Nate stood. “I’m going to go to the market.” He pulled his coat off the hook on the wall. The pockets were deep enough to hold the battery packs from the back room. “I’ll see if anyone’s talking about what happened last night.”
Alden caught his wrist. “Not today.”
“What?” Nate glared at him. “Why not?”
He let go of Nate’s hand, but unfolded to stand in front of the door with his thin arms braced against the jamb. His robe hung like a curtain, and the sun shone through, illuminating the pale swirls in the embroidery. “You don’t need to be flitting in and out of here all day long.”
“But I haven’t left at all. You told me to do things. I’m bored!” he lied, desperate to get the battery packs to Reed and to know exactly what was happening—and how it might affect the gang.
“There are worse things to be.”
Nate waited for Alden to fall asleep so he could sneak out, but Alden stayed more alert than usual. Instead of smiling at the sound of the door chime—the herald of a fiend in need—he tensed, like he expected an attack. When Nate fussed around the shop, trying to keep his hands busy, Alden herded him back into Fran’s room.
But Alden couldn’t stay awake forever. When Nate found him with his head in his arms at his work desk, fingers still gripping a pencil, he made quick work of packing up the battery packs and collecting a few odds and ends from the shop that he could trade for softer bread and some stew meat for Fran.
He disabled the chime on the alarm system long enough to slip out the back door and into the alley where he’d first met Alden. It reminded him so much of leaving to sell tech for the gang that his chest tightened. He’d forced himself to stop thinking about Reed all the time, but now, everything he’d tried so hard to forget flooded back.
How were they? Were they hungry? Safe? Finding a new hideout? Did Reed miss him?
If he brought the battery packs to Reed himself, Reed would see that he was still useful. And he could check up on everyone, even if he couldn’t stay.
He could say goodbye.
Surely Alden wouldn’t fault him for that.
Nate made his way toward the tall buildings in the distance, the bank nestled in the cluster of them. He walked slowly, wary of the unnaturally empty streets. Three people fighting poured out of a doorway, falling down the stairs and carrying on without missing a beat. He dodged them hurriedly, trying to ignore the way they snarled and clawed like animals.
At his slow pace, it took him an hour to reach the market square. When he got there, he checked the street signs, wondering if he’d gone thoroughly addled from lack of Remedy and gotten himself lost.
The market was empty. A single torn awning fluttered from bent metal where a table lay in crooked shambles. It was as if the shopkeepers had carefully collected every sign that they’d existed and disappeared. A gull perched on a crumbled stone bench, cocking its head and cawing.
Nate could still feel the grit of ash in his mouth from the bread he’d shared with Alden. People were going to starve without the market. Hardly anyone had food vouchers. There wasn’t enough work.
Even the bird sounded hungry.
Tightening the straps of his backpack, Nate hurried onto a narrow side street. Two families stood at the entrance to an alley full of tents, forming a loose circle around three toddlers who played in nothing but stained rag diapers. The adults weren’t talking or laughing. They were simply watching, standing guard. Nate approached slowly, making sure his footsteps were loud.
“What happened to the market?” he asked.
A woman with sores on her hands spun around and softened once she sized him up. “Where have you been? In a pit?”
“More or less.”
She huffed. “Room for more in there?”
A shorter woman put her arm around her and pulled her close, affectionate and protective at once. “Nothing’s coming in from Gathos City. No need for a market. There’s nothing to buy, nothing to sell.”
“Nothing to eat,” the first woman said.
“If you missed the riots, you better share that good chem you’re on. We could all use it.”
“I’m sorry,” Nate said senselessly, backing away. Hunger etched lines on their faces, on the toddlers with skinny arms and distended bellies.
“He’s flying too high to know his own name. Sounds nice.” They laughed and turned their backs to Nate, blocking the babies from his view. He was glad for it.
With the streets empty and too many small fires to count in the distance, he’d never get to the bank and back in one piece. His backpack felt like it was full of stones. He’d been stupid to think he could do this. Even flagging a Courier would be too risky—with every mouth desperate, nothing he could pay would guarantee the safe delivery of tech.
Nate headed back the way he came, too rattled to walk slowly. He jogged as best he could, getting winded every few blocks and pausing to wheeze until he could move again. He was so busy watching for someone following him that he nearly stumbled onto a person sprawled out on the ground. He sucked in a breath. It was one of the people who’d been fighting viciously.
