Fragile Remedy

by Maria Ingrande Mora

  Alden shuddered and gave a quick shake of his head. “Nate.”

  They both knew he had nothing to offer. Not really. He couldn’t risk feeding Alden again. And Alden would never expose what he was to a stranger.

  Reed was going to die.

  “Alden, please.” Nate’s head fell against Alden’s arm. He blinked, and the anger sapped out of him. Tears skipped down his cheeks. “I . . . they need him. I can save him.”

  For a long moment, Alden held very still. But his eyes darted, searching Nate’s face. “Whenever I need you?” he asked, breath tickling Nate’s skin. It was a wish. Nothing more. “You swear on it?”

  “I swear. I swear it, Alden.”

  Alden straightened and tucked his hair behind each ear. “On top of all of this outrage, you expect to take my Diffuser out of my shop?”

  “You can come with me if you don’t want it out of your sight,” Nate said, dizzy with hope. Alden was going along with it.

  He was so close now—he could make Reed better.

  “Skip along on a dashing rescue to save your boyfriend? I think I’ll go back to bed.” Alden yawned dismissively, but his eyes glittered. Both of them knew he wouldn’t leave the shop. Even for this. “You can borrow my Diffuser. If you crack it, I’ll sell you to the Breakers.”

  Nate didn’t believe the threat, but it didn’t seem like a good time to say that.

  As Alden went to get the Diffuser from its hiding place, Nate slid down the door, trembling. Each passing second wound him tighter. Reed was bleeding and dying.

  If I don’t get back fast enough . . .

  “You’re in over your sweet head.” Alden handed Nate the small, velvet-lined box that contained the whirring glass Diffuser. It was genuine biotech from Gathos City. Even Nate, with his affinity for tinkering, had no idea how it worked. It was priceless.

  People would give Alden anything for good chem.

  “I’ll bring it back. First thing tomorrow.” Nate clutched the box to his belly.

  “Listen to me.” Alden grabbed Nate’s wrist, his grip strong—painful. “Don’t feed him for long. I don’t care how bad he’s hurt. No more than thirty counts. That’s it.”

  “All right,” Nate snapped, impatient with Alden’s greed. This was no time to quibble over Reed getting more.

  Alden helped Nate to his feet and held him close, his palm splayed against Nate’s back. “What’s your dear Reed going to say when he finds out what you are?”

  “He won’t know,” Nate said. “He’ll sleep through it.”

  “And his gang? You don’t think they’ll tell?”

  Nate flinched.

  “Oh, by the Old Gods’ balls. One of them already knows? This is such an exciting morning.” Alden released Nate with a gentle shove. “You should bring your special friend by. We can get acquainted.”

  “She’s a little kid. She’ll never know you. I’d slit her throat before she sees this,” he said, gesturing around the shop. “Or you.”

  “Don’t be ugly, Natey. You know I’d never harm a hair on a child’s head.” Alden took Nate by the chin and searched his face like he was memorizing every bruise. “Now run along, before you’ve nothing to run to at all.”

  The way back took longer. Nate jogged slowly to keep the delicate Diffuser safe. He must have looked unhinged, clutching a box and half-covered in sludge and grime. The observation wouldn’t be far off. His mind reeled with thoughts of Reed cold and gone and all of them left alone.

  All because he’d drawn attention to the gang and recklessly led trappers to their doorstep.

  This morning, no one paid him any mind. People hung in doorways and peeked out windows, expressions wary—as if expecting something to explode. Nate covered the last few blocks as fast as he dared.

  Brick met him at the bin. Sweat soaked through her baggy shirt and dampened her hair. The tangled strands stuck to her neck like fresh blood. “What’s that box?”

  “Medicine,” Nate said. “Is he—”

  “He’s breathing,” she snapped, mouth tight. “We broke the lock on a window four flights up. No one’s home.”

  “Nate! Get up here!” Sparks called out from the fire escape high above them. “Your hour’s long up.”

  The fire escape gave a sickening sway as Nate climbed ladder after ladder, following Brick. How had they made it up, carrying Reed? The old metal creaked as he scurried across a rusted landing.

  Brick crawled through a narrow window, and Nate froze on the swaying metal outside. Reed was in there—dying.

  What if I’m too late?

  “Come on!” She snatched him by his coat and dragged him through the window.

  He swayed a moment, eyes adjusting to the dim light. It smelled like rot and mold. Like sickness. Reed rested on a pile of blankets in the corner, Sparks kneeling beside him. Junk surrounded them—piled as high as the ceiling. Pixel cowered between two stacks of boxes. Tears streaked down her face.

  “You said an hour,” Sparks said. “It’s been three.”

  Nate scowled at her. “I went as fast as I could.”

  “Tell that to Reed. He’s hardly breathing now.”

  “I have medicine!”

  “He doesn’t need medicine. Don’t you get it? He’s dying.” Sparks wasn’t the type to cry, but her heavy makeup was smeared below her eyes like bruises.

  “Let me try,” Nate said. “This isn’t . . . Alden paid a lot for it. I think it’ll work.”

  “Reed wouldn’t want chem, even now.” Brick hovered at the window, watching the path they’d climbed.

  “Will you both quit prickling at me and let me concentrate? I need to mix this up—it’s like tinkering, and I have to pay attention. Start scouting somewhere for us to go.”

  Brick straddled the windowsill. “You think we’re going to leave him here?”

  “None of us can stay long.” Nate sank to the blankets beside Sparks. “What do you think’s gonna happen when whoever owns this place gets back?”

  Sparks’s jaw went tight. “They won’t take kindly to us getting blood and filth all over.”

  Nate pointed to the window. “Hurry and see if the bank’s clear, and come back and get him. We’re running out of time.”

  “I’m not leaving him,” Sparks said.

  Nate pulled his hair back in a tight ponytail. “I don’t care if you stay. But don’t blame me if we all end up nailed by A-Vols for squatting in here when we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  If he was the type to pray to the Old Gods, he’d do it now. He needed them to go.

  Sparks’s gaze blackened, and she stood. “This isn’t on me. You’re the one they were after.”

  “What would trappers want with a Tinkerer?”

  “I don’t know!” Sparks scrubbed one eye, leaving a wild streak of makeup jutting to her hairline.

  Nagging fear hit Nate like a shadow on a cool day. He shook it off. He had enough to fear right here in front of him, bleeding. If this worked, he’d have plenty of time later to worry over who was looking for him. “Stop fussing at me and go find us somewhere safe to take him.”

  Sparks lifted her hand like she meant to strike him. He flinched but didn’t turn away. Her shoulders slumped, and a hoarse sob snagged in her throat. “Do you really think chem from that sludge-rat friend of yours will save him?” she asked.

  “I do.” Nate swallowed. “But he won’t be all the way better. You have to find somewhere he can stay. Maybe for a long time.”

  Pixel stifled a whimper.

  “Pix, I need you to be brave.” Nate flashed her a weak smile and turned back to Sparks and Brick. They’d accept his plan or do as they pleased. He’d have to figure out the consequences of that later.

  “I’m with you,” Brick said. “But when we’re settled and safe, I’m not taking orders from a half-g
rown kid. Tinkerer or not, you haven’t run with Reed as long as I have.”

  Sparks’s fingers and shirt were stained with Reed’s blood, and sweat dampened the curls at her temples. Nate took her hand, feeling the stickiness of dried blood there. “Sparks.”

  She wrenched her hand out of his grip and climbed onto the windowsill beside Brick. “If he’s dead when we get back, you better not be here.” She climbed away, her breath noisy with swallowed sobs.

  Brick followed after a lingering look at Reed, and Nate closed the window behind her. He flipped the latches to seal it.

  “Lock the door,” he said.

  “Do I have to feed him?” Pixel whispered, trembling. She was even better at keeping secrets than she was at getting what she wanted. And the secret she held close weighed more than she could carry.

  More than any child should carry.

  “No, Pix. I told you. You’re not old enough to do that yet.” Nate’s fingers twitched into fists. He hated hearing her talk about being a GEM out loud. The longer they could keep it a secret, the better. The thought of anyone using her nauseated him.

  “You’re going to feed him?”

  Nate opened the box. The Diffuser whirred inside, its moving parts like a moth’s wings. “I have to.”

  “But it hurts you.” She twisted the hem of the tunic that hung down over her spindly legs.

  “Reed’s hurt worse.”

  The shape of the Diffuser resembled a flower bulb, rounded on one end and tapered to a forked tip edged with shiny metal. “Sometimes, you have to do something scary for the people you . . . for helping someone.”

  “Will he find out?”

  “I don’t think so. I can’t fix him all the way, but I think it’ll fix him enough that he’ll get better, if Sparks keeps watching him. She’s better with that kind of thing than she lets on.”

  Nate watched Reed closely for the first time since Brick had dragged him into the basement. The room tilted. Reed’s skin, normally so rich and warm, had gone waxy and gray. His lips were dry, parting with labored, uneven breaths. Other than the gentle furrow of his brow, he didn’t seem to be in pain. He barely looked alive.

  Forcing himself to look closer, Nate peeled away the cloth pressed to Reed’s side and gasped at the sight of the open gash there. Deep-red blood oozed from the uneven tear, raw and meaty and terrible. Nate coughed, gagging. “It’ll look better when I’m done, but someone has to sew it up.”

  Pixel shuddered. “Stop touching it.”

  “You can’t get squeamish on me now. I need your help.”

  She squared her narrow shoulders. “I can help. I’m not scared.”

  Nate snorted. “I’m scared. It’s okay to be scared, but you can’t let it freeze you up.” He smoothed the makeshift, blood-soaked bandage back onto Reed’s skin and shifted down onto his side. Reed’s whole body was cold. It sapped the heat from Nate’s skin.

  “Do you love him?” Pixel asked, watching.

  “We all love him.”

  “But you love him love him,” she said.

  “You’re not old enough to understand.”

  “I’m not a baby. You look chem-struck when he talks to you.”

  “I don’t . . .” Nate sighed.

  He did.

  It didn’t matter. It didn’t change anything. “Take the Diffuser out of the box and open the top. There, like that. See? It turns into a mask.”

  “For him to breathe in the magic?”

  “It isn’t magic, Pix.” Though it might as well have been, for as much as Nate understood it.

  “What kind of GEM are you, not believing in magic?” Pixel asked, holding the bowl-shaped opening up to Reed’s mouth.

  Nate wanted to believe that it was magic. Magic was better than the plain truth.

  Years ago, he’d gotten bored when Alden had slept clear through two days. He’d found an instruction manual tucked between bookkeeping he wasn’t supposed to be rifling through.

  The cover had been ripped off, but the second page said, “Genetically Engineered Medi-tissue Frequently Asked Questions.” Many of the dusty pages were stained and missing.

  The book described ratios of Cellular Regeneration Formula to body weight, which Nate figured was a fancy way of talking about Remedy. One of the margins contained Alden’s incomprehensible shorthand—alongside the page that described how much blood could be diffused from a GEM without serious side effects. The units of measurement didn’t make sense to Nate, but he got the gist of it. Feeding others made him tired and weak and hastened his increasing need for Remedy.

  He knew exactly what feeding Reed might mean.

  Maybe it was his destiny. After all, GEMs were made to die.

  Only a fraction of the page about organ harvesting remained in Alden’s book. Nate had read it with his blood pounding and his hands shaking. Consider sedating the GEMs well in advance of the procedure to discourage emotional attachment.

  He’d memorized every word before tucking it back into the place Alden had hidden it, and a seed of resentment began to sprout that day. Alden knew more about who Nate was than he did—than Bernice had, maybe. And he hadn’t shown Nate the manual.

  One water-stained paragraph stuck with him—a shred of hope for Pixel. GEMs didn’t begin to degenerate until age fourteen. She had years.

  That had to be enough time for her to find a better way to get Remedy.

  Pixel watched him, trusting and calm. His heart lurched. He wanted to tell her that she’d be fine, even if he never got better again after this. Even if he never woke up.

  “Maybe it really is magic,” he said, indulging her. “Wait—don’t hold it to his face yet. It has to be attached to me first.” The angle was awkward, but Nate couldn’t risk sitting up while Reed fed. Pixel was too small to hold him up once he passed out.

  Reaching over, he pushed his sleeve back and guided Pixel’s small hand to press the sharp fork of the Diffuser against the inside of his arm. “I’ve never done this by myself, so help me push.”

  Alden had always inserted the Diffuser for him, expertly locating the strongest veins in Nate’s arm or hand. Without Alden’s guidance, Nate improvised, shoving the forked tips into his flesh and hoping they hooked into a blood source.

  Nothing happened on the first thrust but a cold flare of pain. His vision went spotty.

  “Ew.” Pixel stared at the place where the forks dimpled into Nate’s flesh.

  Nate eased the forks back out and took a woozy breath to clear his head. “I know. And it doesn’t feel so great either. Let’s try here,” he said, pushing again. This time, as soon as the tips sank in, the Diffuser chamber filled with dark-red blood and the gears inside whirred faster, buzzing like a swarm.

  “Wow,” Pixel breathed. “Look.”

  The Diffuser began to process his blood. It shimmered and spread, moving through the glass chamber and flowing out the mask in a pale-pink cloud.

  “Hurry,” Nate said. “Help me move it to his mouth.”

  Pixel nibbled at her lip and shivered. She maneuvered Nate’s arm and the Diffuser along Reed’s chest until the mask rested at Reed’s chin. Reed breathed in, the pink cloud flowing between his lips in a wisp and vanishing.

  “Hey, it’s working.” Nate tucked his face against Reed’s shoulder. Heaviness and warmth spread through him. Feeding wasn’t painful once the fork was in. Alden had explained once, in a litany of energetic rambling while bandaging up Nate’s bleeding arm, that GEMs had different hormones. That something inside of them triggered a feeling of calm and sedation when they shared their blood.

  “Brilliant,” Alden had said, manic and fever-eyed. “Oh, Natey, you’re brilliant. I love you.”

  “Hey,” Nate whispered now, moving his tongue slowly to try to form words. “Listen up, Pix, before I fall asleep.”

  “I’m here
.” She held the Diffuser steady with one hand while the other stroked Nate’s hair out of his eyes.

  “When we’re done, pull the little sharp bit out and wipe it off and put it away and hide it. Keep it safe. It’s Alden’s.”

  “You keep it safe.”

  “And look in my pocket. There’s a thing for you. From Reed. Hang on to it. He wants you to have it.”

  “Let him give it to me, then.” Her small, fierce voice cut through the fog in Nate’s mind. “When he’s better.”

  He abruptly remembered what else he had to tell her.

  Alden had told him to feed Reed for thirty counts, but that wouldn’t be enough. He wasn’t going to let Alden’s greed push him around. And if he gave too much and that got him sicker—or got him dead—well, that’d be worth it. All of this was his fault. He had to fix it.

  “Count to one hundred. You can do that, right?” Nate asked slowly. That was the longest amount of time the dusty old manual had recommended. Alden’s rules could rot. He was going to give as much as he could—and more if he had to.

  “I can do that. Should I do something for your arm?”

  “Wrap it up and fix my sleeve to hide it. Tell them I passed out.”

  “Like when you’re sick?”

  “Like that, except from the bump on my head, yeah?” Nate blinked slowly and couldn’t open his eyes again, and that was all right. He was so tired and warm here, sleeping with Reed.

  “He looks better, Nate. He’s breathing more. I think it’s working.”

  “Count,” Nate mumbled. “You gotta, or . . .”

  “One,” Pixel said, her voice quiet and thin, as if the sound came from a speaker that needed tinkering. “Two. Three.”

  Nate went to sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The first time Nate had fed Alden two years before, he’d wondered if he was falling in love.

  The next day, when he finally woke up and the grogginess faded, Alden’s sallow skin had warmed and the tight lines around his eyes had smoothed out.

  “You look happy,” Nate said.

  Alden took his hand and kissed it. “I am.”

  The last time Nate had fed Alden nearly a year later, he’d ached distantly. It was like being stuck in a dream and knowing something was wrong—that he had to wake up.