She didn’t see whether his face held anger or betrayal. She let him crumple to the floor, his arms slipping from her waist, and then dove for Adrian.
“Wait!” Adrian yelled, too late, the word muffled by the noise of splintering wood and groaning framework. He caught Nova in his arms. This corner of the floor, compromised from the hissing chemicals, began to cave. “Hold on!”
Then they were falling. The blast had pierced the top level of wooden stairs, leaving a mess of sharp edges and teetering beams beneath them. Wood chips and stone dust rained around Nova’s head as she wrapped her arms around Adrian’s neck, bracing for the fall to end. She spotted Honey’s body on the next wooden platform.
She looked up, to where she could hear bells jostling overhead, and saw Leroy’s body slipping over the edge.
Unconscious Leroy, falling.
“No!”
Adrian hit the wooden platform with an impact that clattered through her bones. He used the momentum to spring upward again. It felt like flying. Their heads crashed through falling debris. The air whistled past her ears. The narrow windows of the tower blurred in her vision.
With one arm locked around Nova, Adrian used the other to catch Leroy around his middle. Clearing the destroyed floor, they tumbled together to the edge of the belfry, where one small section of floorboards had yet to give in to their weakened joists. Nova landed on her side with a jarring crunch. Leroy’s body smacked the stone wall beneath one of the outer bells.
“The floor’s not going to hold,” Adrian shouted, as the telltale groan of wood and nails echoed beneath them.
Ignoring her throbbing rib cage, Nova hoisted herself to her feet and reached for the open sill. With the mortar and stonework, it was easy for her to find fingerholds, and in seconds she had climbed up onto the crossbar that supported the enormous bronze bell. It swung beneath her weight, the bell ringing like an alarm.
Squinting through smoke and debris, she saw that Adrian had Leroy draped over one shoulder while he used the chromium pike that had been lodged into an overhead beam to haul himself onto the enormous timber frame in the center of the tower.
“Don’t hurt him, please,” Nova said, gripping the walls to keep her balance.
Leroy started to slip. Adrian barely caught him, grunting from the effort. He managed to secure Leroy on the crossbeam before leveraging himself up the rest of the way. Slumping in exhaustion, he looked at Nova.
Clouds of dust spun in the air around them. Wood continued to groan and creak in the floors below.
“You okay?” Adrian asked.
She laughed and pushed her bangs back from her brow. “No,” she said. “Leroy’s been like a second father to me.” She hesitated, before adding, “Him and Ace both.”
Adrian stared at her. “I don’t want to sound mean, but I think we need to get you new role models.”
She scowled. “Your dads aren’t perfect, either.”
“I know they aren’t, but come on.” He gestured at Leroy’s slumped body.
Nova adjusted her balance so she didn’t feel quite so precarious, her ankles locked around the sides of the bell. “I know it may not seem like it right now, but he’s actually a good guy…” She trailed off, wondering how she’d never once, in all the time she’d felt herself falling for Adrian, considered what it would be like if he ever met Leroy or the rest of her “family.” It had never been worth considering, because she’d known it would never happen.
“Well then,” said Adrian with a dry chuckle, “I hope we’ll have a chance to get to know each other.”
She focused on him again, grateful that he hadn’t outright dismissed the idea. “Thank you for not letting him fall.”
“We’re not safe yet.” Adrian peered down into the jagged hole beneath them. “I’ll have to transform. I’m stronger with the Sentinel’s armor. I’ll be able to get him down to safety, but I don’t know if I can take you both at once.”
“I can get down,” Nova said, testing that the pouch with her gloves was secure at her hip. “Just let me catch my breath first.”
At least her body was no longer throbbing from the wasp stings, she realized, pressing a hand over her shirt where the Vitality Charm was tucked away.
Things could be worse.
“Nova?” said Adrian. His expression was worried. “What is Ace planning? What is all this for?”
“He wants to destroy the Renegades, especially the Council, so we can take control of the city.