gave a lurch. He would have backed away, but he was stuck, peering at her through the ropes that were as constricting as his own rib cage.
“She’s done well, hasn’t she?” said Ace Anarchy, speaking for the first time. His voice carried a lilt of amusement, but Adrian barely heard him over the truth and disbelief that had gone to war inside his head. “Your plan was a clever one, sneaking in through the catacombs. It might even have worked, if you hadn’t already told my niece that you knew about the escape tunnel. Now that you’re here, we’ll have to make sure that entrance is blocked off, so no one else thinks to follow in your footsteps.” He gestured to a couple of the villains. “Bind the others and secure them in the treasury for now. Take the Everhart boy to the east chapel and await further instructions.”
Ace Anarchy’s orders barely registered.
Nova was nearly to Adrian now. The fear he’d seen before was fading away, being replaced by her signature determination. Her jaw tense, her shoulders set.
Had he only imagined the torment before? The regret? The doubt?
“Nova,” he breathed, nearly coughing on the word as his own jumble of emotions stuck in his throat. “Who are you?”
She crouched so they were eye to eye. They were as close now as when they’d danced at the gala. As close as when he’d put noise-canceling headphones on her ears so she could finally sleep. As close as when they’d kissed in the subway tunnels, just outside the hidden passage to the catacombs.
The last shreds of denial shriveled up inside him. The truth won. Suddenly, he knew.
When Danna had first accused Nova of being his worst enemy, the villain he had been hunting for months, he had been angry. Mortified. At times, even disgusted.
Now, all that was left was a deep, devastating sense of loss.
His shoulders fell under the weight of the ropes that bound him.
Nova reached for Adrian’s hand, placing two fingers against his knuckle. He flinched at the touch and thought, just for a moment, he might have seen hurt flash through Nova’s eyes. But it was his imagination, because a second later her expression had hardened into something cold and impenetrable.
“Everyone has a nightmare,” she said. “I guess I’m yours.”
That was the last he remembered before darkness claimed him.
CHAPTER FORTY
“WELL, ISN’T THAT clever,” said Queen Bee, inspecting the bottom of Adrian’s bare foot. He did his best to ignore her. He’d been trying to ignore the whole lot of them, the ever-revolving door of Anarchists and villains, even as they’d attempted increasingly obnoxious tactics to get a reaction from him.
His eyes stayed resolutely on Nova whenever she was in the room.
Her eyes stayed resolutely away.
“Springs,” said Queen Bee, trailing a sharp fingernail down the sole of Adrian’s foot. He did his best to stifle a twitch. “To jump farther. Isn’t that clever, sweetie?”
He was pretty sure sweetie, in this case, was Nova, but it was hard to tell, as Nova seemed as determined to ignore Queen Bee as he was.
Having Honey Harper inspect the soles of his feet was the last in a long line of indignities Adrian had endured since his capture. He did not know what had become of Oscar and Danna, or where he was inside the cathedral. When he had come to, he was inside a small circular chapel. In comparison to the magnificence of the nave, the chapel felt like an afterthought, so dreary and insignificant that Adrian wondered if the saint it was named for might have done something that annoyed the architect in charge of honoring him. Besides a smooth black altar and a series of narrow stained-glass windows, it felt barren. Echoing stone walls, hard stone floors. The atmosphere wasn’t much improved by its moody dimness, either. Adrian had no way of knowing what time it was, as no sunlight, or moonlight for that matter, could permeate the structure Ace had erected over the cathedral, leaving them shrouded in constant darkness. Their only light came from a small gas lantern in the corner that sent their shadows flickering and shifting across the walls.
Adrian was tied up with his back against the frigid altar. One of the villains had cut away the sleeves and collar from his shirt, revealing the tattoos on his arms and chest.
Nova frequently came in and out of the chapel, dressed in full battle regalia. Her belt was strapped with two different guns, ropes, darts and ammunition, gloves,