a trap. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the blackmailer accosted her the moment she stepped into the room, because that’s just the sort of thing a nameless villain would do. Her finger slipped over the trigger as she kicked the door open and shone the flashlight into the room.
Empty.
Not only of the blackmailer, but also empty of Honey’s things.
Which was unsettling, if not unexpected. Nova knew that all of the belongings the Anarchists couldn’t take with them had been packed up and taken to Renegade Headquarters, and were at this moment sitting in a temporary storage room at the back of the artifacts department, waiting to be sorted through. She had seen Honey’s dresses there, boxes of jewelry, even the pretty vintage lamp.
The only thing the Renegades had left behind was an old dresser, on which sat a mirror with a chip in one corner and paint peeling off its trim work. The drawers were all missing and it was pulled a few feet away from the wall, no doubt so the Renegades could get behind it in their search for clues and evidence to be held against the Anarchists. They must have figured the dresser itself would be too much work to take back up all those steps. Nova wasn’t sure how Honey had managed to get it down here in the first place.
Holstering the gun, she took the fake helmet from the bag. In the dim lighting, the hole in its cranium was almost imperceptible, and no one would be able to tell the faint difference in color, which most people weren’t aware of. It was this helmet’s lack of luster that had first tipped off Nova to its fraudulence. A lot of prodigy artifacts, including everything her father had ever made, had a unique sheen to them. A luminescence that was hard to detect unless one was looking for it.
Lately, Nova had started looking.
“It’s all yours,” she muttered to the shadows, setting the helmet down on the vanity. Probably her blackmailer was lurking just around one of the tunnel bends, waiting for her to leave so they could sneak in and claim their prize.
Which was just fine by her. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
But the moment she stepped back through the door, a body slammed into her. A hand grasped the back of her neck, shoving her against the gritty wall.
“I knew you’d come back here!” roared her assailant. “I knew—” He cut off quick. “No—?”
She slammed her heel into the arch of his foot and he howled, lurching back from her. The stun gun now in hand, Nova spun around, her finger pressing against the trigger—
“No-va…”
She froze. Her arm fell limp at her side. “Adrian?”
“I’m sorry,” he groaned, sinking down to the ground and crossing his injured foot over his knee. He undid the laces of his tennis shoes. “I thought you were Nightmare.”
She gaped at him as he removed his shoe and rubbed his foot where she had stomped on him. “You’re not…” She glanced back into the room, where the helmet still sat innocently on top of the dresser. Was Adrian the blackmailer?
No. That didn’t make sense. Did it?
Her thoughts churned and she shook her head, trying to sort them. “What are you doing here?” she asked, holstering the gun.
He flexed his toes, rubbing the arch of his foot as he did. “I’ve been down here a few times since the raid, seeing if there were any clues left behind. I mean, the cleanup crews are good, but you never know.” He started to put his shoe back on. “I’m really sorry for grabbing you like that. I saw the flashlight, and in the dark, you sort of looked…”
“It’s okay. That’s what I get for creeping around dark tunnels, I guess.” She nudged the door closed behind her, hoping Adrian wouldn’t bother to go inside. She wasn’t sure how she would explain what she was doing with the forged helmet down here, of all the random places, or why she was leaving it behind.
“So what are you doing down here?” said Adrian.
“Same thing as you. After our meeting the other day, I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not Nightmare could really be posing as one of us. I wondered if maybe there would be something down here that would indicate … you know, one way or the other.”
Adrian climbed back to his feet. “Actually, there is something the cleanup crew missed.”