He held his breath as she squeezed between a grid of pipes and balanced on a thin beam over the core of the still where the Diffuser rested behind its thin metal panel. Everything shone around her in the gleam of the lights hanging from the ceiling. She reached the grating, made herself as tall as she could, and pushed her fingers through the holes.
Nate slumped with relief. She was tall enough to reach without a boost.
“Don’t worry about it. Get up and see if you can climb out.”
Pride warmed Nate’s chest as Pixel unfastened the grating without asking for his help and carefully turned it to balance it across the opening without dropping it. She shoved the wrench back into her shoe, crouched, and leaped up to grab the edge of the grating.
Her fingers slipped, and she fell.
“Pix!” he shouted.
Juniper stirred.
Gasping, Pixel held still a long moment, draped over the pipe she’d landed on belly-first. “Wind. Knocked. Outta me.”
Nate didn’t breathe either, not until she rose back to a crouch and wiped the sweat off her forehead. “Go slow.”
“I know how to do it.”
The next time she jumped, she caught the edge of the grating and didn’t let go. She swung her body back and forth, gaining momentum, and curled her legs up to hook her heels into the hole. It only took her a few more counts to squirm her small body up into the ductwork.
“Nate. What now?”
“Fix the hole. Keep going, Pix.”
The metal made a tinny, grinding sound as she replaced the grating.
It was like she’d never been there at all.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Can you move?” Nate asked. Talking to an empty room and a sleeping girl made his skin prickle up.
“Not much.” Pixel’s muffled voice wavered in and out. Dust rained down from the grating, and she sneezed. “Where do I go?”
“Out and up. Don’t stop or turn back.” Without Pixel there to chide him, he tested the ties at his wrists compulsively. The plastic dug deeper, stinging. “Try to find an opening in the pipe that goes up, but don’t get in it if you can’t get out. Go, Pixel. Get going.”
“Nate.”
“You have to go.”
The sound of her quiet crying slowly faded. He closed his eyes and hung his head, sick with relief and hope. The windowless room had to have good ventilation, or they’d die from the fumes of the furnace. Pixel was small. She’d fit. She’d get out.
A rustling sound caught Nate’s attention. He looked up and frowned. Something was different.
Juniper wasn’t in the chair anymore.
He twisted in a panic, searching the room. She couldn’t have gone far.
She came at him from the corner of his vision. Her dress and loose pants fluttered like beating wings. There wasn’t any time to brace himself against her fury.
“What did you do?” she yelled, tackling into his middle, angular and stronger than she seemed.
Pain blinded him as his shoulder made a sickening wrenching sound and popped. The ties sliced into his tender flesh. For a horrible moment, he thought his arm had ripped clean off. Pain enveloped him, hot as flames.
Juniper was screaming, draped across his lap like a sack of rocks—as if she’d used every last bit of her strength to come at him. “Where is she?” Rage distorted her voice. “Where did she go?”
Nate drew his legs up and drove his heel into her gut, sending her sprawling back. Blood spread from the bandage at her hip. She tried to push herself up, and her arms gave out.
