Archenemies (Renegades #2)(66)

“Oh. Yeah. That’s how I do … you know. All that other stuff I do.”

Scanning Adrian’s shirt, Max stammered, “You give yourself tattoos? And that’s how you—”

Adrian held up his hands. “That’s not important right now.” He swooped his arms around Max’s waist and lifted him off his feet, letting out an excited whoop. “Vitality Charm! Visitors! Think of the possi”—his voice hiccupped as he glimpsed a figure in the lobby beyond the glass—“bilities.”

“Put me down!”

He set Max down and took a step back, clearing his throat. “Visitors like … Nova?”

Max spun around.

Nova was standing not far from the lobby’s information desk, staring up into the quarantine with her mouth hanging open.

“Act normal,” Adrian whispered, his glee quickly overcoming his surprise. He elbowed Max in the side and they both raised their hands and waved.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“EXPLAIN,” SAID NOVA the second she stomped onto the sky bridge. Her arms were folded tight over her chest, her brain churning through a hundred explanations, each more absurd than the last. Adrian was inside the quarantine. And smiling. And apparently fine.

Then the pendant around his neck caught the light and Nova gasped, launching herself forward. She pushed her finger into the glass wall. “That?” she barked in disbelief. “Really?”

“Really,” Adrian confirmed, flashing more teeth than she had ever seen him flash before. He was practically luminescent with joy.

He started to explain his theory and the research he had done on the Vitality Charm and why he’d guessed it would protect him from Max’s power, but there were so many pauses and jumps in his story that Nova struggled to follow it all.

Plus, he couldn’t seem to stop laughing. It was partly the laugh of a mad scientist who hadn’t fully expected his latest experiment to be successful, and partly the laugh of a guy who could finally hang out with his little brother, without a glass wall dividing them.

He kept reaching out to ruffle Max’s hair, or punch him lightly in the shoulder, or wrap his elbow around Max’s neck and put him in a pretend chokehold. Max didn’t seem to know quite how to respond to this outpouring of brotherly affection, but he kept smiling. A smile as full of disbelief as Nova felt, but a smile all the same.

There was something endearing about the way Max was watching Adrian. A bit of awe, coupled with an abundance of hope.

Yesterday, Max was a prisoner and an outcast. Valuable and loved, yes, but also an anomaly. A science experiment. A lab rat. He knew it as much as anyone.

“What about Agent N?” said Nova.

Adrian turned to her, startled. “What about it?”

“It was created using Max’s blood. Will the charm protect people from it too?”

Adrian’s eyebrows knit together over his glasses. He peeked at Max, but Max just shrugged and said, “Don’t look at me.”

“I don’t know,” said Adrian. “It might.” He opened his mouth to say more, but hesitated. He studied Max again, then looked back up at Nova. “Yes. I’m pretty sure it would.”

“And does the Council know about this? They’ve put so many resources into developing Agent N … and there was this necklace in the vault the whole time, able to protect someone from it? There could be other things too. First the Captain is immune to Max, and now this?” She bit her tongue to stop herself from talking, worried that her eagerness would show.

Protection from Max. Protection from Agent N.

Maybe the Anarchists didn’t need to be quite so worried about this new weapon after all.

“I’m convinced no one knew about the medallion and what it could do,” said Adrian, “otherwise someone else would have taken it out of the vault as soon as Agent N was revealed. And you heard them at the presentation. There are no known antidotes. And invincibility, like my dad has, is just about the rarest superpower ever documented. No one else is like him. There’s no reason to think his powers can be replicated, at least not where Max is concerned. There might be other things that could act as a ward against Max’s power, but as far as I could find, this is the only artifact of its kind.”

Maybe Adrian was right, but even so, the existence of this charm gave her hope that Agent N wasn’t the death knell for the Anarchists.

She wondered if such a charm could protect others from a power like hers, too. As an Anarchist, Nova most often used her ability to put people to sleep as a weapon, but sleep in itself didn’t weaken a person, beyond making them vulnerable. If anything, sleep helped to restore them. It was an interesting puzzle, and one she would have to consider at length if Adrian shared the discovery of the Vitality Charm with any more Renegades.

“Could I use the charm sometime?” she said, plastering a smile to her face. “It would be easier to help Max reconstruct the broken parts of his city if I could go in there.”

“Sure!” they said in unison, and the way Max’s eyes brightened made Nova’s heart surge.

“But,” said Adrian, “I think we should give it to Simon first.” He grimaced apologetically. “It’s just symbolic, but … I know it would mean a lot to him.”

She refused to let her smile fade. “Of course. I understand.”