The seconds stretched out, invisible and eternal, as if each one contained hidden dimensions folded within it. Caleb had heard Aidan call the cops—a thing he never thought he’d witness in any form—to report Quint’s location, but no one had arrived. The lab, entombed under the countryside, remained silent.
It was not fascinating to watch Quint dole out tiny amounts of serum into whatever instrument he was using now, but Caleb couldn’t look away. With each drop gone, he worried the amount left wouldn’t be enough to give Quint the shakes. He’d make himself a runner, no one would ever catch him, and it would be Caleb’s fault.
When the pounding came, it nearly startled him into the Nowhere. He barely stopped himself from making a fatal, uncontrolled jump. The sound thundered through the walls, making the twenty vials of suppressant clink in the rack he held.
“What the hell is that?” Quint asked, narrowing his eyes at Caleb.
“Sounds like someone trying to get in,” Caleb said. “Maybe you should get a doorbell.”
“Why the fuck are you still with him?” his double hissed in his ear. He must have reclaimed the earpiece from Aidan. “When I said we should make sure he did it, I meant we’d watch by hacking the security feed, not that you’d stay in the same goddamn room. Fucking hell, Caleb, I didn’t give you a gun!”
“No one knows where this place is,” Quint said.
“Don’t look at me. I’ve been with you the whole time,” Caleb said, trying not to be distracted by his double muttering some combination of insults and plans.
He had the energy for one more jump. He had to. Even if he couldn’t get all the way out of this complex, he could at least get away from Quint. The police might catch him, but Aidan or Laila would get him out. He took a breath.
He couldn’t do it. His sense of the Nowhere was gone.
Something went crashing down outside, and the sound of sirens and loudspeakers pierced the hallway. A moment later, booted footsteps echoed off the concrete.
“The police,” Quint said, darting toward the two vials of serum he’d left on the bench. The black leather case was lying open next to them, a syringe still tucked inside it. Quint prepared it, then shoved his sleeve up his arm and stabbed.
One down.
Quint closed his eyes. Nothing happened.
He rounded on Caleb. “How do I do it? Why isn’t it working?”
“You just think of where you want to go,” Caleb said. “It should be working. Maybe it wasn’t enough, after all those samples you took.”
“It takes a few minutes, normally,” his double said. “Don’t know how fast the shakes will get him.”
So helpful.
Quint loaded up the syringe with the second vial and pierced his vein a second time. He jerked it back out, wild-eyed, and threw it down on the bench. Then he made a pained grimace and held still.
He didn’t go anywhere.
“You lied,” he yelled at Caleb, hurling himself across the room. Caleb flinched, pushing the precious rack of suppressant vials out of danger, dimly aware that his double was yelling “Tell me what’s happening!” in his ear. He couldn’t think of an answer, but it didn’t matter. The hit never came.
Aidan was standing in front of him.
Quint’s hands were around his neck and Aidan was pulling at his grip, trying to get free. Caleb cut across the lab, picked up an Erlenmeyer flask, and bashed Quint over the head just as Aidan brought his knee up into Quint’s stomach.
Quint vanished. The spray of glass shards scattered to the floor unimpeded.
“God, I’m so glad to see y—” Quint wrapped an arm around Caleb’s neck from behind, cutting off his air.
Aidan had gone pale with terror, looking almost as drained of life as he had in Quint’s secret space prison. Fuck that. Caleb’s double could get out of this, and so could he.
“Choke,” he rasped.
“This one’s the one you like,” Quint sneered at Aidan.
His double’s calm voice in his ear drowned out the rest of what Quint said. “If the hold is from behind, don’t lean back. You need to bring your weight forward. Drop to your knees, elbow him in the groin, jab your fingers in his eyes, then grab his arm and twist out of it. Got it? Knees, elbow, fingers, twist.”
Quint was still talking. Threatening him, gloating at Aidan, something like that.
Knees, elbows, fingers, twist.
Caleb lurched downward, the hold around his neck tightening painfully. His elbow missed Quint’s groin but landed hard enough in his belly for Quint to grunt and release him. By the time he jabbed over his shoulder with his fingers, Quint had disappeared.
Caleb dropped to the ground. He tried to catch himself and instead caught his palm on the pile of glass shards. He lifted his hand, a triangular piece of glass sticking out of his palm, its edges red.
“That work?” his double asked.
“Yeah,” he said. Aidan was kneeling in front of him, holding his wrist and gently removing the piece of glass. It stung.
“The suppressant,” Caleb reminded Aidan, and he fetched the rack off the lab bench before returning to where Caleb was sitting.
“Now get the fuck out of there,” his double snapped.
Aidan couldn’t hear anything he said, but he grabbed Caleb and pulled them into the darkness.
They ended up in a house Caleb had never seen. He squinted out the living room window and saw a small scrubby yard and a quiet street dotted with more palm trees than street lights. A few houses away, the dark water of a sluggish canal lapped up what little light the stars cast. Tangled mangroves bordered the water. They weren’t in Tennessee or New York.
“Kit and Laila are probably asleep,” Aidan said quietly. He put the suppressant down on the kitchen counter and then shepherded Caleb into the bathroom. He rinsed out the cut in the sink, then applied stinging, cool antibiotic spray to it.
When he got out the gauze, Caleb noticed how well-stocked the first-aid section of the medicine cabinet was. This was a Runners’ Union safehouse.
“Quint got away,” Caleb said as Aidan was draping a bandage over his palm.
“I don’t care,” Aidan said, wrapping one end of the bandage over the base of his thumb.
“He’s got access to the Nowhere now—wait. You don’t care?”
“He doesn’t have you,” Aidan said. He tied off the bandage, but kept his hands on Caleb’s wrist. “That’s all I care about. We can be done, Caleb. I will give it all up and we can move somewhere remote—another reality, if necessary—where nobody has ever heard of Aidan Blackwood or Oswin Lewis Quint.”
“Aidan,” Caleb said. He brought his uninjured hand up to Aidan’s face, saw Aidan track the movement in the mirror behind them. He kissed Aidan, because they were alive and together and because he could. It was quick and sweet, because he had more to say. “It means a lot to me that you would even consider that. But I don’t want to do that, and I don’t really think you want it, either.”
Aidan’s face fell. “I don’t. But I don’t know how to live like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m in love with you and terrified that I’ll be the cause of something bad happening to you,” Aidan said, his fingers tracing the edge of Caleb’s bandage.
“Aidan. It’s a cut.”
“He had his arm around your throat.”
“And I got out of it,” Caleb said. “You saw that, right?”
“You got out of it thanks to me,” said a voice in his ear. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
Caleb yelled, “Stop listening, you fucking creep!” Then he pulled the earpiece out, opened a drawer in the vanity, dropped it in, and slammed it. After a moment of collecting himself, he sheepishly remembered that it was the middle of the night and other people in the house were sleeping. He said, “Can we revisit the first part of that thing you just said?”
“You sure he can’t hear us?” Aidan asked, eyeing the drawer.
“Aidan.”
“I said I was in love with you. Am, I mean. In love with you.” Aidan’s cheeks colored. He stared at Caleb’s hand like he wished it needed another twenty yards of bandage. “I’ve been kind of a dick about it. And I think I did this better the first time, with your double. I said all this stuff about how I’d been trying to make your choices for you, and that’s not right, and then I tried to do it again just now because seeing you in harm’s way makes me panic. I’m sorry. This is hard.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Caleb said. “This time, you said ‘we can be done’ and ‘we can move somewhere remote.’ I’m counting that as progress. It’s way better than ‘Caleb, I’m going to leave you forever and you get no say in the matter.’ Also, I’m trying not to be weirded out that you accidentally told my double you loved him.”
“Oh, don’t worry, he broke my heart hard and fast,” Aidan said, smiling ruefully.
“Not to interrupt this very important conversation, but I’m so hungry I could die. It’s been a long time since I’ve jumped. Come into the kitchen with me?”
Caleb followed Aidan into the kitchen. The fridge was stocked and there were brown paper grocery bags folded flat on the counter. Kit or Laila must have been out recently.
He peered over Aidan’s shoulder into the fridge. “You want a sandwich? I’ll make you a sandwich. Two sandwiches, even.”
The corner of Aidan’s mouth quirked.
“Or more,” Caleb offered, feeling a smile come unbidden. It wasn’t all that funny, but it made him want to laugh anyway. They were alive. Together. Making sandwiches.
He didn’t even know what town they were in and this kitchen felt like home.
Caleb hadn’t properly appreciated all other times they’d peered into a fridge or stood around discussing what to eat. Aidan had taken care of him when he’d been hungry, and Caleb would do the same. He couldn’t believe he’d ever been upset about Aidan showing up unannounced in his apartment—except he could, because Aidan had always left. He hadn’t liked that.
The part where they took care of each other, he loved that.
“Hey,” he said, wrapping both arms around Aidan. “I’m in love with you, too. You know that, right?”
Aidan touched his arm. “Yeah. Still nice to hear it. Nice to hear you shout at a talk show host for me, too.”
He kissed the back of Aidan’s neck. “Any time.”
“I’ll make my own sandwiches, though. You’re injured. Go sit.”
“Barely,” Caleb protested. He sat on one of the barstools on the opposite side of the counter while Aidan sliced avocados and cucumbers and started assembling sandwiches.
Soothed by having something to do with his hands, he said, “There’s something I never told you,” and launched into a story about his ex. Aidan really only had one ex, and his name was Brian.
“So, that’s that,” Aidan finished. “He’d been lying to me and tracking you. Surveilling everyone I had contact with, really, but it was the idea of endangering you that upset me the most. And that’s why I’ve been… the way I’ve been, ever since then. Not wanting to be seen in public. Never using your front door. Showing up in the middle of the night.”
“I know.”
Aidan’s mouth dropped open. “Wait, you know? You knew this whole time?”
“I didn’t know about Brian,” Caleb said. “And I’m so sorry you went through that, and that you felt like you couldn’t talk about it. It must have been awful. But I knew, in a more general way, that you were trying to keep me out of your life. That was obvious.”
“I was trying to protect you,” Aidan protested. “That’s why I was so unhappy when you took that job with Quint Services. And then you showed up at Facility 17—”
“We could have an argument about which of us needs protecting,” Caleb said, watching Aidan stack a second sandwich with haste and plop it onto a plate. “Or we could just agree that we’re in this together and be done with it.”
Aidan came around to the other side of the counter, set his plate down, and took the stool next to Caleb’s. “I think I’m beginning to get that. I’m just a little slow.” He smiled. “But what I was going to say is, having something bad happen to me that I couldn’t predict or prevent or get out of, that made everything worse. I was scared for me and scared for you. I don’t know how not to be. I care about you so much, Caleb.”
“I know,” Caleb said, putting a hand on his knee. “I care about you, too. And I know I might not really get the extent of your fear, but… it makes sense, after what you went through.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m scared for you—for both of us—but your work is important. I want to do it with you. I always have, even before I knew what an evil piece of shit Quint was. Being alone doesn’t make either of us any safer, but being together might. And putting Quint in prison definitely will.”
“You’re right. If we don’t find him, someone else will. But where do we even start?” Aidan said. “Either he’s a runner in good health and can go anywhere he wants, or, if Fake Caleb was right, he’s got the shakes and will appear randomly.”
“No one is better equipped to find him than us,” Caleb said. “You know almost every runner in the world. Get the word out to the Union to report any sightings. He might not have the shakes yet, but he will soon. I believe my double about that. Also, did you call him ‘Fake Caleb’?”
“Well, yeah. You’re the real one.”
Caleb smiled. It made him feel warm and almost weightless. Aidan was in love with him. They were in love with each other. They could do anything.
Aidan was used to sleeping in unfamiliar beds—or couches—in unfamiliar places. Squatting in Quint’s house had been more luxurious than normal, but just as temporary. He’d come to think of sleeping next to Caleb the same way, as a luxury that wouldn’t last, something he was borrowing that he’d eventually have to give up.
Slipping into bed in the safehouse, he folded himself into the curves and angles of Caleb’s body. So tired he was half-dreaming, he thought we could do this every night. They didn’t have to stop. He didn’t know where he’d be living when this was over, or what tomorrow looked like, let alone next week, but he could fall asleep with Caleb warm and solid against him. That mattered more than all the rest, so much that it made him giddy. His eyes were already closed, but he felt himself smile, buoyed by thoughts of the future for the first time in years.
With his nose pressed into Caleb’s shoulder, he mumbled, “D’you want sex?”
“You have the energy for sex right now?”
“You want it, I’ll find it,” he promised.
“Nah, I’m good.” Caleb pulled Aidan’s arm over his waist and intertwined their hands. “This is all I want right now.”
“Yeah,” Aidan said. “Me too.”