“Nate!” She hopped down the last few steps and bounded into Nate, squeezing him tightly. “You got free.”
“Wasn’t sure you’d come back out of there the way the fiends were running,” Sparks said. She wore a bandana in her hair, her curls wild and tangled, and stubble lined her jaw. Her dark eyes shone with relief as she wrapped her arms around Reed and clasped Nate on the shoulder.
“Ow.” Nate ducked away, pain reverberating from her touch.
Reed took her by the arm. “He’s hurt.”
She shook Reed off and clasped Nate’s hand in a careful grip instead. “I told Reed you didn’t mean that garbage you said to the Breakers. ’Bout hating the rest of us.”
“I didn’t think he meant it,” Reed mumbled.
Sparks huffed a breath. “Sure.”
They’d forgive him more readily than he deserved. Reed, so stubbornly good, would absorb the hurt Nate had caused him with the things he’d said.
But Reed’s forgiveness didn’t matter. Now that it was clear to everyone how much danger Nate had put them in, there was no hope left for a future with the gang. He had no right to call them his family after he’d put them all in Agatha’s sights.
He had no right to love Reed.
But the soft, private smile on Reed’s lips when their eyes met still sent a current of affection through him.
He was going to miss Reed so much.
“Agatha could be anywhere.” Reed steeled his expression, his shoulders tensing. “We need to hide.”
“She won’t be alone either. When I was up on the roof waitingforever, she went that way with five or six people,” Sparks said, pointing.
Nate guided Pixel to take Sparks’s hand and hung back, breathless with guilt. All four of them had narrowly escaped death to give him a chance to live. And he’d shattered his only chance by destroying the Diffuser. They’d be right to hate him. Even with the gates opening, there was no telling that enough Remedy would make its way into the Withers—if any made it out of Gathos City at all.
It won’t in my lifetime.
“I can help you get settled somewhere before I go,” Nate said. “If you let me rest up for a few days, get my arm working again. I’ll tinker as best I can for you. Lights, locks. I know it won’t make up for this. Nothing will.”
Reed blinked at him like he’d grown another arm out of the side of his head. “What?”
Nate scratched his neck, embarrassment blistering. He should have known it was too much to ask. He’d never been anything but trouble to them, and the sooner he made his own way, the better. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I can go to Alden’s. Or maybe the Servants.”
Sparks came closer, squinted at him. “What happened to him in there? They hit his head?”
“No,” Brick said. “ButI’mabout to hit his head. Stop feeling sore, Nate. We didn’t round up half the fiends in the Withers to send you off to get snatched up by trappers or whatever trouble you’d manage to find next.”
“Besides.” Sparks’s expression shifted like she’d stepped into a shadow. She glanced at Pixel and back at Nate. “Alden’s place burned up this morning. Heard some fiends griping about it. No one knows where to go for cheap chem.”
“What?” High-pitched ringing sounded in Nate’s ears. He staggered back. “Where’s Alden?”
“Figured he ran off.”
Agatha and a bunch of her Breakers. Sparks had pointed in the direction of Alden’s shop.
Nate’s memories snapped together. It stung like a jolt of electricity.
You can’t come back here, Alden had said.
He’d known. He’d known they’d come for him once they had Nate.
“No.” Nate’s feet began to carry him in the direction of the shop with dragging, dizzy steps. “He doesn’t go anywhere. He doesn’t leave. He won’t leave. He’s never left.”
“Whoa.” Reed grabbed his good arm. “Nate. Stop. What are you doing?”
