Avery’s life fell into a pattern over the next few weeks. On weeknights after work she would spend time with Christian. Sometimes they went out, sometimes they stayed in, but there was always a lot of laughing, talking, and kissing involved.

On weekends she would hang out with Angelo, Vanessa, or both and do her best to keep herself entertained now that she had nothing else to do. She watched too many YouTube videos to keep track of, tried to teach herself how to do nail art using online tutorials, and deep-cleaned every inch of her apartment.

She was getting rather bored. Exhausting as her old weekend schedule was it was better than having too much time to do nothing.

When it was time to make her monthly insulin deliveries she was actually excited about it. She had plans to do nothing but sleep on Sunday and that would keep her from needing to find ways to entertain herself.

Avery almost never hit the same medical warehouse twice in order to divert suspicion. Thankfully, there were a lot of them in New York. They were all owned by Hunsacher though it didn’t appear that way to the public. No one—especially not Christian—would be able to make that particular connection.

As much as she enjoyed spending time with her boyfriend, now that she had experienced what it was like to do so as herself rather than as Nox she far preferred that. With any luck she wouldn’t run into him tonight at all.

She didn’t want to fight him but she would if she had to. Those people needed their insulin more than she didn’t want to cause minor injury to her boyfriend.

Honestly, it was kind of amazing no one had ever managed to catch onto her pattern enough to stop her yet. Even if they were all different warehouses they were under the same umbrella. You would think one of the higher ups at Hunsacher would have noticed by now.

Avery was vaguely curious if Nolan Hunsacher had managed to connect all the mishaps in his various subsidiaries across the country yet. At the very least he had to know someone was out to get him after that computer room was bombed.

The other incidents could be written off as random but that was such a specific, high security target. He would have to be completely stupid and that wasn’t likely in a man who had taken over the United States of America from the shadows. He probably did know but wasn’t able to retaliate because he didn’t know who was out to get him.

She was always careful not to be seen. Angelo took care of security cameras for her by hacking into them and turning them away. Her suit had never been caught on film.

Countless security guards had seen her and so had Mercury but it wasn’t like they reported to Nolan Hunsacher directly. The suit was the only thing that might give her away but that was only if they figured out it was made up of nanotech.

That might make him think about the nanotechnologist he had killed off. The chance was slim because Nox had been at large since before her father’s death and she both looked and sounded the same as he did. Her absentee mother was a tall woman so she had grown to be the same height as him give or take an inch.

Avery tried her best to shake those thoughts free. She didn’t need to psych herself out right now. This was a standard heist and she had a lot of people counting on her.

As usual, Jorge was controlling the drones and she was in a different part of the warehouse to deflect suspicion. All she had to do was hang around until the drones were done with their work and she got the go ahead to make her dramatic exit if anyone (namely Mercury) showed up.

She always went somewhere else for a while before rendezvousing with Jorge later to be safe. Sometimes she went to get the list from Angelo personally, other times she hung out on rooftops. Really it depended on her mood.

Tonight she was leaning toward getting herself a late-night snack. She had already been warned this list was even longer than the last and she would need to replenish her stamina before staying up and jumping around all night. The real question was what she should get. She fiddled with a bit of loose tape on the box she was holding and mentally went over her options before she got the all clear from Jorge.

A text from him rolled across the inside of her helmet lens. ‘I’m heading out now. Give it about five minutes for me to get far enough away that I’m not near the warehouse before you leave’

She sighed. Five minutes huh? Then she could break a window and leave as always. She may as well cause trouble on her way out. She couldn’t do it on the way in because then alarms would go off and Jorge wouldn’t be able to get everything they needed in time.

Still no sign of Mercury. Avery wondered if he wasn’t coming this time. How did whatever crime radar he seemed to possess work, anyway?

It was for the best. She hadn’t wanted to run into him tonight and potentially trip herself up. She hadn’t seen him as Nox since they officially got together and she didn’t want to, though she knew it would happen eventually. They were nemeses. Run-ins were inevitable, especially since he always seemed to know when and where she would be.

Her five minutes were up so she broke a window on her way out and began leaping from building to building trying to get to the part of town that had a pho shop with hours befitting a late-night snacker.

Avery’s suit set off a danger alert when she was midair and she let out a rather undignified yelp as she scrambled to keep hold of the box and do a backflip over her boyfriend. She landed rather awkwardly on the side of another building and tried to remain calm despite her racing heart. That was close!

“I thought you weren’t going to show up tonight,” she said lightly.

Mercury scowled. “Unfortunately, you’re not the only villain out having fun tonight. I got held up. What’s in the box and where did you get it?”

“I’d be willing to play twenty questions with you if you could catch me.”

Avery was improvising at this point. She needed to keep him distracted while she thought of an escape plan. Out in the open air like this he was at more of an advantage than she was. This was why she was careful to orchestrate their fights in enclosed spaces.

“I’m really not in the mood to play games with you, Nox,” he replied in a hard voice as he tried going for the box.

She moved aside at the last second so he went crashing through the window of the building she was leaning against. Ouch. Should she see if he was okay or make her escape? In the split second she took to try and decide he was able to recover and come for her again.

She used the building as a springboard and tried to get away but he zipped around in front of her. Her danger alert went off again but this time she wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way and simultaneously hold onto the box.

It slipped out of her grip and began falling toward the ground many stories below. This was where Mercury had the advantage. He could fly; all she could do was try to aim her falls as best she could before she found something else to bounce off of. This happened in the middle of open air so there was nothing she could do. He got to the box.

“Gotcha!” he cried triumphantly. “What’s so important that you had to steal this, huh?”

He peeled back the tape with one hand and pulled out a small bottle before she had the chance to bounce off of anything and try to steal it back. He had already read the label by the time she was able to snatch it and protectively smooth the tape back over it. She kicked him in the stomach in the process to get him to loosen his grip on the bottle since every drop of insulin was precious to the people she delivered to.

Mercury clutched his stomach with one hand and winced, looking both bewildered and in pain. “What on earth are you doing stealing insulin? Are you trying to make some sort of biological weapon?”

Avery’s heart was racing. She needed to get out of here before anything worse happened. She had barely managed to get the box back!

This wasn’t going to work again. Next month she was going to leave all the insulin-snatching to Jorge and steal something unimportant so it didn’t matter if it broke or Mercury managed to steal it away. This was too risky.

“Always thinking the worst of me, aren’t you? Maybe I’m diabetic,” she deadpanned.

“…are you?”

“No. But at the very least the thought should have occurred to you.”

Mercury sighed. “Then is someone you know diabetic?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have time to chat. I have other things to do tonight that don’t involve you taking this from me,” Avery said as she leapt into the air again.

Unfortunately, he managed to stop her mid-air again and they grappled for the box. She was beginning to get frustrated. He didn’t even know where she had gotten this from; it wasn’t like he would be able to return it!