“Iamolder than you.” Val flashed gray teeth at him. “Watch yourself.”
“Youwatch yourself,” he shot back, sore. He didn’t care if she was twelve or twenty. His odds of actually living to nineteen were slim.
He’d only been awake for a few hours, but he felt like his clothes were made of lead. He wasn’t supposed to be this tired. Not this soon.
“Sure you’re not poorly?” Val slowed her pace until Nate caught up.
A headache began to bloom, blood pounding between his ears. Her prying was making it worse. “It’s not catching.”
Val grunted. A couple of kids sprinted by them as the rails began to rumble again. The ache thrummed behind Nate’s eyes.
When had he had his last dose of Remedy? Four days? Maybe five? He could usually go two weeks before the hurting started.
“Move, you fool!” Val grabbed his arm and pulled him into a run. They collapsed onto the next support beam. The train roared by, wheels hissing against the steel track. Silver and black whooshed overhead, too fast to focus on. Too fast to comprehend. “You’ll be nothing but a stain if you keep courting trains like that!”
Hot embers stung Nate’s knuckles.
The train was gone. He could feel his heartbeat in the thick silence.
He pressed his forehead against a cool rung and willed his body to stop trembling. He’d never come that close to getting struck before. If Val hadn’t been there, the train would have eaten him up.
I should have gone straight to Alden’s.
He wouldn’t do Reed and the gang any good smeared across the concrete.
Val flicked his ear and offered her bruised hand. “Come on. Where you headed?”
“The port.” He let her drag him to his feet.
She shook dust out of her short, choppy hair. “Funny. You don’t smell like fish.”
Nate’s arm still stung from the force of her grip—a reminder that she’d saved his life. He offered the truth in exchange. “I’ve got a spool of fishing line to sell.”
“That’s hard to come by,” Val said, gaze keen.
Nate shrugged. He didn’t have to tell her where it came from. Once people knew you were a Tinkerer, they started thinking about all the things that needed mending. He didn’t have time for that.
“You look like a dead sludge-fish.” Val brushed pale specks of gravel from her shoulders. “I don’t want to step in your guts next time I’m on the rails.”
Embarrassment flared at Nate’s cheeks. She was right. He never should have walked the rails in this state, and he was too sick to finish his errands before nightfall. In the darkness, the only trade to come by was chem and flesh. No one would want the scraps of tech-guts that weighed down his pockets. He was too small to defend himself when night drew bleary-eyed fiends from their dens. He needed to go to Alden’s.
Now.
Bitterness dried his mouth. “I’ll take care to avoid the trains.”
“You talk awful high-class for a thieving tech peddler.”
He trailed her steps, wishing she’d hurry up and run off so he wouldn’t have to talk to her. “You’re awful nosy for a stranger.”
“No such thing as a stranger in Gathos, Nine—”
“It’sNate,” he interrupted, losing his patience.
“I like Nine better.” Val took on the disinterested tone of the tinny loudspeakers at the city gates. “‘Everyone is encouraged to help each other through these unforeseen circumstances,’” she intoned, reciting the recording.
Nate couldn’t help a small smile. Her impression was spot-on. “Right. ‘We’re all in it together.’”
“‘Stay tuned for further announcements regarding the quarantine.’” She hitched up her sagging, stained pants and finished with a rude gesture aimed toward the gleaming skyline of Gathos City across the wide sludge-channel.
