and she didn’t think it would burn her, like a real sun out in the real universe. But she was worried that she would ruin the spell if she touched it. Maybe it would fade away. Or, perhaps worse, maybe nothing would happen at all. She didn’t know which of them was more responsible for dreaming this star into existence—her or Adrian—and she didn’t want to tempt disappointment by finding it was nothing more than a pretty visual effect.

She breathed in the aroma of dew-soaked leaves and intoxicating flowers. Shutting her eyes, Nova sank down, sitting cross-legged on the soft moss. It was easy to fall into the tranquility of this place. To believe this was the real world, hundreds of years in the future. The city had fallen, and there were no more villains and no more superheroes. No more Anarchists, no more Renegades, no more Council. No more struggles for power.

Just, no more.

She opened her eyes as Adrian lowered himself to the ground beside her, a little stiffly, she noticed, as he tried not to bend around the wound on his side.

“Is it terrible,” she said, “that it might take the fall of humanity to make me feel this relaxed?”

It took Adrian a moment to respond, but he sounded serious when he said, “A little.”

Nova laughed, a real one this time. He chuckled too.

“Why?” he asked. “Why is it so hard to relax?”

She dared to look at him. She knew he wasn’t prying, and that he wouldn’t push her, despite his curiosity.

She braced herself.

She thought it would be hard to form the words, but it wasn’t. Not really. They’d been perched in the back of her throat for ten years, waiting for her to speak them. She thought back to the first night she had sat and talked with Adrian, reallytalkedto him, when they were running surveillance on Gene Cronin and the Cloven Cross Library. She hadn’t told Adrian about her family then. She hadn’t confessed her complete origin story. But somehow, she felt like she’d always known that she would tell him, eventually.

“When I was six years old, I once fell asleep holding my baby sister. Evie.” Her voice was low, barely a murmur. “When I woke up, I could hear my mother crying. I went to our door and I looked out into the hallway and a man was there, holding a gun. I later found out my dad was being blackmailed by one of the villain gangs, and when he didn’t fulfill part of their bargain, they hired this guy to… punish him.” She frowned, her gaze lost in the shadows between ferns and fallen tree trunks, her memory trapped in that apartment. She scrunched her shoulders againsther neck, once again paralyzed with fear. “He shot my mom,” she whispered, “and then he shot my dad. I watched it happen.”

Adrian’s hand twitched, drawing her focus out of the shadows and down to his graceful fingers, his dark skin. He didn’t reach for her, though she thought he would hold her hand if she moved first.

She didn’t.

“I ran to my bedroom and hid in the closet. I heard him come inside, and… then I heard…” Tears began to fill her eyes. “I heard Evie. She woke up and she started to cry, and… and he shot her too.”

Adrian jerked involuntarily, a flinch that shuddered through his whole body.

“She wasn’t even a year old yet. And when he found me in the closet, I looked in his eyes and I could tell, I could just tell that he didn’t feel an ounce of remorse. He’d just murdered ababy, and he didn’t feel anything.”

This time, Adrian did reach for her hand, slipping his fingers between hers.

“He aimed the gun at me, and…”

Nova hesitated, realizing at the last moment that she couldn’t tell Adrian this part of the story. The shock of being on the verge of speaking an unspeakable secret startled her from the memory.

“And my uncle showed up,” she said, swiping at her nose with her sleeve. “He killed the man. He saved me.”

Adrian’s shoulders fell. He cursed quietly beneath his breath.

Nova lowered her head. The pain that came with the memories was coupled with guilt. She had relived that night countless times in her thoughts, all the while knowing—she could have stopped it. If she had been brave. If she hadn’t run. If she hadn’t hid.

She could have put the man to sleep. Saved Evie, at least, if not her parents.

But she’d been a coward, and…

And she’d been so sure.So surethat the Renegades would come. It was her faith in them that had destroyed her family, almost as much as the hitman himself.

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