“Stars,” Juniper swore. “Quit that squirming.”
The water shifted to Nate’s middle and became more of an annoying splash than a torrent. He forced his eyes open and saw her standing over him with a hose attached to the ceiling. The water tasted like metal and smog.
He was naked except for the thin shorts he wore under his pants and the bandage taped to his hip. “Hey,” he said, shoving his hands between his legs where the fabric wasn’t thick enough to give him any privacy.
“I don’t see why I have to wash you,” Juniper said, waving the hose indiscriminately.
They were in the corner of the distillation room, where another drain below Nate whisked the water away. He pushed up onto his elbow and reached for the hose, his arm shaking and leaden.
He could barely remember where he was or why, but he knew, to the core of his being, that he didnotlike Juniper. “Give me the rotted hose then.”
She sniffed and shoved it into his hand. When she turned to look away, he resisted the urge to direct the frigid stream toward the back of her head.
It didn’t take long to rinse the grime off his skin. He craned to see Pixel still in her bed watching him, and decided against offering her the opportunity to bathe. She didn’t need to feel this—the ache of being treated no better than a stain on the floor.
Nate managed to rinse his hair, but after a few more moments, he dropped the hose, his fingers numbing and trembling. “I. . .” He didn’t want to ask for help. “I’m done.”
Juniper took a bath sheet off one of the pipes and dropped it on top of him. “Your clothes are drying. Agatha said you did well. I guess you’re stronger than you look. Stronger than she is,” she said, jerking her thumb toward the chair.
Val was there, slumped over and pale. Unmoving.
Nate stared. “Did Agatha kill her?”
“Why would Agatha leave adead bodyin here? She passed out quick, that’s all. Won’t get much Remedy out of her. I think your mean friends should have done it instead. They looked strong enough.”
“Why Val? Why not other people?”
Juniper watched Nate struggle with the bath towel and sighed sharply. She crouched and took over drying his hair for him, rubbing his head and shoulders with the soft sheet. “One at a time. Because they might tell where we are. Even with the new doors, we have to be safe and keep our secrets. When they’re not strong enough anymore, Agatha has them chucked into the sludge. Won’t tell down there,” she said, laughing.
Nate imagined Reed and Brick in the sludge and shuddered.
“How much Remedy can Agatha get each time?”
Juniper snapped the towel at his ear. “Quit that. I heard her tell you stop asking questions. You’re not to be trusted.”
“Then why are you drying me off?”
“Because Agatha told me to. And because you smelled like a dead sludge-rat.Longdead.”
He wanted to snatch the towel back and finish on his own, but his legs and arms wouldn’t work. It didn’t hurt the way he’d hurt earlier, edging toward the stillness. But he was empty and weak, and that scared him more. He imagined being trapped in his own body, too tired to move or speak or fight—and realized that must be exactly what the GEMs in Gathos City experienced: a lifetime lifeless and bleeding out to make others feel good.
Juniper hauled him up with both hands under his armpits and managed to drag him to Pixel’s bunk, where she deposited him in a heap. Pixel wrapped around him, giving Juniper a wary look. She tucked her sheet around Nate. He was too weak to protest being treated like an infant.
“How long has it been?” he asked.
“Not long,” Pixel said. “My belly’s growling, though.”
Nate caught his breath, exhausted from helping Juniper drag him as best he could. “Do they feed you?”
Juniper stood there with her arms crossed and the bath sheet still draped over her shoulder. She breathed hard too, and Nate recalled that she wasn’t much better off. She’d been hooked up to that machine too. “Of course they feed me. I’m not a prisoner. You wouldn’t be, either, if Agatha didn’t think you’d run off and make trouble. They’re helping us. We’re helping each other. We’ll be kings and queens when the gates open and everyone wants our chem.”
“This isn’t a storybook,” Nate said, cross. He didn’t sound properly angry with his mouth numb and his throat sore.
She walked off in a huff, and Pixel leaned close to whisper, “Can I really be a princess?”
“Not down here, Pix.” He tugged one of her ponytails. “But when we get back out in the sun, you’ll be a queen.”
“Queen of the Tinkerers.”
