Nate whirled to face her. “I’m just trying to get. . .” It wasn’t reallyhome, but it was all he had. “I need to sleep, that’s all.”
“You smiled the last time I saw you,” Val said. She rubbed her hip absently, wincing. “Something’s chased your smile away.”
“You are really nosey.”
Val grinned. “And quick. I’ve got deliveries to make. I’ll leave you to your frowns and wherever you’re trying to get. But, Nine?”
Nate gave up on trying to correct her. “Yes?”
“If you want to get better, you should. . .” She hesitated and flashed him a stilted smile. “Gods watch you!”
Before Nate could ask her what the sludge that meant, Val jogged away, limping like a fleeing child. He didn’t remember her limping before. She disappeared into the shadow of a tall building, and Nate shivered.
Alden’s shop was still open for business and would be well into the night. Nate didn’t bother knocking. He stumbled inside to the sound of the door chimes and went straight to the side room. Alden sat at a small folding table, teaching a young girl how to inject chem.
Nate dropped his backpack in the corner. “I need to talk to you.”
He didn’t wait for Alden to respond before he went to the washroom in the hall and wet his face. He’d lost his tie, and his hair hung in his face like knotted rope. Too thin, too tired, and wearing livid circles under his eyes, he looked like the chem fiend Reed had always suspected him to be. He’d fit in here, wasting away with Alden.
“My dear, my darling.” Alden slipped into the tiny washroom and squeezed behind Nate to look at him in the mirror. His arms snaked around Nate and held him close. “When you come into my shop, stomping around so fussily, it makes people nervous. If they’re nervous, they leave, and if they leave, I can’t sell anything, and if I can’t sell anything, I can’t afford to keep freeloaders sleeping on my spare bed and eating my food and using up the last of my stash of Remedy. It vexes me.”
“Reed threw me out.” A shudder ran through him. Saying it out loud made it final.
Nate bit his lip and squeezed his stinging eyes shut. He’d lost his family.
“Oh my,” Alden said. “How sad.” He pulled Nate’s hair aside with one hand and kissed his ear. His lips were as cold as rain.
Nate elbowed him away with a raw, quiet sob. “You’re flying.”
“Very much.”
Some chem made Alden focused and quiet, and some made him sleepy. The worst kind made him pushy and hungry like a street cat, his hands unsteady and too busy.
When he opened his eyes, Alden stood behind him, watching him in the mirror. They made a strange pair—Alden’s pale skin and Nate’s bronze complexion, both marred with bruises and exhaustion.
Nate scrubbed at his tears, hating the pressure in his chest, the rage and grief aching to be released. “I saw a girl I know outside.” His voice wavered. If he didn’t act like everything was fine, he was going to shatter apart. “The one I told you about from the railway. I think she’s a Courier.”
“Was she small?” Alden clawed his fingers into Nate’s arm and met his gaze in their reflection. “Unusually nosy?”
“You know her?”
“Valerie,” Alden said, spitting the name out like a seed.
“Val, yeah.”
“Did you talk to her?” Alden grew sharp, loud. “Did she see you come here?”
Chem often made Alden paranoid. Once, he’d screamed at Nate, accusing him of changing all the codes on the security system when he’d been too high to remember them.
Nate searched for that same wild suspicion in Alden’s dark eyes now, and when he saw none, a chill came over him. “I don’t think so.”
Alden released his painful grip. He glanced away and shook his head, his shoulders sharp and tense. His gaze was clear in the reflection, as if something had chased off the haze of chem.
“Go lie down,” he said hollowly. “And stay out of the front room. Don’t let anyone else see you.”
Nate followed him out of the washroom and sank onto the mattress on the floor. As soon as his head reached one of the tufted cushions, exhaustion weighed at his eyes.
Alden locked up the shop early, his skeleton keys clicking and tingling. He snapped the latches shut at each window. The room grew darker with every candle Alden blew out.
