Page 51 of Supernova

“Remember when you sneaked me up to the thirty-ninth floor at HQ so we could all be together outside of the quarantine?”

Adrian nodded.

“I was thinking, maybe we could, like, remodel that floor into an apartment for me. We could put up bigDO NOT ENTERsigns, and let everyone know it isn’t safe for prodigies to come up and see me. Maybe it could work?”

Max sounded doubtful, though, and Adrian couldn’t bring himself to lie and say that, yeah, maybe it could. He knew the Council would never allow Max to roam freely around headquarters. He was too dangerous.

But thinking of the glass walls being mounted into place, forming Max’s new prison, turned his stomach.

“What’s wrong?”

Adrian jolted from his thoughts. Max was frowning at him.

“You’re not telling me something,” he said. Not a question.

Adrian swallowed, and it took him a few tries before he managed, “They’re rebuilding the quarantine.”

Max went still. He didn’t seem surprised, exactly. If anything, he appeared only mildly disappointed as he reached for the brownie on the tray. But then he set it down again without taking a bite, and set to scraping the chocolate off his fingers with his teeth instead.

“I wondered” was all he said, when he finally said anything.

“I’m going to talk to them about it,” said Adrian, dropping his sketchbook onto the floor and lowering his feet off the bed. He leaned forward, determined. “I mean, I tried once already, but I’ll try again. They can’t do that to you, Max. They can’t keep you locked up forever. You’re their son, not a prisoner. And you’re a Renegade.After the way you fought to protect the helmet, no one can deny that.”

A ghostly smile crossed Max’s lips. “I didn’t protect the helmet. Nightmare got away with it, and because of me, we lost Frostbite.”

“Who cares about Frostbite? We’re better off without her.”

Max snorted skeptically.

“You’re the Bandit. You helped defeat Ace Anarchy.”

“I was barely walking when that happened.”

“Doesn’t matter. The point is they can’t lock you away like an animal. It isn’t fair, and now that I’m able to be close to you, I can do something about it.”

“Sometimes,” said Max, fiddling with the cloth napkin that hung over the tray’s edge, “I think about being out there, walking around the city. Or being on a patrol team, like you. Stopping bad guys. Being awesome. But then, I think about what would happen if I crossed paths with another prodigy, and before anyone knew what was happening, I was draining their power from them. They wouldn’t be doing anything wrong, just… being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being nearme.” He sighed. “And that wouldn’t be fair, either.”

“We can come up with ways to make sure it doesn’t happen. There’s got to be somewhere else you can go. Somewhere you won’t be surrounded by prodigies.”

“You’re going to convince the Council of this, are you? To let both their biggest threat and their most powerful weapon go free?”

Adrian blinked. He’d never really thought of Max that way, and wondered if that’s really how Max saw himself. A threat. A weapon.

He was just a kid.

He deserved to do normal kid things. He deserved a life.

“I wish you could come home with me,” he said. “The mansion’s so big…”

“But Simon,” said Max.

Adrian sighed.But Simon.

If only they still had the Vitality Charm. Then Max could live at the mansion and all three of them would be protected from his powers. He could have a family, at last. A real family.

“Ow!” Max suddenly barked, shaking his hand.

The velociraptor had bitten him.

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