His concentration broke.
Nova saw it the moment it happened. His eyes widened, his lips parted, and his body dropped back to the ground, while all those sleek glass buildings crashed down around him.
Nova grimaced, embarrassed on his behalf.
But then she saw pain shooting through Max’s expression. Not the sort of pain that accompanied a hard fall, but the sort of pain that was excruciating. She pressed her nose into the glass, her own breath misting against it, and tried to make out what had happened.
As soon as she saw the blood, she turned away from the window and started to run. Down the corridor, past the elevator bank, into the stairwell. She launched herself over the steps to the next landing, then down the next, her feet barely touching the ground. She burst out of the doorway and raced across the sky bridge. She could see Max through the quarantine walls. He was on his knees, bent forward, cradling his hand. His right arm was soaked in blood.
Nova rounded the side of the quarantine and yanked open the door to the tertiary chamber. She charged for the next door, pulled down the lever to release the air lock, and pried it open.
An atmosphere-controlled chamber waited for her. Screaming in frustration at all these barriers, she bolted forward and yanked open the second door.
Her breath hitched.
She was inside the quarantine.
Max hadn’t moved. His back was to her, but he’d fallen onto his hip. He looked back when he heard Nova enter. Pain was still drawn into his features, but his eyes widened in fear when he saw her. Fear and panic and desperation. Nova looked at his hand, which was covered in blood. Beside him, she saw the bloodied spire of the Woodrow Hotel.
“Sweet rot,” she breathed, and already her mind was creating a checklist. Clean the wound. Bandage it up. Get him to the medical wing, or if no healers were available, get him to the hospital.
Nova started making her way through the glass city, kicking aside the fallen buildings in her path.
“No—” Max gasped.
“It’s okay,” said Nova. “You’re fine. You might be in shock, but you’re fine.”
“No, Insomnia, stop!” he yelled. He started to back away from her until he collided with the wall of the arena. “Stay there!”
“You need medical attention,” she said, halfway down Drury Avenue. “Just some basic first aid and then I’ll get you to the heal … healers…”
Her body began to slow.
Her lungs contracted, expelling her last breath.
She stumbled, grabbing the model of Merchant Tower for support.
She blinked at Max, but her vision had blurred.
Terror crossing his features, Max stood and tried to step over the arena, but his ankle caught and he stumbled, knocking over one of the great standing floodlights. “Go back!” he screamed. “Get out!”
But Nova couldn’t move. Her breaths wheezed as she slumped forward. Her eyelids were so heavy. Her brain was clouding over with … with exhaustion.
She felt like her limbs were full of sand. Like her skull was thick with fog.
She fell onto her side. Her shoulder smashed into the model of Gatlon City Hospital. Its north tower tipped over and shattered on the street, which was the last sound she heard before darkness engulfed her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THERE WERE TWO all-night eateries within a one-mile radius of Renegade Headquarters, and Adrian and the team were frequent patrons at both. Sometimes they just seemed like a better option than coming back to HQ and getting something out of the vending machines or snacking off the cold salad bar in the cafeteria, which stopped serving hot food after nine. Fighting crime burned a lot of calories and sometimes a superhero needed a gooey grilled cheese sandwich or a giant chocolate chip waffle smothered in whipped cream.
He didn’t know if cataloging data or whatever it was Nova was doing for the arms department burned a lot of calories, but Adrian did know that everyone needed to nosh when they were awake in the wee hours of the morning, and he doubted that an inability to sleep changed that.
As it was, he needed a distraction, anyway. Since the team was still technically on the Nightmare investigation case, which was fast becoming the Anarchist investigation case, they’d spent the last few days following every lead they could to try to find Ingrid Thompson, the Detonator. Frequenting any business she’d ever been known to visit. Calling on any citizen that might have had a connection to her, no matter how tenuous—a classmate from high school, a long-ago neighbor. So far, everything had led to dead ends, and Adrian couldn’t help but feel like they were wasting their time. They needed something recent and concrete. Video footage or an eyewitness spotting or … he didn’t know. Maybe a stash of glowing blue explosives discovered in an abandoned warehouse. Something tangible.
In lieu of something that would further the case, though, Adrian had three nights of restless sleep and, now, a bag full of sandwiches from Mama Stacey’s Greasy Spoon. Since he didn’t yet know Nova well enough to be able to guess her preferred sandwich order, he’d brought an assortment—a grilled cheese, a turkey club, a roast beef, and a southwest chicken wrap. He felt like he had the major bases covered, sandwich speaking, and Stacey had thrown in six bags of potato chips because, quote, “Gotta keep our heroes fed.” Wink.
He still wasn’t sure what the wink meant.