Supernova, page 11
There was already enough evidence piled up against her, even if, so far, it was all hearsay and circumstantial. Danna’s accusation, and a whole lot of coincidences. Too many coincidences.
All they needed now was a single piece of evidence. Real evidence. Ace Anarchy’s helmet found amid the wreckage of her home. Or the Vitality Charm or Nightmare’s mask and uniform or any number of weapons she’d used over the past years. Or something that would connect her to the other Anarchists. Proof that she was involved with Cyanide or Queen Bee, the Puppeteer or Phobia, or even Ace Anarchy himself.
He found himself wishing that Danna was there. She had intel on the Anarchists that the rest of them could only guess at so far, and her perspective could have been invaluable. But Ruby had insisted that Danna go to headquarters to be checked out by the healers while the rest of them came after Nightmare. It had been the right decision—Danna had been about to collapse again when she told them the truth of Nova’s identity—but that didn’t change the fact that Adrian wanted his full team on duty right now.
He needed to be surrounded with people he knew he could trust.
With the last of the flames finally doused, Tsunami, along with Torrent and a fire elemental who was immune to burns, made their way into the skeletal remains of the building. Adrian, Ruby, and Oscar were told to wait outside until it was declared safe to enter.
Annoyed, Adrian returned to pacing along the sidewalk, doing his best to ignore his friends’ sympathetic stares.
He didn’t have to set foot into the remains of the house to know that this had not been a normal explosion or a normal fire. He’d seen the effects that fire had left on the Cloven Cross Library, but this was altogether different. The smell of thick smoke mingled with the acrid sting of chemical compounds. The scorch marks on neighboring brick walls shimmered with a pearlescent-gray sheen and the destruction went far beyond what Adrian would have expected. It wasn’t only the flammable materials that had succumbed to the heat and flames—the curtains and floorboards, the upholstered furniture and wood-framed interior walls.
Whatever concoction had been involved with this explosion had caused such an extreme heat wave that even some of the stonework had melted from the blast. The windows had shattered, but some of that broken glass had liquefied into silvery puddles on the pavement, which were just beginning to solidify again as they cooled. Adrian may not have been allowed inside, but from what he could see, there was little left. The roof was gone—mostly disintegrated, he guessed—though there was evidence of some roofing tiles and chimney bricks scattered up and down the street. Nothing remained of the interior walls but a thick cloud of dust and the occasional chunk of plaster. Where the ground floor had been was now an empty crater revealing the basement foundation below.
If there had been any evidence in this house proving Nightmare’s identity or her connection to the Anarchists, Adrian wasn’t optimistic it was still there.
Their only hope, he thought, would be to find the helmet. He was confident that it could withstand even this trauma. If they found it here in Nova’s home, they’d have all the evidence they required.
Nightmare, the villain who had haunted them all these months, would be done for.
And if the helmet wasn’t there?
Well, there was still plenty of evidence against her. Even this explosion seemed to prove her guilt. Nightmare must have known that her identity was compromised, and so she or one of her allies had rigged this explosion to keep the Renegades from commandeering any more of their belongings.
It made sense.
But Adrian couldn’t quite tear his thoughts away from that moment when Nova had raced down the steps and shoved him out the door. The panic in her expression had been palpable. Her terror as she had dragged him away from the house was undeniable.
She could have been thinking about saving her own life, but … Adrian didn’t think that was the case. She had been trying to save him, too.
He couldn’t make himself believe it was all an act.
What if Nova—no, Nightmare—did care for him? Truly cared for him?
It wouldn’t matter.
Because she was a villain and an Anarchist. She was his enemy. She had lied to him about everything.
He choked back the bile that was suddenly stinging his throat.
He hated Nightmare. He loathed her to the core of his being.
He repeated these thoughts again and again, hoping that the unsettled twinge in his gut would go away if he just kept reminding himself of the truth.
I hate her. I hate her. I hate her.
“Sketch?”
His head jerked up. Tsunami was standing in the blackened frame of the row house’s front door, her white gloves smudged with silvery ash.
“We’ve deemed it safe for forensics and the cleanup crew to begin inspecting the home. You’re welcome to take a look around, too. But … as I’m sure you’ve noticed, there isn’t much to see.”
Exhaling, he nodded at Ruby and Oscar. Tsunami disappeared back into the house, but Adrian hadn’t taken two steps when he felt a hand on his arm.
“You don’t have to go in there, you know,” said Ruby.
His jaw twitched. “You heard Tsunami. It’s safe.” There was a definite undercurrent of resentment to his voice, but he didn’t care. He was resentful. And angry. And hurt.
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Ruby tilted her head, sympathy written across her face. “You can leave this to the cleanup crew. It doesn’t have to be you.”
“Actually, it does have to be me,” he rebuked. “I knew her better than anyone. I should have figured out the truth.”
“She fooled all of us, Adrian, not just you. She was my friend. She came out to watch my brothers compete in that silly Sidekick Olympics. She danced with Oscar at the gala. She—”
“She kissed me,” he interrupted. “She made me think that I…” He trailed off, just short of confessing the brutal words that had been clinging to him since the moment he’d found out the truth. I could be in love with her.
It wasn’t true, though. It wasn’t real. It had never been real.
Ruby tensed. “Adrian…”
“Besides,” he went on, “she didn’t fool all of us. Danna figured her out weeks ago.”
“Which was still a long time after she joined our team. Remember how Danna brought Nova a care package when she was in the medical wing? And didn’t she have dinner at your house, with your dads? Honestly, if she could trick the Council, then—”
“I should have known.” Adrian tore his arm away from her. “It’s so obvious, isn’t it?” He squeezed his eyes shut as memories flooded through him. The library. The carnival. His own basement. He shivered, and for the first time when he thought of that night, it wasn’t a good shiver. “I should have realized it sooner, and everyone is going to know that.” It hurt too much to see Ruby’s pity, so he turned to Oscar instead. Sadly, Oscar’s expression wasn’t much better. “It doesn’t matter now. We finally know who Nightmare is. She’s captured, and so is Ace Anarchy. Good against evil. Renegades win again.” He gestured toward the house. “Now let’s go see what else we can learn about our enemies.”
The moment Adrian stepped through the threshold of the row house, though, he knew they wouldn’t be learning much. The house was nothing more than a shell of stone walls, and even their surfaces appeared wilted, like they’d gotten too close to the sun. Tsunami and the others were down in the basement, standing on blackened dirt and ash between the high stone foundation walls, but he could see from their dismay that they were just going through the procedures now. No one really expected this investigation to turn up anything useful.
Adrian took a few steps inside, walking carefully along the narrow foundation wall. He was surprised to see a hallway and powder room to his left with the shreds of scorched wallpaper still visible on the plaster and a towel bar dangling from one screw, until he realized that he was seeing the abandoned neighboring home. The wall that had once separated them was gone.
He took another few steps, though he wasn’t sure why he bothered. At some point he became aware that Ruby and Oscar hadn’t followed him. They were still standing on the threshold, peering into the hollow space that had once been Nova’s home. There was nothing here.
Movement caught his eye and Adrian shifted, peering into the oval mirror that hung over a pedestal sink in the distant parlor room. The ceramic sink had a large crack running through it and half the mirror appeared to have warped from the chemical explosion, its surface now wavy and distorted. The movement had been Adrian’s own reflection caught in its surface.
Or that’s what he thought at first, until another face appeared in the reflection. A girl, pale and haunting and almost familiar …
He jolted in alarm, but before he could call out, the phantom was gone.
His own eyes stared back at him, wide and unblinking. He rubbed his palm into them, trying to clear the vision.
Great. Not only did he have to suffer through a broken heart and debilitating betrayal, but now he was having hallucinations of Nightmare, too?
Nightmare. He realized how fitting the alias had become.
Teeth clenching, he made his way back to the entryway. “This is pointless,” he muttered as he brushed past Ruby and Oscar. “Let’s get back to headquarters, see how Danna’s doing.”
He nearly crashed into a figure on the sidewalk. He drew back, startled. “Oh, sorry, Magpie,” he said, taking in the girl’s dust mask and perpetual scowl. “I was distracted.” He gestured indifferently toward the house. “Should be an easy one. There’s not a whole lot left to clean up.”
Shoulders hunched, he started to move around her.
“You must feel pretty dumb.”
He froze. A mixture of anger and embarrassment welled up in him at Maggie’s haughty tone. He wanted a quick retort to come to him, but that desire fizzled fast with the unavoidable truth. “Yep,” he muttered. “Among other things.”
Magpie leaned against a stair rail. Across the street, two more members of the cleanup crew were milling around a Renegade-issued van, unpacking crates of supplies.
“I never did like her,” said Magpie.
He gritted his teeth, recalling the way Nova had bristled every time Magpie was around. “I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual.”
“I did like that bracelet, though.” Magpie pulled down the dust mask as her gaze fixed on Adrian’s tight-closed fist. He recoiled instinctively. “What are you planning on doing with it, anyway?”
He looked down, and with some reluctance peeled open his fingers. Nova’s bracelet glinted up at him. The delicate coppery filigree that had encircled her wrist from the day he’d known her, and probably long before. The clasp he’d once fixed himself, before he had any idea who Nova was, what she was.
What she would mean to him.
And there was the star. Glowing faintly, casting its golden light on the dust that speckled the air around him. It was warm to the touch and there had been times since he’d taken it off Nova’s wrist that he could have sworn there was a pulse to it, almost as though it were alive.
He wanted to know why Nova had taken it from the statue in his basement. He wanted to know what it was, what it could do, and how it had come to exist at all. It hadn’t been in the painting, but it had been in Nova’s dream, the one he’d done his best to re-create.
It all made his head spin.
More than any of that, though, a deep part of him wanted to get rid of the thing and never see it again. Even holding it now, remembering that night in his handcrafted jungle, Nova breathing softly as she fell asleep in his arms, made his blood run cold.
She was Nightmare. She’d been Nightmare all along.
“I don’t know,” he finally said, clenching his fist over the bracelet again, cutting off the star’s light. “Give it over to Artifacts, I guess.”
“You can give it to me,” said Magpie, in a tone that was a little too rushed, a little too insistent.
Adrian tensed.
Realizing that she’d moved uncomfortably close, Magpie took a hasty step back. “I mean, to take in to HQ. I’ll submit it with the rest of … you know, whatever we find here today. Get it cataloged and … whatever. I can take care of it for you.”
Adrian’s fingers tightened. A subtle instinct warned him not to let the bracelet go. There was a meaning to it that he hadn’t uncovered yet.
Also, there was something about Magpie’s expression. A hint of desperation that unnerved him. A whisper of intuition told him she was lying. Would she really submit it to HQ?
Magpie’s hope darkened into a scowl and she held out her hand, palm up. “Come on, Sketch. This is my job, not yours.”
He stared down at her hand and found that small argument surprisingly persuasive. She was a part of the cleanup crew. She was a Renegade.
And he loathed the idea of carrying this star around for a moment longer.
“I doubt you’ll find anything else to take in,” he said. “But I guess that doesn’t matter.” Smothering his reluctance, he dropped the bracelet into her palm. Her hand snatched it back immediately, as if she was afraid he’d change his mind. “Don’t lose it. That bracelet meant something to No—Nightmare. It could be important to our investigation.”
Magpie’s frown didn’t budge. “Do you think I’m new at this?” She tucked the bracelet into a pouch on the leg of her uniform and marched into the desolate house without another word.
The knot in Adrian’s stomach loosened, just a little, to be rid of the thing. The sooner he could forget every blissful moment he’d had in the company of Nova McLain, the better.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE WAVES OF Harrow Bay crashed against the small boat, sending sprays of water over the edge. Inside the cabin, which was lined with plastic benches bolted to the floor, Nova stared out the condensation-slicked glass, trying to ignore the two guards who stood at either end of the cabin, never once taking their focus from her. Otherwise, she was alone, the only prisoner on this particular ferry ride, heading out to the infamous Cragmoor Penitentiary. She saw it rise out of the thick fog and murky waves like a medieval fortress, surrounded by jagged cliffs and an unforgiving sea. Nova shivered when she saw it, but that could have been the frigid air inside the boat.
As they pulled up to the weathered dock, the chain that connected her cuffs to an iron hook in the floor was released. The guards took her by each elbow, careful not to risk touching any of her skin as they escorted her off the boat. One of them nodded a friendly farewell to the boat captain, who tipped his hat in response. Nova almost laughed for how normal the small interaction seemed, here, on this brutal island, where nothing could possibly be normal.
Two more guards and the prison warden were waiting at the end of the dock. She was shoved into a small motorized vehicle and again had her enclosed hands chained up, this time to a hook on the vehicle’s ceiling. No one said much. Some small talk between the warden and the guard who was driving, too quiet for Nova to make out anything over the roaring motor. She welcomed being left alone, though, inspecting the walls of the prison as the car skirted the narrow switchbacks up the cliffside.
As the ground leveled off, she saw the guard towers, manned by Renegades in familiar gray uniforms. Two were carrying guns. The others had no weapons she could see, but she knew that only meant that their superpowers were dangerous enough that weapons would be superfluous.
The wall around the prison was thick stone topped with razor wire. No surprises there. Neither was the gate that opened to let their vehicle through. The main cell block itself was a rectangular structure in the center of the compound, built with only a utilitarian vision in mind. No windows. Only one door, as far as Nova could see, and as far as the blueprints had told her. She had known what to expect, but somehow it still astounded her. The dreary hopelessness of it.
She was not led directly into the cell block, but rather into a smaller building that did have windows, though they were narrow and caked with years of mud flung up by the island’s relentless wind. A man at a desk talked briefly to the warden before filling out a line in a register. He turned the page to Nova and asked her to sign in the box.
Feeling numbed to her core, Nova stared at the words on the page while one of the guards opened the cuff on her right hand, freeing her fingers so she could hold the pen. The date and time blurred on the paper, but the name was in sharp relief. Nova McLain. Seeing it gave her a jolt, to know they hadn’t yet figured out her real name.
It was followed by a prisoner number, 792, and her alias. Nightmare.
Her hand trembled as she took the pen, which was strapped to the desk in case anyone decided to try and stab the administrator with it.
Before they could stop her, she scratched out Nightmare and scribbled Insomnia.
“Hey!” said the man behind the desk, starting to grab the book away, even as Nova hastily signed her name in the empty box. He and the warden exchanged scowls.
“It’s fine,” said the warden. “Let’s just get this done. You’ve assigned a cell yet?”
“Got a few options,” said the administrator, still looking sour over Nova’s small act of rebellion. “She going into solitary like the last one?”
The warden snorted with contempt. “Please. She puts people to sleep. It’s just about the least threatening ability we’ve got on this island.”
The man behind the counter grunted. “Cell B-26 it is.”
Once signed in, Nova was taken to a tiny concrete room and handed a striped jumpsuit. The cuffs were removed fully and Nova rubbed her wrist, not just because of the soreness brought on by the restraints, but to confirm that the emptiness she felt was real. Her bracelet was gone. Adrian really had taken it from her, the last connection she had to her father.
