“We had bargaining power with GEMs in our gang, and now we have nothing. I didn’t live this long without adapting, and it’s not like you’re going to give Pixel back to us.”
Nate’s scrap of a plan was falling apart. Brick and Reed were supposed to escape to the chaos of the Withers, where they could survive with Sparks. Instead, Reed was recklessly lying. Pretending to lose faith in Nate. Pretending he’d be willing to run chem. Which only meant one thing: he wasn’t going to give up.
It was going to get them all killed.
“Agatha,” Nate said, voice sticky.
She glanced at him questioningly, and he couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound like he cared about Brick and Reed. Loved them. Desperately wanted them to be safe. Wished he’d died before they’d ever come down to this cold, terrible place.
If he listened to another word of this, he’d shout at them to go and find Sparks on the surface and hide until the smoke cleared and they could make new lives for themselves.
“Can I take Pixel away from here? She’s scared.” It hurt so much he could barely talk.
He had to get away from Reed before he forgot how to breathe.
“Of course. Follow Juniper. Claim a bunk. Encourage Pixel to rest. Don’t wait up,” Agatha said. She turned back to Reed and Brick and smiled. “It sounds like we have quite a bit to discuss.”
Nate didn’t trust himself to look at Reed and Brick. He took Pixel by the hand and led her away, every step harder—like the air around them thickened and grasped at his limbs.
When the door closed behind them with its sad sigh, the heavy snap of a lock followed. He could see the divots and rusted rebar spikes in the concrete where the former door had been, before they’d burned a train car full of people alive to get a new one.
Agatha’s machine towered over him, every pipe a clawing finger, beckoning. It was the only thing he’d be good for from now on.
He stumbled to his knees and choked on a broken cry. Pixel’s voice hummed in his ear, her face a blur of worry. She touched him and shook him, but he couldn’t tell her it was going to be all right. Nothing was ever going to be all right again.
Reed and Brick were going to end up chem runners—doing the one thing they hated most of all because of him. Unless Agatha killed them before they ever got back to the surface.
Either way, he’d never see Reed again. Never touch him again.
Nate wasn’t going to die for lack of Remedy. He was going to live in Agatha’s basement for the rest of his life, bleeding to make more fiends. And he’d dragged Pixel down here and doomed her to the same fate.
Juniper sat in her bunk, staring at them, her slippered feet dangling over the edge. She swung them slowly, like the ticking hands of a clock, and played with her hair.
“Nate,” Pixel was crying. Scared. Helpless. “What’s gonna happen to us?”
Nate doubled over, belly cramping up with choked-back sobs. He didn’t know what to say.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Juniper kicked Nate’s shin.
“Why are you here?” She wore a drab blue dress over baggy pants and swayed her arms back and forth. The gesture was so childish Nate wondered if he’d misjudged her as any older than he was.
He sat with his back against the wall, Pixel cradled in his arms. His body ached, and his breath sucked in involuntarily, shaky in the aftermath of unraveling on the floor until he couldn’t cry anymore. “I’m going to stay and help you.”
“You didn’t want to help us before.” She narrowed her blue eyes to slits. “You wanted to leave.”
“I panicked,” Nate said, which was more or less true. “But I get it now. And Pixel’s family. You have to stick by family.”
Juniper gave him an odd look, as if she didn’t understand the word. “You don’t look strong enough to help. The last one who didn’t look strong died.”
Glued to Nate’s side, Pixel trembled. “I don’t want them to kill me.”
“No one’s going to touch you.” He hated himself for making a promise he couldn’t keep.
Juniper shrugged.
Her words lingered in the quiet.
