Fragile Remedy

by Maria Ingrande Mora

  Nate wanted to run too.

  The phantom sound of the train whistle haunted him. He’d been inside the cars. He’d seen it himself. Radiant lights. Polished metal. The guts of the train would have been the same—smooth and new and powerful. How could he have been so stupid?

  They’d fooled everyone.

  The Breakers hadn’t blown up the train to make a statement. They’d only wanted the tech on board—to use it to make more chem.

  “You killed all those people,” Reed was saying as he pulled Nate toward Brick and Pixel. “You’re killing people now!”

  “That’s how times change. The way things changed for our kind, what they made us become, what they wanted from us.” Agatha advanced on them, as tall as Reed and sure-footed. She filled the doorway, terrible and perfect. “I’ll make them beg for our chem. They’ll crawl for it. It’s our time now.”

  The plants had been so lush and green that Nate hadn’t noticed all the narrow cabinets lining the opposite wall. Each was sealed with a padlock.

  “It’s all chem,” Nate said, sick to his stomach. What he’d done for Alden—that had been his choice. They’d hurt each other willingly, their choices locked in Alden’s back room. This was so much worse. Chem wasn’t a miracle, and GEMs weren’t magic, and in that moment, Nate hated himself fiercely. Hated Agatha. Hated Pixel. Hated his mother for making him, and his father for not stopping her.

  He stood as tall as he could so that Agatha could see that he was unafraid. He wasn’t going to get any closer to the stillness than he’d already been. “I won’t help you hurt people.”

  “That’s a shame.” Agatha pressed her palms against the table that stood between them. “We’ve already helped you. Remedy comes with a price. You of all people know that.”

  Nate’s breath caught in this throat. He’d be dead now if it weren’t for her.

  And if it weren’t for Alden.

  “I know,” he exhaled, taking quick stock of the small room.

  The table remained between him and Agatha. Pixel cried quietly against Brick’s side at the end of the table. Reed held on to him from behind, his fingers tangled stubbornly in Nate’s shirt.

  Think.

  Another table against the far wall was covered in glass containers and tubes of strange shapes and sizes. He didn’t see any alarms or weapons. They could fight their way out if they had to—and Nate knew well enough to get out of the way if it came to that.

  “If you won’t help us, I won’t force you to stay,” Agatha said, studying Nate.

  “Good.” Nate frowned, uneasy. After all of this, he didn’t expect her to let him go without a fight.

  “Of course, if you leave, you will die. Soon.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Nate said. “I don’t want to hurt people.”

  Agatha gestured toward the door elegantly. “Like I said, you’re free to go. Gods watch you.”

  “Pixel.” Nate held out his hand. “Come on.”

  When Pixel moved, Agatha chuckled. “I didn’t say you could take the girl.”

  Pixel’s eyes went wide. “Reed! Nate!”

  Her sharp, frightened cry was like gasolex splashed on a bin-fire. Nate lunged for Pixel, and Reed and Brick launched toward Agatha in an explosion of movement. Reed slid over the table and tackled Agatha to the ground. Nate slipped on the polished floor and crashed to his knees.

  Agatha was taller than Reed—and wickedly strong. They fell together in a heap and rolled across the concrete. She kicked him away, and he barreled into the lowest shelf of plants. Plastic pots tumbled down around him, spilling mud and sand.

  Brick took her time, circling the scuffle, light on her feet. She watched them roll for a moment before swiftly dropping her knee onto Agatha’s middle and pinning her to the floor. She hunched over and jammed her forearm against Agatha’s throat, ignoring the volley of blows as Agatha tried to fight her off. Agatha was tall and strong, but she didn’t have a chance—not with two against one and Pixel at stake.

  Nate scrambled to his feet to get Pixel and stopped short, frozen by what he saw.

  Juniper, the frail young woman from the distillation room, held the gleaming tip of a sharp tool against the life vein at Pixel’s slender throat.

  Pixel let out a muffled sob.

  Pix.

  He raised his hands slowly, numb with a new kind of fear. It stole the air out of the room, out of his body.

  “Make them stop hurting her,” Juniper said, tears running down her pale cheeks. Her fingers dug into Pixel’s arm. “Make them stop!”

  By the look of it, Reed wasn’t doing much of the hurting. Despite Brick’s strong arm against her throat, Agatha landed a punch to his gut that left him doubled over and retching. His wound still wasn’t fully healed.

  “All right,” Nate told the girl, careful and soft.

  Juniper’s wide eyes darted around the room, wild and scared as a caged gull’s.

  “Brick.” Nate spoke around a knot of dread in his throat. He reached his hands out blindly, as if he could will them to quit fighting. “Reed. Stop.”

  Juniper let out a piercing shriek. “I’ll kill her! Don’t care if she’s a GEM. Let Agatha go!”

  That caught Reed’s and Brick’s attention. They froze and stared at her. Brick had dirt and hair on her face. She sagged and released the coil of tension in her arm enough to let Agatha speak.

  “Juniper,” Agatha said, strained but utterly calm. “Good girl.”

  Reed scooted away from Brick and Agatha, his eyes on Pixel. It hurt, a deep pang in Nate’s chest, to see his fear echoed on Reed’s face. They’d both failed to protect Pixel.

  It had been too plain how much they cared.

  “What do I do? Reed. What do I do?” Brick asked. She trembled. Dirt from the plants shook out of her hair, falling like soot.

  “Let her go,” Nate said. “Let Agatha go.”

  Brick shook her head. “Nate—”

  “Look, she’s going to kill her!” Nate shouted.

  “They’ll keep her,” Brick said, wretched and soft.

  Pixel held completely still, rigid with fear. Tears ran down her face, and she shuddered with swallowed-back sobs. Juniper’s sharp tool dimpled her skin when she shook her head. “Nate. I don’t wanna stay.”

  Alden had warned them. And they hadn’t listened.

  Nate had to fix this. He had to help her.

  There was only one way to do it.

  “I know, Pix.” Nate watched her so he wouldn’t have to see the look on Reed’s face. “But you don’t have to stay alone.” At the first sound of growling protest from Reed, he kept talking. Raised his voice. “Agatha’s right, and we can help her. We can help our own kind.”

  Reed fell silent.

  Tinkering had always come easily to Nate, but he’d never done it like this. Severed a thin wire, a warm thread between his heart and another. It hurt far more than being bitten by the jagged edge of a live wire.

  Agatha met his gaze, and he lifted his chin, daring her to question him.

  “There’s a reason our blood heals,” he said. “A reason they fiend for us. We’re better, Pixel. And this is where we belong, not hiding.” His voice broke, and he hoped Agatha would attribute it to relief and not the pain of his ribs curling in on his heart and crushing it. “Not with thieves.”

  Brick lifted her knee from Agatha and fell toward Reed, reaching for him as if blinded. At the edge of Nate’s vision, Reed caught her close, and they pulled each other to stand. Clumsy. Shaken.

  Betrayed.

  Go. Run.

  Nate held Agatha’s appraising gaze. He swallowed against the tightness in his throat as she stood, elegant even with her mouth bleeding and her clothes stained with wet dirt.

  “I’m sorry things had to come this far for you to choose the path of wisdom,
” she said, tone faintly dubious.

  She doesn’t believe me. Not yet.

  Reed said nothing, and Nate tried to breathe evenly. It was almost as bad as the squeeze of sickness around his lungs. He’d expected an argument or a plea, but Reed had already given up on him. Believed in his betrayal that quickly.

  “You don’t get to decide for her.” Brick spat each word out. “She’s with us.”

  “She never belonged to you,” Agatha said. “We arranged for her to be smuggled out of Gathos City.”

  “That’s a lie.” Brick sucked in a breath. “We found her on the street.”

  “Of course you did. The shipment they hid her in never arrived where it was supposed to. She’s fortunate you found her, but that doesn’t make her yours.”

  Pixel hiccoughed and hugged her arms tightly at her middle. “They’re my family! I’ll run away! I’ll find them. I won’t stay with you. It’s scary down here.” She dissolved into tight, mournful cries.

  “Brick, you can’t keep her safe.” This time, Nate’s words were true. None of them could save her once she came of age and the sickness rose up. Not Reed. Not Brick.

  This is the only way.

  “This is safe? Hooked up to a machine?” Brick asked.

  “Safer than running for her life from trappers and begging chem dealers for Remedy.” Nate’s gaze flickered to Reed long enough to see him flinch. He tore his attention away.

  Pixel cried softly, as if trying to silence her own tears with each short, shivery breath.

  Agatha opened a cabinet and drew out a Gathos City stun gun. It was shinier than the ones A-Vols carried. She hefted it with a graceful twist and leveled it at Brick and Reed.

  Brick showed Agatha her hands, and Reed followed in turn slowly. Sweat ran down their faces, and they breathed raggedly.

  Guilt and fear tripped through Nate’s blood. They’d come down here to save him, and he was going to get them killed.

  Without lowering the stun gun, Agatha crossed the room to Juniper and Pixel. She pried the tool out of Juniper’s hand. Wide-eyed, with tears still streaming down her face, Juniper nodded. She reached absently and touched Pixel’s shoulder.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “There now, go rest,” Agatha said. “You’ve done so well.” She made a clucking sound of dismissal, and Juniper stumbled back to the distillation room without a glance back. The door scavenged from the train closed behind her with a sound like a sigh.

  Pixel dashed to Nate and pressed her face against his middle. He put his arms around her, everything else momentarily drowned out by a siren of relief buzzing in his ears. She wouldn’t be alone. He’d stay with her, no matter what.

  “Got you, Pix,” he murmured.

  “If you need the blood, keep Nate and leave Pixel with us.” Reed spoke like he had sludge in his throat. “Alden told me she’s not any good as a GEM until she’s older. And she wishes to stay with us.”

  Reed’s words hit Nate like a blow, but his heart tripped over what Reed had said.

  Wishes.

  It was meant for him. An understanding. Nate exhaled heavily, shaking off the pain of Reed’s words, knowing they were only meant for Agatha—to make her believe Reed had lost trust in him. Reed knew that Pixel would be safest by Nate’s side. He squeezed Pixel tighter, his body shaking with her muffled cries.

  “You’re in no position to negotiate,” Agatha said. “And besides, I’d be a fool to let her remain with you until she’s older. You have no means to shelter her or feed her, and no reason to bring her back when the time comes. I shudder to think of the living conditions she’s been subjected to in your care.”

  Reed’s jaw clenched. Brick ducked her head, somehow looking very small.

  “The question at hand is this: why should I let either of you go after you attacked me so ungraciously?” Agatha asked, waving the tip of the stun gun as if sizing each up.

  Reed shrugged. “You shouldn’t.”

  “Reed,” Brick said, eyes angry and sad at all once. She watched Pixel like she wanted to lunge for her—like it twisted her all up to do nothing but clench her raised hands into fists.

  Agatha laughed. “Is that so?”

  “It’s like you said. If you let us go, we’ll go back out on the street and probably get burned up in the mess out there.” Reed shrugged again. “We won’t have anywhere to stay or anything to eat.”

  “That isn’t my problem,” Agatha said.

  Nate willed Reed to shut up and leave. Nate’d traded his freedom to stay alive by Pixel’s side, doing whatever he could to atone for dragging her here. The best thing Brick and Reed could do was survive. Far from the Breakers.

  “You need experienced chem runners,” Reed said.

  “I have experienced chem runners.”

  “Not like us. We’ve run the Withers straight across and ’round. Day and night.” Reed spoke in the confident tone Nate could never say no to. “We were born in a pleasure house. Nobody knows this place like we do.”

  “And I’m to believe you’ve changed your mind this quickly?” Agatha asked.

  Brick said nothing, but her eyes shone like murder when she glanced aside at Reed.

  “We have nothing left if we leave,” Reed said.

  Nate’s heart stuttered. Whatever Reed was playing at, it pained him to hear defeat spoken so plainly.

  “We had bargaining power with GEMs in our gang, and now we have nothing. I didn’t live this long without adapting, and it’s not like you’re going to give Pixel back to us.”

  Nate’s scrap of a plan was falling apart. Brick and Reed were supposed to escape to the chaos of the Withers, where they could survive with Sparks. Instead, Reed was recklessly lying. Pretending to lose faith in Nate. Pretending he’d be willing to run chem. Which only meant one thing: he wasn’t going to give up.

  It was going to get them all killed.

  “Agatha,” Nate said, voice sticky.

  She glanced at him questioningly, and he couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound like he cared about Brick and Reed. Loved them. Desperately wanted them to be safe. Wished he’d died before they’d ever come down to this cold, terrible place.

  If he listened to another word of this, he’d shout at them to go and find Sparks on the surface and hide until the smoke cleared and they could make new lives for themselves.

  “Can I take Pixel away from here? She’s scared.” It hurt so much he could barely talk.

  He had to get away from Reed before he forgot how to breathe.

  “Of course. Follow Juniper. Claim a bunk. Encourage Pixel to rest. Don’t wait up,” Agatha said. She turned back to Reed and Brick and smiled. “It sounds like we have quite a bit to discuss.”

  Nate didn’t trust himself to look at Reed and Brick. He took Pixel by the hand and led her away, every step harder—like the air around them thickened and grasped at his limbs.

  When the door closed behind them with its sad sigh, the heavy snap of a lock followed. He could see the divots and rusted rebar spikes in the concrete where the former door had been, before they’d burned a train car full of people alive to get a new one.

  Agatha’s machine towered over him, every pipe a clawing finger, beckoning. It was the only thing he’d be good for from now on.

  He stumbled to his knees and choked on a broken cry. Pixel’s voice hummed in his ear, her face a blur of worry. She touched him and shook him, but he couldn’t tell her it was going to be all right. Nothing was ever going to be all right again.

  Reed and Brick were going to end up chem runners—doing the one thing they hated most of all because of him. Unless Agatha killed them before they ever got back to the surface.

  Either way, he’d never see Reed again. Never touch him again.

  Nate wasn’t going to die for lack of Remedy. He was going to
live in Agatha’s basement for the rest of his life, bleeding to make more fiends. And he’d dragged Pixel down here and doomed her to the same fate.

  Juniper sat in her bunk, staring at them, her slippered feet dangling over the edge. She swung them slowly, like the ticking hands of a clock, and played with her hair.

  “Nate,” Pixel was crying. Scared. Helpless. “What’s gonna happen to us?”

  Nate doubled over, belly cramping up with choked-back sobs. He didn’t know what to say.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Juniper kicked Nate’s shin.

  “Why are you here?” She wore a drab blue dress over baggy pants and swayed her arms back and forth. The gesture was so childish Nate wondered if he’d misjudged her as any older than he was.

  He sat with his back against the wall, Pixel cradled in his arms. His body ached, and his breath sucked in involuntarily, shaky in the aftermath of unraveling on the floor until he couldn’t cry anymore. “I’m going to stay and help you.”

  “You didn’t want to help us before.” She narrowed her blue eyes to slits. “You wanted to leave.”

  “I panicked,” Nate said, which was more or less true. “But I get it now. And Pixel’s family. You have to stick by family.”

  Juniper gave him an odd look, as if she didn’t understand the word. “You don’t look strong enough to help. The last one who didn’t look strong died.”

  Glued to Nate’s side, Pixel trembled. “I don’t want them to kill me.”

  “No one’s going to touch you.” He hated himself for making a promise he couldn’t keep.

  Juniper shrugged.

  Her words lingered in the quiet.

  A GEM died in this room.

  Grief hollowed him out, his heartbeat like an echo in his chest. But as long as they were stuck here, he might as well start learning about the basement and how Agatha’s operation worked.

  He directed Pixel to one of the bunks on the wall, as far from Juniper as he could get. She climbed into the bottom one, and he sat beside her, shielding her with his body. He fidgeted, finding the folds in the sheets. The fabric shone, well-made. The mattress dipped gently under their weight, as inviting as an embrace. Pixel wrapped a soft blanket around her shoulders.