Archenemies (Renegades #2)(90)

It took Adrian a moment to respond, but he sounded serious when he said, “A little.”

Nova laughed, a real one this time. He chuckled too.

“Why?” he asked. “Why is it so hard to relax?”

She dared to look at him. She knew he wasn’t prying, and that he wouldn’t push her, despite his curiosity.

She braced herself.

She thought it would be hard to form the words, but it wasn’t. Not really. They’d been perched in the back of her throat for ten years, waiting for her to speak them. She thought back to the first night she had sat and talked with Adrian, really talked to him, when they were running surveillance on Gene Cronin and the Cloven Cross Library. She hadn’t told Adrian about her family then. She hadn’t confessed her complete origin story. But somehow, she felt like she’d always known that she would tell him, eventually.

“When I was six years old, I once fell asleep holding my baby sister. Evie.” Her voice was low, barely a murmur. “When I woke up, I could hear my mother crying. I went to our door and I looked out into the hallway and a man was there, holding a gun. I later found out my dad was being blackmailed by one of the villain gangs, and when he didn’t fulfill part of their bargain, they hired this guy to … punish him.” She frowned, her gaze lost in the shadows between ferns and fallen tree trunks, her memory trapped in that apartment. She scrunched her shoulders against her neck, once again paralyzed with fear. “He shot my mom,” she whispered, “and then he shot my dad. I watched it happen.”

Adrian’s hand twitched, drawing her focus out of the shadows and down to his graceful fingers, his dark skin. He didn’t reach for her, though she thought he would hold her hand if she moved first.

She didn’t.

“I ran to my bedroom and hid in the closet. I heard him come inside, and … then I heard…” Tears began to fill her eyes. “I heard Evie. She woke up and she started to cry, and … and he shot her too.”

Adrian jerked involuntarily, a flinch that shuddered through his whole body.

“She wasn’t even a year old yet. And when he found me in the closet, I looked in his eyes and I could tell, I could just tell that he didn’t feel an ounce of remorse. He’d just murdered a baby, and he didn’t feel anything.”

This time, Adrian did reach for her hand, slipping his fingers between hers.

“He aimed the gun at me, and…”

Nova hesitated, realizing at the last moment that she couldn’t tell Adrian this part of the story. The shock of being on the verge of speaking an unspeakable secret startled her from the memory.

“And my uncle showed up,” she said, swiping at her nose with her sleeve. “He killed the man. He saved me.”

Adrian’s shoulders fell. He cursed quietly beneath his breath.

Nova lowered her head. The pain that came with the memories was coupled with guilt. She had relived that night countless times in her thoughts, all the while knowing—she could have stopped it. If she had been brave. If she hadn’t run. If she hadn’t hid.

She could have put the man to sleep. Saved Evie, at least, if not her parents.

But she’d been a coward, and …

And she’d been so sure. So sure that the Renegades would come. It was her faith in them that had destroyed her family, almost as much as the hitman himself.

“After that, every time I closed my eyes, I would hear those gunshots in my head. I couldn’t sleep. After a while, I stopped trying.”

Even recently, when she had briefly fallen asleep inside Max’s quarantine, the nightmare had plagued her. The hitman looming over her. The cold press of the gun to her forehead. The gunshots echoing through her skull.

BANG-BANG-BANG!

She shuddered.

Adrian rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “Nova,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry. I knew they were killed during the Age of Anarchy, but I never thought—”

“That I witnessed it? I know. It wasn’t something I thought belonged in my Renegades application.”

He nodded in understanding, his expression heavy with sorrow.

And though telling the story brought her sadness, it also brought anger. The resentment that had crowded out her own sorrow for the last ten years.

Where were the Renegades? She wanted to shout. Where was the Council? Where were your dads?

She clenched her teeth and peered down at their entwined hands. His was warm and solid, while her hand had gone limp.

“My mom was murdered too,” he whispered.

She swallowed. “I know.” Everyone knew. Lady Indomitable had been as much a legend as any superhero.

“I didn’t see it happen, of course. No child should have to go through that. But I did”—his brow scrunched in pain as he spoke—“for a long time, I wondered if maybe it was my fault. At least, in part.”

She jerked, startled at how his words mirrored her own guilt. “How could it have been your fault?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, but…” He grimaced. “Remember how I said I used to have really vivid nightmares? The ones with the monster? Well, part of that recurring dream I had was where my mom would leave our apartment, flying out through the window to go save the day somewhere in the city, and I would be watching her go, when … this shadow would come over her and she wouldn’t be able to fly anymore. I would watch her fall. I would hear her scream. And I would look up and the monster would be on the rooftop, just … staring at me.”