“You’re acting strange,” Nate said.
“You’re acting stranger. Aren’t you afraid?”
“When I think about it, I guess.” Chewing a gritty, unappealing mouthful of bread, Nate considered what Fran had told him about Alden’s mother. If Alden had watched his mother die, no wonder he dreaded keeping Nate around. Maybe that’s why he was so short-tempered.
After a long silence, Nate asked, “Do you want me to leave?”
“Don’t be stupid. I told you to stay,” Alden said in a tone Nate didn’t feel like arguing with.
“If I’m going to die anyway, why don’t I let the gang turn me in to the Breakers?” Nate asked. “If we planned it right, you could split the bounty with them.”
Alden sighed. “I knew that was coming, but Gods behind the stars, you’re not even addled yet. Honestly, Nate. How have you lived to see sixteen?”
“I’m serious. If I’m going to die anyway, shouldn’t someone profit from it?”
“The difference,” Alden said, “is that dying is the end of the road. Giving yourself to them isn’t the end of anything.”
“No one knows what happens when a GEM goes to the Breakers.”
“Have you ever heard a good rumor about it?”
Nate frowned. “No.”
“Rumors are rarely born out of thin air. There’s truth in some of what they say.” Alden cleared the plates—pink ceramic with a rose print and chips along the edges—and walked to the front of the counter. He stood before Nate as if he’d come to purchase one of the dusty bracelets under the glass. “If I had you the way they’d have you, I’d never let you go.”
“I know,” Nate said, conscious of how close Alden was, even with the counter between them. Alden’s hunger simmered, barely suppressed by the chem he put in his body all day to forget how badly he needed Nate’s blood.
How hard is it for Alden to be around me?
Feeding Reed once hadn’t been a risk. It was the small doses, the little tastes of euphoria, that had driven Alden to a fierce, abiding hunger. It had gotten so bad before Nate had walked away that it wasn’t a stretch to imagine what would have happened to him in Gathos City—or how much Alden wanted him now.
Unwilling—or unable—to check his desires, Alden had kept Nate weak. He’d fed on him daily, leaving Nate dazed and euphoric. Nate’s memories of those weeks were shadowed and not unpleasant, but he remembered his own horror starkly from the day he’d awakened enough to find the seasons changed entirely. He’d lost months in Alden’s arms.
“And they’re not burdened with caring about you,” Alden said softly. “You’d be nothing more than meat to them.”
Nate’s gaze snapped up as Alden’s words sank in. “All right. Okay.” He tried to smile, his heart skipping an uncomfortable beat. “It’s a bad idea.”
Alden wiped the dishes with a cloth and replaced them on a tilted shelf. His hands shook. “Make your bed on the floor in my grandmother’s room.”
Nate preferred his bed in Alden’s room, and he opened his mouth to protest. But Alden turned and watched him with a plain, anguished sort of hunger that made Nate’s breath hitch.
“All right,” Nate said. “Fran could use the company.”
Nate could have stayed up for hours working on the battery and listening to the street outside, but the look on Alden’s face sent him to bed early. And once Fran fell asleep, snoring like a kitten, Nate got up and locked the door.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
That night, Nate struggled to sleep, aware of every creak in the old building and every distant shout in the night. He tossed and turned in his pile of musty blankets, wishing he could turn a crank-light on and find something to do to settle his restless mind and the itch to move.
Memories nagged at him. Good days at the shop—days spent drinking watered-down tea with Fran and fixing things until his back ached and accomplishment warmed his guts. Bad days—Alden flying on a new strain of chem, too frantic to carry on a conversation and convinced there were snakes in the bathroom sink.
The bad days weren’t as bad as the hurt that had lingered after Nate had walked away.
And after he’d walked right back, when staying away had become impossible.
The first time had been a quiet evening, when the shifts at the workhouses changed and long shadows promised a break from the heat. It was then that fiends sought the solace of a chem-soaked night, the hope of a better day. Nate chose a busy time, so it wouldn’t be too conspicuous when the clatter of chimes announced his entrance.
Alden stood behind the counter, counting out little glass vials for a tattooed white woman with graying hair who scratched relentlessly at her hip. Nate couldn’t make out what Alden was saying, but he saw his shoulders tighten and one hand dart out to push his hair behind his ear in an uncharacteristic gesture.
