“Yeah, lucky you,” she said, grabbing the bag that Adrian had sketched that morning and slinging it over her shoulder.
His expression fell a little. “I know it’s not exciting, and your skills obviously lend you to much more hands-on missions—”
Nova laughed. “It’s okay. I’m not disappointed. If anything, I’m a little relieved.”
And it was true, though she’d let him assume his own reasons for it.
This was a mission she could work with. She could easily play the role of dutiful Renegade, while not doing or saying anything to incriminate Cronin, who had always been an ally of the Anarchists. If anything, she might even be able to find a way to lead the Renegades off his trail … and hers.
“Good,” Adrian said. “Then we’ll see you tomorrow.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Great. Right. I’ll … uh, see you then.” She turned and started back for the elevator. “Thanks for the tour.”
She had just stepped inside when she heard her name.
“Nova?”
She glanced back.
“How’s the bracelet holding up?”
She held Adrian’s gaze, feeling once again the way he’d gripped her hand, the gentle trace of the marker’s tip on her skin, the flutter of her pulse beneath it.
She shook her wrist slightly, feeling the brush of metal against her skin, right at the edge of the uniform’s sleeve. “Hasn’t broken again.”
He nudged up his glasses and for just a moment, he looked almost shy. “Just let me know if you ever need anything, um, drawn. Okay?”
The elevator doors closed before Nova could think how to respond to this. As the car started to sink, she held up her arm, inspecting the bracelet’s clasp for what must have been the hundredth time. The mirroring details, the subtle difference in color. When he had drawn it, he had made the clasp functional, so that it could be unclasped and taken off if she wanted to, though she never did.
She spun the bracelet around and peered at the socket where a gem would have been placed if her father had finished it, but she wasn’t really seeing the bracelet or the chain or the empty prongs.
Her mind raced over the past few hours, struggling to sort through everything she’d learned, trying to discern how much of it was valuable and what she would need to gather more information on in the coming weeks. The elevator reached the ground floor. As she crossed the lobby of Renegade Headquarters and headed back onto the streets of Gatlon, she traced over her memories of the day.
She saw an underground training room full of powerful enemies.
She saw a woman in some sort of specialty hazard suit coming to collect samples from a boy they called dangerous and valuable.
She saw two Council members making their way through the lobby, laughing as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
She saw Adrian and that subtle shift of confidence, that hint of awkwardness as he watched the elevator doors close.
As she put more distance between herself and the headquarters, she began to feel the pressure of eyes following her. It was rare enough to spot a Renegade in the city that people stopped to gawk at her as she passed, and a few tourists even snapped her photo. Then there were the opposite reactions—the prodigy haters who sneered, or the ones who wouldn’t make eye contact out of fear or disgust.
Either way, admired or loathed, Nova became more eager with every step she took to get home and get out of her uniform as fast as possible.
She wasn’t a Renegade.
She was Nightmare.
And she did not like to be seen.
CHAPTER TWENTY
EAST NINETY-FOURTH AND WALLOWRIDGE was an even crummier neighborhood than Nova had envisioned. It wasn’t that she was too proud, exactly, to have the Renegades thinking she lived there. It was just—if she was going to be given a fake home, couldn’t Millie have picked something a bit nicer? Maybe one of those abandoned mansions in the suburbs or a condo with a water view or, at the very least, a place that didn’t look borderline condemned?
The home that Nova McLain apparently shared with her uncle was a row house with a brick facade sandwiched between more row houses, each with peeling paint on their window trim and tiny yards overgrown with grasses and weeds. There was trash in the street gutters, empty beer bottles on her front step, and an old tire leaning against the wall. One of the upstairs windows appeared to have a bullet hole through it, and a couple of their neighbors had their doors and windows completely boarded up.
Standing on the sidewalk, she let her gaze travel up and down the street, taking in the graffiti on the walls, the cars on blocks. It was so still and quiet that she couldn’t be sure if anyone lived there at all. If they did, they were awful caretakers.
At least they live somewhere with daylight, a voice whispered in the back of her thoughts.
Nova frowned at her brain’s intrusion into her critique of the neighborhood, but then she thought about it, and her face softened.
Actually, sunlight was a definite plus.
And at night, there would be stars.
She climbed the short stairs and stepped over the beer bottles. A brass mail slot in the door had long ago been engraved with the single word: MCLAIN.
It was the first indication Nova had seen that her fake identity might actually be tethered to someone in the real world, contrary to what Millie had told them. It made her wonder what had become of the real McLains.
Nova tested the doorknob and found it unlocked. She shoved the door open, revealing a narrow sitting room and a collection of cobwebs. She was surprised to see furniture—two dated armchairs and an entertainment console, though whatever TV or radio had been there before was long gone, replaced with a thick layer of dust. The room had once been done up in a garish paisley wallpaper, though strips of it were starting to peel.