“No, thank you,” said Nova, stepping into the room and letting the door shut behind her. After ensuring she was alone in the room, she reached back and turned the bolt on the lock. The room looked how she imagined a college dormitory would look, but with better quality furniture. A narrow sleeping cot, the blankets neatly tucked around the corners. A glass-topped desk containing today’s edition of the Gatlon Gazette and a sleek table lamp. A small counter in the corner with a built-in sink. A full-length mirror hung on the back of a closet door.
The only decoration was a large framed poster over the bed—a vintage print showing a spread taken from some comic book Nova didn’t recognize. In the vibrant color panels, a masked superhero was scooping a red-haired woman into his arms and flying her to safety above a jutting city skyline. The woman’s eyes were shining deliriously as she cried out in bold Comic Sans—“I knew you’d come! You always come!”
With a disparaging laugh, Nova turned away from the print.
The room was nice. Far nicer than what she was accustomed to. But there was something faintly unnerving about the place. It was too clean, too neat, too perfect.
Too full of false promises.
She would not be lured into security by simple comforts like a noticeable lack of vermin skittering across the floor.
She unrolled the gray bundle and held the uniform up by the shoulders. It was a simple bodysuit that would cover her from throat to wrist to ankle, with red detailing along the limbs and a red R emblazoned on the chest.
She shook her head at it and sighed. “All right, Insomnia,” she said, dropping the uniform onto the bed and peeling off her shirt. “It’s too late to change your mind now.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ADRIAN WAS BEAMING when he entered the lounge. In the hours since he’d gotten permission from his dads for his team to handle the library surveillance mission, he’d already been to visit the location of their first non-patrol task. He hadn’t gone inside the library, but he’d staked out an abandoned office building just across the street that would provide them with a perfect place to set up, and a particular corner office with a window looking straight into the alleyway around the library’s east side, where a back door struck him as the perfect entrance for shady people coming to do shady dealings. He’d made a list of supplies, from binoculars to snack foods to a deck of cards, because a bored Oscar was a dangerous thing. Mostly, though, his head had been full all morning of fantasies in which his team not only uncovered a ring of black-market weapon dealings and put Gene Cronin behind bars, but where they easily tracked down and arrested Nightmare too.
He spotted Oscar and Ruby playing Battle to the Death, one of two standing arcade games in the lounge, there to keep the patrol units entertained when they waited for an assignment. The game was a classic two-person combat challenge, and Oscar and Ruby developed an instantaneous rivalry when it had been brought in the year before. As far as Adrian could tell, their skills continued to be neck and neck, to each of their continued frustrations.
He came to stand behind them as Ruby’s avatar did a roundhouse kick that sent Oscar’s flying offscreen. Ruby whooped and flung her hands outward in celebration, smacking Adrian in the nose. He cried out and pulled back, adjusting his glasses with one hand and pressing the other over his nose.
Ruby recoiled. “Sorry!” she squeaked, though her look of remorse quickly turned into a suspicious scowl. “Except, not really, creepy stalker guy. How long were you standing there?”
“About two seconds,” said Adrian, scrunching his nose a couple times to clear the painful tingling that was running through the cartilage.
“Oh,” said Ruby. “In that case … sorry!” She paused. “Except, still not really, because I totally just beat Oscar’s high score!” She pumped her fist into the air.
“This battle is far from over,” said Oscar, leaning against the machine. “I demand a rematch.”
Ruby popped her knuckles. “You can have as many rematches as you’d like. I am never giving up this lead.”
“Hey, guys,” said Adrian, “where’s the new girl? You didn’t scare her off already, did you?”
“Changing,” said Oscar, jerking a thumb over his shoulder while Ruby deposited a new coin into the machine’s slot.
“Oh,” said Adrian, glancing toward the private rooms, just as a figure emerged from the hall. He straightened. “Oh.”
Nova caught his eye and seemed to falter midstep.
Breaking away from the others, Adrian approached her, tucking his hands into his pockets. He was still in jeans and a jacket himself, figuring there wasn’t much point in putting on his uniform if they wouldn’t be doing any patrol duty.
“How does it feel?” he said.
She glanced down. Holding her bundled street clothes in one arm, she ran her other hand self-consciously down the side of the uniform. “Long.”
Adrian followed the look and saw that the legs of the uniform were puddled on top of her sneakers.
“But I can sew,” she said. “I’ll fix them when I get home.”
“Naw, don’t worry about it. I’ll have the alterations department pull another uniform and amend it. You’ll have it tomorrow, or maybe the next day. They can get backed up right after the trials.”
Nova opened her mouth and he could sense an argument building there, so he quickly added, “We didn’t bring you on to be a seamstress.”
She hesitated, then closed her mouth again, and in that moment Adrian realized what made her look so different when she’d first emerged from the hallway. At first, he’d thought it was just seeing her in uniform, a uniform that stood for bravery and strength, traits she’d displayed at the trials but that were now exaggerated by the bold red R.
But no, it wasn’t that at all.
She looked different because she seemed, in that moment, laughably, almost hysterically uncomfortable. Nervous and maybe even a little awkward, rather like she had when he’d drawn the bracelet clasp onto her wrist. It almost didn’t seem possible that this could be the same girl who had challenged the Gargoyle with unwavering courage. Who had emanated nothing but fierce determination while surrounded by an entire arena of screaming spectators.