Adrian stretched out on the blanket, pillowing his hands beneath his head. “Watch it, Insomnia. You haven’t even been a Renegade for three whole days yet.”
She turned back to the window. In the glass, she could see her own reflection, and she was caught off guard by the faint smile still playing around her lips. She settled her focus on the library, and said the words she thought Adrian would believe without question—what any Renegade would hear as the absolute truth.
“Yeah, but some days I feel like I’ve been a Renegade my whole life.”
Nova shut her eyes to hide the laughter in them. It sounded so painfully ludicrous, but she was proud of her delivery. She’d almost convinced even herself.
She waited for some smart comment to be shot back her way, but none came.
She frowned. Waited some more.
And heard only heavy breathing.
Nova glanced back over her shoulder. Her jaw fell.
He was already asleep.
“Ugh. You would be one of those.” Sighing, she wrapped her arms around her legs, settled her chin on her knee, and stared out into the dark world beyond this abandoned office. She had always been astonished by people who could fall asleep fast, like there was nothing to it. Like their spirits weren’t burdened with suffering and resentment. Like their hearts and minds could so easily be at peace.
After a while, she dared to look back at Adrian—just to make sure he really was asleep. She frowned as her gaze alighted first on the steady rise and fall of his chest. Her attention swept down his lean body to casually crossed ankles, then back up to his face. He had removed his glasses and set them, neatly folded, beside the wall. His face was different without them. More open and tranquil, though that could have been as much because of the sleep.
She knew it was a stereotype, but the glasses really did give him an air of studiousness. Of artistry. Without them, he looked like … well, like a superhero.
A really good-looking superhero.
Nova flushed, suddenly mortified at the direction of those thoughts, and hastily turned back to the window, vowing not to stare at him for another second.
The vow was harder to keep than she ever would have admitted, but keep it she did. Listening to the sounds of deep breathing. The occasional rustle of fabric and peaceful sigh as her companions slept and shifted and slept some more. In the city, a distant siren. A motorcycle roaring to life a few blocks away.
It wasn’t the shortest night of her life, but it wasn’t the longest, either.
She searched for any sign of activity inside the library, but there was nothing but stillness and darkened windows. Which was good. Ingrid and the Librarian would have had all the previous day to clear the library of incriminating evidence. There was nothing to do now but wait until morning, when Nova could encourage the Renegades to go inside and the Librarian could prove that he had nothing to hide, thereby putting an end to this investigation.
Nova was getting anxious to get it over with. She had other things to be doing than sitting with a patrol unit on a hopeless surveillance assignment. She had things to investigate at headquarters—secrets to uncover, weaknesses to ascertain, and she wasn’t going to get any of that done here.
Eventually, the sky overhead began to shift from black to navy to sapphire, a progression she was intimately familiar with. The window was facing north, so she had no hope of seeing the sunrise, but she sensed it in the gradual lightening of the clouds and the way shadows began to stretch long down the street, and how all at once the windows of the library began to glimmer with morning light.
At eight o’clock sharp, the CLOSED sign in the window was flipped over to OPEN. Nova couldn’t see who had turned it—Narcissa, or Gene Cronin himself?
Nine minutes later, the first patron arrived, an elderly woman carrying a basket full of thick paperbacks, her head tucked beneath a plastic hood, even though there were no rainclouds in the sky.
Nova climbed down from the desk and nudged Adrian with her toe. “Hey, Sketch.”
It was Ruby who woke first, startling when she found herself restrained by Oscar’s arm across her waist. She moved it off of her and sat up, brushing her black-and-white hair aside. Oscar and Adrian woke up moments later—Adrian jolting upward the moment he spotted Nova and remembered where they were.
“Did something happen?” he said, his hand fumbling across the floor until it landed on his glasses. He unfolded them and slipped them back onto his face, blinking up at Nova. “Did you see something?”
“Yeah,” she said, leaning against the desk. “The library opened. An old woman just went in carrying a bunch of books, but … I have a feeling she might have been hiding a machine gun under her jacket.”
Adrian blinked up at her and she noticed he had a speck of white caught in the lashes of his left eye—what her mother had used to refer to as “sleep dust.” Nova had the most peculiar urge to lift up his glasses and run her thumb across the lashes to clear it away.
“She’s being sarcastic, right?” said Oscar, rolling a kink from his shoulder.
Nova glanced at him. “Yes.”
A cacophony of giggles from outside drew them all to the window. On the street below a crowd of young children had just arrived via three minivans and were being paraded into the library. Perhaps a day-care retreat or a school field trip.
They stared until the last of the children and their teachers had disappeared through the large main doors.
“Well,” said Ruby, slapping her hands together. “We didn’t really expect to catch anything on our first night, did we? I mean, who knows how often his illegal dealings go down.”
Nova shifted her attention between the three Renegades. “Is this really our plan? To stake this place out every night for all eternity? What if we never catch anyone? What if his black-market clients don’t use the alleyway, but go in through some other entrance? He could have a secret underground tunnel for all we know. Or—just a thought—what if he’s not actually dealing in black-market guns and this is a waste of time?”