Nova eased slowly onto her knees, shaking all over as Magpie's deep, restful breathing filled the hall. Max wouldn't be happy when he found out that Nova had put her to sleep. For that matter, the rest of the family probably wouldn't be either.
But thoughts of their reactions were nothing but a vague, distant whisper in her mind, overshadowed by the momentous question that had just opened up.
Was Magpie… was this surly, obnoxious, thieving little brat… was the girl who now lay slumbering just inches away… was she…
No. She couldn't be. It wasn't possible. It was a coincidence. A coincidence.
"Nova? Maggie?"
Voices from downstairs. The boys were looking for them. Adrian and Max were looking for Nova and…
And Magpie. She was just Magpie. All she'd said was that she'd been shot at eleven months old and left to die in her apartment with her parents. That sort of thing had probably happened all the time during the Age of Anarchy. It didn't have to mean…
Nova put a hand over her rapidly-beating heart and tried to steady her breathing. She reached down toward Magpie's now-limp hand and easily pried her bracelet away, securing it once more around her wrist. Then she reached into Magpie's other pocket and pulled out the item she'd been hoping to find, the item that had cemented her decision to put Magpie to sleep in the first place.
The dulled silver bullet that Magpie had once told her was what had given her her powers.
Nova exhaled shakily, turning it over in her fingers. It looked the same as it had four years ago, when she'd pulled it out of Magpie's pocket while looking for her stolen bracelet. At the time, Nova had found it odd that Magpie would be carrying a bullet around with her, or that she would get so worked up about Nova taking it from her.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
That final gunshot. Evie's silenced cries. No. She couldn't be holding that very bullet in her hand right now. The bullet that had destroyed any tiny shred of hope she'd had, as a scared little six-year-old, that the Renegades would come and save them. The bullet that even now still haunted her with guilt at the fact that she could have done something, but hadn't.
She had half a mind to dissolve this bullet with one of Leroy's fast-eating acids, to destroy it the way that final bullet had destroyed her all those years ago. But instead, she placed it in her own pocket. She would bring it to HQ later, to have it tested in the forensics lab, so she could find out if it really was that bullet.
Which it surely wasn't. Right? Because that would be impossible.
"Nova? Maggie?" Max was running up the stairs, he was crouching next to Maggie's sleeping form. He was staring at Nova with accusing eyes. "You put her to sleep?!"
"She… tried to steal my bracelet," Nova said lamely, still trying to catch her breath. "I… I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking, and…" And Max's questions from the other night are the only reason I'm even entertaining this absurd possibility, she realized. Max's insistence that Evie could potentially have survived and become a prodigy had somehow wormed its way into her mind, making her jump to conclusions when there weren't any conclusions to jump to.
Or… is this why Max was asking me those questions? Did Magpie tell him the same thing she just told me, and that got him wondering the same thing I'm wondering?
She couldn't bring herself to ask him. She stood up, feeling like her legs were made of gelatin. "I need to go home."
Adrian, coming up behind Max, reached the landing and put an arm around her. "What's wrong, Nova?" he asked. "Did something—oh." His question faltered as he noticed Magpie.
Nova leaned against him, his strong arm wrapping around her shoulders and holding her up, which was good, because she wasn't sure she could have stood up on her own. "I need to go home," she repeated.
"Nova… let's go sit down, you can tell me about whatever just happened—"
"No!" The outburst startled her as much as it seemed to startle him. Nova drew in a shuddering breath, thinking about how easy it would be to make up some kind of story, maybe to say that she'd gotten an urgent call from Leroy or that she'd just realized she was sick with something very contagious. But she and Adrian had decided long ago, when they'd gotten back together after each finding out that the other was, respectively, The Sentinel and Nightmare, that there would be no more secrets between them. No more lies. Ever.
So Nova just steadied herself and looked up into Adrian's concerned face. "Do you trust me?" she asked.
"Of course." His answer came without an ounce of hesitation.
"Then you'll need to trust me on this. I can't tell you why, but I need to need to go home. Immediately."
It wasn't so much that she needed to get home; it was just that she needed to get away. Away from here, away from people, and especially away from Magpie, who—
Who nothing, Nova told herself firmly. Magpie, who had told her a story that had made her think things that weren't true.
She needed some time to herself to think things over and determine if there was any possibility that those things might be true.
Adrian looked down at Magpie again, and understanding washed over his face. Even through her muddled thoughts, Nova knew him well enough to determine that he probably thought she was feeling bad for putting Max's guest to sleep.
She hoped that was what he was thinking. It was a lot less complicated than the truth.
"Okay," Adrian said, nodding slowly. "Do you need a ride?"
She shook her head. She needed a nice long walk in the dark by herself, to sort through her thoughts.
"Will you… be available for patrol tomorrow?" Adrian asked.
"Yes." She nodded. "I'll meet you at HQ, nine a.m. sharp."
Adrian gave her one last squeeze before releasing her. Nova grimaced, catching sight once more of Magpie sprawled out on the floor at the top of the stairs, with Max crouching next to her, still staring at Nova like she'd just betrayed him. "I am sorry, Max," she apologized, reaching over to try to ruffle his hair, but he pulled away. "I shouldn't have done that to her. I wasn't thinking clearly. But she'll be okay. She'll wake up in a couple hours." She hadn't hit Magpie with the full ferocity of her powers, the way she did when dealing with enemies, so Magpie might not even have the grogginess and headache side effects that usually came along with being put to sleep by Nightmare.
But I wasn't exactly gentle either, she thought, stealing a glance at the girl's peaceful face, unsullied by her usual scowl now that she was fast asleep. Not the way I always was with…with Evie…
She barely remembered saying goodbye to Adrian and his family and walking down the long flagstone walkway that led to the wrought-iron gate. As she turned onto the road, she felt a small pang of uncertainty about leaving Max unguarded, since her intention had been to stand guard at the Mayor's Mansion every night until Flamethrower was caught. But the house was alarmed with more security systems than she could count, along with a prodigy who was invincible, a prodigy who could turn invisible, and a prodigy whose eleven different superpowers could work together in the most incredible ways. Max would be okay.
Walking alone through the dark, empty streets of Adrian's neighborhood, Nova could finally clear her head enough to mentally sort through the evidence.
She's the right age, give or take a little. She remembered from the time she'd searched Magpie in the Renegades database that Magpie's birthdate was the same month and year as Evie's, though a different day. The day itself could have been an estimation, though, if whoever found her didn't know when she was actually born.
She said she was eleven months old when she was shot in the chest and left to die along with her murdered parents. In their apartment. It could be a coincidence—it was probably a coincidence. But the precision—eleven months old—and how the bullet that was meant to kill her had instead turned her into a prodigy…
But the same rebuttal she'd used when Max had suggested Evie's survival still stood. Captain Chromium had been there. He'd reported Evie's death. Surely he would've actually made sure, right? And if whoever had taken care of the bodies had realized, oh wait, the baby's actually still alive, that would've been reported to the Council, right?
What if it was reported to the Council? A little voice whispered inside her. Or what if the Captain never even thought she was dead in the first place, but just wrote that on the report because he knew Ace was the one responsible, and he was trying to protect her, and he didn't want there to be any chance at all that Ace would find out she'd survived and come after her?
The idea made a certain amount of sense—for the first ten years, at least. But once the Captain found out who Nova was, wouldn't he have made an effort to reunite her with her sister?
Magpie isn't my sister, she thought, gritting her teeth. And I wouldn't want her to be, anyway. Magpie was an obnoxious little crook. Nova had disliked her from the first time they met, and it was pretty clear that the feeling was mutual. Evie wouldn't be like that. Evie would be…
Evie would be however she'd been raised to be. And if she'd been raised with no family, no values, and no true place to call home… it wasn't too much of a stretch to imagine her turning out exactly like Magpie.
Nova shivered violently, wishing her jacket could do something to dispel the cold emanating from inside her. Maybe she should go back to the Mayor's Mansion, slip the bullet back into Magpie's pocket, and try to forget all of this. It was a far-fetched fantasy to begin with, and Nova wasn't even sure whether she wanted it to be true.
But she needed to know. Now that the idea had taken root in her mind, she knew she'd never be able to put it to rest until she knew, one way or the other.
She took a detour on her way home, so she could walk past Kingsboro Apartments, the place she'd lived when she was six years old.
The place she'd lived when her family had been murdered.
She stared up at the shabby brick building, shivering again despite the night's mild temperature. Although she lived only a few streets over from these apartments, she usually gave them a wide berth, not wanting to walk by them and be reminded of her hope-filled days with Mom and Papá and Evie, and the tragic way that her childhood had ended. She still remembered exactly which window had been hers, though—second story, fifth from the left. There was a light on in that window right now. Did the people who lived in her old apartment know about the unspeakable things that had happened there thirteen years ago? Did they know they were living in a place where a cold-faced assassin-for-hire had tried to murder a whole family?
Nova turned away and hurried down the street before the memories could catch up to her again. She wanted to go straight to Headquarters, so she could turn the bullet in to the forensics unit and get it processed, to find out whether it was fired from the same gun that had killed her parents. She knew that the Renegades possessed that gun; she'd read the report about her family's deaths back when—
She stopped in her tracks. She hadn't read the full report. Part of it had been password-protected. Could that have been a part that pertained to Evie, to the fact that she was actually still alive?
She was tempted to skip going home, and head straight to HQ, to access those files again and glean every single piece of information she could from them. She would even force herself to look at the pictures this time, however grisly they might be, to see if there was any resemblance between the infant Evie and the teenage Magpie. And then she'd find Captain Chromium and demand for him to give her access to the password-protected files. She'd ask him directly about Evie, and if he said he didn't know anything…
If he said he didn't know anything…
Well, then maybe he genuinely didn't know anything.
Maybe there was nothing to know.
Nova was so engrossed in her thoughts, she was hardly even aware of arriving at Gadgety Solutions, letting herself in, and walking upstairs to the apartment she and Leroy shared. She wasn't even fully aware of Leroy's presence until he spoke up. "You're home earlier than I expected."
She looked up to see him standing at the kitchen counter, stirring something green and gooey in a large bowl.
"Yeah," was all she could think of to say.
He raised a hairless eyebrow. "Was there a problem? I don't need to go over and melt anyone's face off, do I?"
She laughed, the action brought on more by the rollercoaster of emotions the evening had incited than because she was actually amused. "No. Everything's okay."
The look on his face suggested that he knew everything was not okay.
Nova felt the beginning of tears start to prick her eyes. Part of her wanted to confide in Leroy about what she had just learned, but the other part thought that if she voiced her suspicions out loud, she would sound like a child trying to convince herself that fairytales were real.
"What are you working on?" she asked, pushing back her emotions and trying to distract herself with science.
"I'm experimenting with a solution that, in its finished form, should be able to dry out a wet article of clothing within five minutes. So far I'm not having much luck, but I think that's because it requires a very precise boiling point that I haven't figured out yet."
"Can I help?" Monitoring a solution that required utmost precision sounded like the perfect way to keep her mind off other things.
"If you wish," Leroy responded.
Nova was right. Watching over the drying solution did take her mind off of things, because the precision required to experiment with and then maintain the boiling point left no room for her to think about anything else. By the time the solution had hardened into small capsules ready to be tested out, it was past four a.m.
It was still too early for the forensics unit to be at HQ, but Nova was antsy to head over anyway. Maybe she'd look over her family's files again, just to see if there was any additional information she'd overlooked four years ago. Maybe—though this seemed like wishful thinking—the files had been unlocked after the Anarchists were defeated or at some point during Nova's campaign to put more information in the hands of the general public. It was at least worth checking into, and would give her something to do for a few hours.
And then, as soon as the place was officially open for the day, she'd turn Magpie's bullet over to the forensics unit and wait to see if it returned any matches.
