He stepped onto the bus with the others and followed Eli as they made their way to the back seat.
They sat together—Quinn next to the window, Eli between them like the human version of a traffic cone, and Aegon on the edge.
He stood for a moment, glancing over at the rows of students scattered across the dim interior.
Half-lit faces. Shadows. Neon strips someone stuck along the ceiling flickering like they were fighting for their lives.
"This is it?" he asked, leaning toward Eli.
"What?"
"This all of us?"
"Nah." Eli flicked his wrist like the explanation bored him.
"There's more than one drop location. If every Novus in the entire school was headed to one place, we'd get caught in two seconds. Hence, different locations."
"Oh." Aegon sat back just as the bus growled awake and lurched forward.
The ride was chaos.
Not violent chaos—just the loud, messy teenage kind that sounded like the inside of a shaken soda can.
