She wasn’t even breathing hard.
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’m not as ignorant as you take me for,” she said, a growl beneath her soft words. “You’re here, and you’re here to stay. Keep the girl company. Keep your mouth shut. Learn your place. Stop asking questions. Do you understand?”
Juniper laughed, hoarse and quiet.
“Yes.” His eyes pricked up with tears as she twisted her hand, tugging every hair on his head at once. It stung like spitting embers. “Got it.”
“If you give me cause to question your motives, I will feed your friends to the sludge.” She let him go, and he caught himself against the rust-speckled floor.
Not rust—blood.
“I understand.”
Val helped him up with a cold and clammy grip, nothing like the assured strength she’d used to save him on the rails. She patted the ripped cushion on the seat and didn’t meet his eye when she gave him a little push. “You’re first.”
In her bunk, Pixel crammed her body against the wall. Only her eyes were visible, the rest of her wrapped in sheets. Nate climbed into the chair and shook his head, willing her not to watch.
She didn’t look away. Her eyes widened, and she trembled, but he recognized a gleam of fierce wonder too. Pixel looked at tech like that, especially when she wanted to know how it worked. How she could make it work better.
Out of habit, he began to roll his sleeve up to expose the place where Alden’s Diffuser had left silvery scars and the recent, fresh scabs. Agatha pushed his hands away and reached for the waist of his pants instead. He squirmed away, making a senseless sound of protest.
“Hold still,” Val said—more a plea than a warning.
Shaken by the undercurrent of fear, he froze, his hands balled into fists at his sides. Agatha pulled up his filthy shirt and exposed the skin at his hip. She prodded him delicately, finding the fleshy place above the bone. The muscles at his belly fluttered from the tickle.
Nate began to tremble. The Diffuser tip had always hurt, but it had always felt good afterward, when the lethargy took over and he wanted nothing more than to sleep, warm and safe with Alden.
This was different. He didn’t want to keep still. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to be here.
Reed.
“Do I need to restrain you?” she asked.
“No,” he said. His teeth snapped together, and he clenched his jaw to stop the chattering. “It’s fine.”
She wasted no time. The prongs slid into his flesh like a bite. He cried out and scrabbled at the chair, more panicked than in pain.
“Nate!” Pixel cried out.
The tube in Agatha’s hand went dark with his blood. Nausea flushed through him. It didn’t hurt any more than it ever had at Alden’s. His fear was getting the best of him.
He had to learn to let go of it, to accept this—or it would be torture every time. And Pixel would spend every second fearing the time when her blood ripened.
“It’s okay,” he said, head lolling to the side. His arms went weak. Agatha bent over his hip and adjusted the prongs. It didn’t hurt anymore.
A new, different pain came instead. He exhaled a silent, rueful laugh.
I miss Alden.
He needed to find Alden, to tell him that the Breakers didn’t want anyone else pushing chem. Maybe Alden already knew. He always had a plan. He’d have a plan now, something clever.
Val crowded his line of sight, watching his face. She pushed his hair out of his eyes. “You’ll pass out real soon.”
The huge Diffuser began to whir, buzzing like flies on a body.
She was right.
Nate was drowning. Cold water filled his mouth with every breath. He tried to turn his head, angle toward the surface, toward air.
