Emil walked to the other side of the outcropping to give Kit some privacy. He clenched his jaw in an effort not to imagine what was happening—and not to regret his decision to stop things. He’d made the right choice. It was shameful he’d let things get that far in the first place. He might not have been totally sober himself, but he was a damn sight better off than that poor kid. Kit must have weighed about a buck thirty and he’d been shaking with hunger when Emil started feeding him some kind of intoxicant.
Jesus.
He paced another few steps, trying to push away the memory of how perfectly Kit had fit into his lap, or the sound he’d made when Emil had pulled him close.
He could take care of himself out here—it would only take a second—but he preferred to grit his teeth and will his arousal away. He was a dirty old man, taking advantage of Kit while he was high and then thinking about getting off on the memory. It was his job to watch out for people Kit’s age—even if Kit wasn’t a member of his team.
It would probably be a couple of hours before Kit was clear-headed enough to take them back to the Nowhere, but maybe they’d be able to talk before then. Kit just needed a little time to come down—and Emil couldn’t go back over there until he was sure Kit wouldn’t try to persuade him to pick up where they’d left off. He had a lot of self-control, but that was a test even he was bound to fail.
No, he’d wait over here within earshot. Close enough to protect Kit if he heard anything coming, but far enough to protect Kit from both of their regrettable urges. And when he did walk back over there, Emil would apologize again. He’d reassure Kit that there was nothing to be embarrassed about, while simultaneously not giving away how ashamed he was of his own behavior. What had he been thinking? Why hadn’t he realized what was happening sooner? He was a little high—as different as it was from any of his previous experiences, he recognized the signs—but that was no excuse. He was supposed to be better than this. He’d promised.
He’d have to overcome his own reaction as fast as possible. They had to work together to get out of here. Emil could make that happen. He could speak the right words, strike the right note, get Kit to cooperate for as long as it took to get them both out. It was his job, after all.
He had to get back to the facility for his team. It meant walking—or jumping—right back into danger, but he couldn’t leave them there. He had no idea what had happened in his absence and he didn’t trust Quint Services to do right by any of them.
Emil let half an hour pass. He didn’t hear anything from the other side of the rock, so he walked back around and found Kit curled up on his side on the ground, asleep. His purple hair was a wild mess—Emil blushed to think whose fault that was—and Emil had to suppress an urge to lean down and smooth it.
There was no evidence of what they’d done here earlier, but somehow Emil could feel it in the air. He shoved the thoughts aside. He had to focus. “Kit.”
Kit stirred, blinking awake and then pushing himself upright. When he saw Emil, he pushed himself back farther.
“I want to apologize for what happened earlier,” Emil began. “I take full responsibility. I shouldn’t have let it happen. I don’t want you to feel at fault for anything. Please don’t be embarrassed, either. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Still, we have to work together to get out of here, so I think we should put it aside for the moment and concentrate on the task at hand.”
Kit rubbed sleep out of one eye. “It’s just a high, not the end of the world. Calm down. Not like I’ve never done drugs before.”
Emil’s team wouldn’t have responded to his tone that way, and it took him aback for a second. “I am calm,” he said. “And I am treating everything as seriously as it should be treated.”
“Oh, so you’ve never done drugs before,” Kit said. “Got it.”
That wasn’t true, but it wasn’t relevant, either. Emil cleared his throat. “As you know, we need to get to the Quint Services facility where we were headed.”
“Wait, you still want to go back there? Aren’t you some kind of prisoner?”
“There are people there who need me,” Emil said.
Kit raised his brows. “Okay.”
“Are you well enough to make the run?”
One side of his mouth turned down. He was so small and so fine-boned, with such quick movements and changes of expression. His fox-like nickname suited him. It made Emil want to smile, but if Kit asked him why, he’d have to say because you’re cute and it wouldn’t get them anywhere good.
Luckily, Kit was all business. “Not sure. Haven’t really had enough food or sleep to do it right, but I don’t think I’m going to get much more of either if we stay here. And it’s a long one.”
Emil choose to ignore the delicate subject of food. “A long run, you mean?”
“I’ve done Earth to orbit before, but lunar orbit’s farther than that. I know I can, but…”
“You’d rather try it for the first time when you were feeling your best,” Emil guessed. He didn’t say how can you be sure if you’ve never done it before? because he couldn’t let his own doubts contaminate Kit. They both needed to believe Kit could make it. “There’s something I need to tell you, Kit. I wasn’t completely honest with you before, when I said I didn’t know where we were. I have an idea of where we are, but you were so out of it earlier, I didn’t want to make things worse by freaking you out.”
Kit held his gaze for a second. “You don’t have to protect me.”
I’m sure I don’t know what you’re referring to, Emil didn’t say. He also didn’t say you already know that I do. Instead he agreed, “Of course not,” with an ease he didn’t feel. “It’s more that I’m a little freaked out, that’s all. You see, I’m a botanist.”
This made absolutely no impression on Kit.
“Well, really, I specialized in designing greenhouses for facilities in space, and that was after my time in the Orbit—” Emil was rambling. “Anyway, I know a lot about plants.”
“Don’t care.”
So maybe Kit was feeling a little bit surly. Understandable. Emil could deal with that. “I’ve spent years acquiring a broad base of knowledge of Earth plants. I have a passing familiarity with a variety of ecosystems spanning every continent.” Emil pretended not to see the bored expression on Kit’s face. He took a breath. “And I don’t see anything here that I recognize.”
“So it’s not Earth,” Kit said, his tone far flatter than it should have been for such a revelation.
“Exactly,” Emil said. “But we’re breathing. And—as we know—there’s life here.”
At last, Kit’s face lit up. “Holy fuck,” he said, breathless.
Emil couldn’t tell if he meant that in a good way or a bad way. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, either. “So, yes. If we ever make it back to Earth alive, we can confirm the existence of extraterrestrial life.”
“So where are we, then? Which planet? It can’t be…” Kit paused, and Emil could tell he was going through all the planets in the solar system in his head. Emil had done the same when he’d first had this realization—he’d gone through all the potentially habitable moons and all the exoplanets he knew about, too.
“That’s where my knowledge fails me,” Emil admitted. He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about Dr. Lange’s research, even though he barely knew enough to explain it. But this might be life or death. “But there is—there was this scientist on the base. He studied the Nowhere. He believed it was a sort of… membrane between realities. That’s why you can get to it from anywhere on Earth, or even in space. It’s everywhere. It’s what holds our universe together. He believed that we hadn’t confirmed this hypothesis yet because most runners didn’t know they could travel any further. Or possibly because most were only strong or skilled enough dip in and out to get around our world. He thought some day, deliberately or accidentally, a runner would break through.”
Actually, Dr. Lange had been convinced that some runners already had. He’d once theorized that runners had originated somewhere outside of known reality. Their inborn ease in the Nowhere didn’t result from a rare mutation in the human genome—strictly speaking, they didn’t have human genes.
Emil kept those thoughts to himself. Kit might not want his protection, but the kid was already having a rough day. “So maybe the reason we don’t recognize anything about this planet is because it doesn’t exist in our universe,” he concluded.
“Well,” Kit said. “In that case, it’s a longer jump than I thought.”
It was impossible not to smile at that cocky smirk. Unfortunately, Kit’s expression faltered a moment later.
“But I don’t know what we’ll do if that thing comes back,” he said.
“We’ll figure it out,” Emil said. He had no idea how, but he needed to believe it. “And maybe it won’t.”
“We don’t have a way to sedate you,” Kit said. He got to his feet and brushed sand and dirt from the legs of his jeans. Emil recognized the deliberate movements of someone who wasn’t fine, but who was working very hard to appear that way. “So don’t throw up on me, okay?”
“You sure you’re ready? You can rest a little longer—”
“There’s no food here,” Kit said, holding his hand out impatiently.
Emil took it, but stood up without putting any of his weight on Kit. He’d been in the Nowhere before without being sedated and he’d hated it. And that had been with Beck, who he’d known and worked with for years before they’d tried it, and who was huge and gave crushing bear hugs to his friends all the time. Emil trusted Beck. He’d never worried for an instant that Beck couldn’t hang on. Hanging on was what Lennox Beck did best in life.
Kit, on the other hand, was willowy. And he had plenty of reasons not to want to touch Emil.
So it startled Emil when Kit clamped both arms around his chest in a fierce grip. The top of his head came up to Emil’s chin. He tilted his head back, met Emil’s gaze, and said, “Hang the fuck on.”
Emil brought his arms up, and before he’d even wrapped them around Kit’s back, darkness enveloped them. It felt like someone had slid a hook behind Emil’s navel and yanked him sideways, except he hadn’t moved—he could feel the vise of Kit’s arms just where they had been. There was no light and nothing to see but Emil closed his eyes anyway, as if that would make this less disorienting. The darkness of the Nowhere felt thick somehow, not just an absence of light and air but the presence of something heavy and alive brushing against his skin. It was every prickly contradiction of sensation at once, wet and dry, hot and cold, rough and smooth, and it made him feel like his brain was folding in on itself.
He and Kit held still within that darkness, but Emil felt like someone had strapped him in upside-down and launched him into the fastest, loopiest rollercoaster ride of his life. There was pressure bearing down on him from all sides. Everything was wrong. He couldn’t—shouldn’t be here, where there was no space for him. He was suffocating, hurtling through the Nowhere faster than he could comprehend and dying by slow, miserable increments. Please let me pass out, he begged, not sure if he was addressing his own body or the void itself.
There was a flicker of blue light. Kit squeezed him so hard their ribcages might get tangled. And then they were out.
Kit was ashen and quivering, breathing too hard to get a sentence out. “Sorry—the thing—I couldn’t—”
Emil wasn’t in a state to offer comfort to anyone. He wanted to heave or faint or curl up in the corner or lie down and black out for twelve hours. But years of training kicked in and he put on his I’m in charge voice and said, “It’s okay. We’re okay. Breathe. Calm down. Take your time.”
It was good advice and it worked on him, too. He still didn’t feel like himself, but a few deep breaths went a long way toward making him feel like he wasn’t about to shake out of his skin. That was when he noticed they were still hanging onto each other. He didn’t let go. They were standing on a mattress on the floor of a room that was barely bigger than that. The ceiling hung low over Emil’s head. Three walls were a shade of neon green that might have made Emil flinch if he hadn’t just been dragged through the Nowhere, and the fourth was an aggressive shade of purple. There were piles of clothes, some folded and some wrinkled, surrounding and encroaching on the mattress. The mess wasn’t the haphazard mess of hastily discarded items, but the carefully curated, archaeological kind. It was more of a nest than a room. Emil would bet Kit could reach for any item in here and find it within seconds—and looking at the violet-haired, green-leather-jacketed young man in his arms, there was no doubt that this was Kit’s room.
Outside the window, an elevated freeway roared by. What looked like morning light filtered through the roadway grime on the glass. They’d been gone all night.
“I saw it coming and I panicked,” Kit said at last. “I couldn’t focus on the coordinates. I just brought us to the first safe place that popped into my head.”
Your bedroom, Emil’s treacherous brain supplied. More specifically, your bed.
“I can’t do another jump now,” Kit said. “Regardless of everything else, I’m exhausted. But we’re in Nashville, so you can get a car back to the Quint Services facility. They can hire another runner, if it’s urgent.”
As he spoke those words, Kit looked like he was eating something very sour. The prospect of another meeting with Kristian Auer made Emil feel the same way.
“I might not be able to for another day—not as far as you need to go, and not with that thing out there.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Emil said, even though he knew Kit’s suggestion was what the higher-ups at Quint Services would want, and therefore what he should do. Quint Services had been willing to pay for a runner to get him back to Facility 17. They wanted him returned as quickly and quietly as possible.
But of course, they’d also want to get their hands on the first runner to cross into another reality. Emil wasn’t sure what they’d do if and when they found out, and he wasn’t ready to think of that yet.
He still hadn’t let go of Kit. More importantly, Kit hadn’t let go of him. Emil was actually supporting most of his weight. He looked ready to collapse.
“First things first, let’s get you some food—real food, I mean, normal food.” Shit. He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks at the thought of their earlier encounter. “Is there somewhere around here we could do that?”
If he’d perceived that Emil was flustered and blushing, Kit didn’t show it. More likely, he was too out of it to notice. “Bar, downstairs.”
With one hand, Emil patted his pockets. He was wearing the clothes they’d put him in at Quint Services—his wallet was still at Facility 17, not that he had any need of cash or a driver’s license when he was living on an asteroid. Damn.
This time, Kit had noticed what he was doing, and he looked amused. “We don’t need money,” he said. “It’s Zin’s bar.”
That meant nothing to Emil, but when Kit made his way to the door, he followed.
It took all of Kit’s concentration to get down two flights of stairs and into the bar. A little voice in his head kept pointing out all the convenient places he could stop and rest—in that landing, up against that wall, in Emil’s arms. But if he stopped now, he’d fall asleep for hours. When he woke up, the hunger in his belly would be an even sharper pain. Better to eat now.
Kit was so focused on finding food and shoving it into his mouth that it didn’t even occur to him that Zin would be in the bar until she dropped the broom she was holding and swept him into a hug.
“Kit! Oh my God, baby, I was so worried when you didn’t come back last night, I’m so glad you’re okay.” She punctuated her sentences with kisses to his temple, which he normally sidestepped, but today he was too tired. Yes. Too tired. Not scared and in desperate need of comfort. “But look at you, you’re all bruised and tired and dirty and wearing yesterday’s clothes, where have you been? No, I don’t care, I’m so glad you’re safe, sit down, let me get you something to eat—and who is this, oh my God, Kit, when I told you to get a boyfriend I was trying to get you out of trouble, not into more trouble than ever before, Lord, you will be the death of me.” Zin didn’t so much stop hugging him as deposit him into one of the booths at the back of the bar.
Kit shook his head at her, but it was the most admonishment he could muster.
“Oh, and your tall friend came by earlier this morning,” Zin said. “What’s his name? I can never remember.”
Zin could remember perfectly well that his name was Travis Alvey. She just didn’t like him because he never made small talk with her. It was a stupid standard to hold him to. Kit never made small talk with anyone if he could avoid it, so in his opinion, it was a mark in Travis’s favor. But why would Travis have come by early this morning? They weren’t really friends. They worked together sometimes, and they had an equally transactional sexual relationship. Travis hadn’t been in touch about any jobs. And before nine o’clock in the morning was a strange time of day for the other thing Travis usually called him about. Kit frowned and put it out of his mind.
Emil, meanwhile, was wide-eyed and gaping at Zin. It would have been adorable if Kit didn’t know exactly what it meant.
“Hello, young man,” Zin was saying. “I’m Zin.”
“Zin,” Emil repeated, awe coloring his voice. “Zinnia Jackson.”
This was worse than getting knocked into another reality by some unknowable force of destruction. Emil was a fan. Kit’s commanding, uptight, strong, masculine soldier-acquaintance-parcel-crush was into deeply uncool, cheesy pop ballads from twenty years ago. Kit might have been able to handle it if they’d been some other singer’s work, but—Zin? It was too much. He didn’t want to be embarrassed or endeared. He was too tired for feelings.
“That’s my name,” Zin said cheerfully, because she hadn’t caught on yet. “What’s yours?”
Emil tore his attention from her and turned to Kit. “You didn’t tell me that ‘Zin’ was Zinnia Jackson.”
Kit shrugged one shoulder. He’d had no reason to mention it. Honestly, he forgot sometimes.
“‘Don’t Throw Me Away’ Zinnia Jackson. ‘Soft-Hearted Fool’ Zinnia Jackson. ‘Love You All Night’ Zinnia Jackson,” Emil said to him, listing a few of Zin’s more famous songs. “The Zinnia Jackson.”
Zin clasped her hands to her chest, beaming. “Aww, Kit, you brought me a fan.” Then she hugged Emil and rocked him side to side a few times. His face was caught between wonder and bewilderment. Zin held him by the shoulders and looked him up and down. “Well, you’re handsome and you have good taste. What can I get you, mystery man?”
“Emil,” he finally said. “My name is Emil Singh.”
It was an unusual combination of names, but Kit wasn’t sure he could ask about it yet. He didn’t like it when people asked about his name. So he let Emil babble at Zin for another minute, before she directed him to sit down in the booth and went to find them both something to eat.
“Oh my God,” Emil murmured to himself. He propped his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands, spiking up his bangs.
“Calm down. She’s just a normal human being.”
“Are you kidding me? A normal human being with the voice of an angel and a criminally underrated musical career! This whole time, you were living with a legend and it didn’t even come up.”
“We were busy,” Kit said, and if it had a dark edge to it, well, he couldn’t be held responsible for that. He wouldn’t be so irritated that Emil was being goddamn adorable if Emil hadn’t rejected him earlier. And sure, yeah, Kit had been high off his ass and he was hellishly embarrassed about it, but his cards were on the table. He’d climbed all over Emil like an animal.
He wouldn’t have done it sober. But it was done now and there was no taking it back. As mortifying as it was, in a way, it was a kind of gift. Kit hadn’t needed to work up the courage to say anything. It had all just happened. And now Emil knew and it could be perfect—they could skip all the uncomfortable talking and go right to the good part—if only he’d let it.
But maybe Emil didn’t want that. Maybe he really hadn’t wanted to do any of it and he’d let Kit sit in his lap and kiss the ever-living shit out of him because of some kind of fucked-up politeness. It had been so easy for him to put a stop to it and walk away. He’d barely mentioned it since.
“Yes,” Emil said, suddenly in command again. “We should talk about how we’re going to get back to Facility 17.”
“What do you mean ‘we’? You wanna wait for me? As soon as I eat, I’m gonna crash. I’ll probably sleep all day.”
Emil nodded. “You might have gathered but—the situation is delicate, up there. I want to talk to my team again but I don’t trust any communications channels. I have to do it in person.”
“And you don’t have any ID or cash on you, so you can’t get back up there except with me.”
“Well… yes.”
Kit sighed. Would Quint Services even pay him for a job this late? Did he have the heart to say no? “It’s fine. I’ll do it. I just need time.”
“Kit, there’s something I should tell you. My team has been at that Quint Services facility for just over three months, preparing for a mission.”
Kit didn’t need to be told where that mission was headed. “You were supposed to cross the Nowhere into some other reality.”
“Or failing that, another planet in this reality,” Emil said. “I got into this because I wanted to explore. Not to colonize or exploit. Just explore. I thought if I participated in the exploration, maybe I could help ensure that it would be ethical. And the scientist who was in charge, Dr. Lange—I think he wanted to explore, too. But he’s gone now and I don’t know who will be in charge when I get back. But I’m a little unsettled by the way Quint Services has treated me, and I’m… worried.”
“About your team.”
“About you.”
Kit fixed him with a look. “I can transport myself to a different continent with a thought. I’m not part of your team. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“If anyone there finds out that you’re the runner who crossed through… there’ll be questions, to say the least.”
“Like I said, I can get by. I don’t need your protection.” Kit stared Emil down as he said it. Then Zin came back in with bowls of pho for both of them, and she pushed herself into the booth right next to Emil, which made him all flustered. Kit rolled his eyes and ignored their conversation—mostly Emil praising every obscure track Zin had ever recorded and Zin cooing over him—in order to eat as much as he possibly could. Three bowls later, he stood up. “I can’t stay awake any longer.”
Zin stood up and let Emil out of the booth. Thankfully she didn’t ask any questions about where they’d been—probably because she assumed they’d had some kind of wild sex last night, which was both way too close and way too far from what had actually happened.
Emil said, “Let me help you.”
Kit frowned. He’d made it down the stairs earlier and now that he’d eaten something, he could trudge back up on his own. Did Emil want to lie down with him? In his bed? He narrowed his eyes, but Emil’s sweet, open expression wasn’t giving anything away. Fuck that. Kit’s bed was reserved for people who hadn’t rejected him. If Emil liked Zin so much, he could sleep on her couch. “Zin, can you put Emil up until—I don’t know, tomorrow sometime?”
Zin raised her eyebrows at that, and Kit was grateful that she didn’t say anything. She’d joked about Emil being his boyfriend earlier and Kit did not want to return to that topic. “Of course. Sleep tight.”
She put a hand on Emil’s shoulder and said something to him that Kit didn’t hear because he was already halfway up the stairs.