Emil waited twenty-four hours for Kit to come back. He did other things in that span of time, but they were never in the front of his mind. He checked on Lenny, who was cheerful despite having a bandaged wound on his arm, and Aidan and Laila, both still weak but improving. He saved Laila for last, since she was the one most likely to know if Kit had come back.
He hadn’t.
If Emil was honest with himself, he’d scheduled himself as Travis’s guard this afternoon on purpose. But since he’d just stolen a syringe and a dose of adrenaline from Caleb’s stockpile before going to the room where Travis was being held unconscious, he wasn’t feeling particularly honest.
Emil didn’t like to intimidate people. He didn’t feel intimidating on the inside, since most of what he wanted in life these days was to tend his garden or go for a walk in the woods. He remembered a time when the world had responded to him differently, when he’d been a chubby little kid that people wanted to pat on the head. Now when he passed among people he didn’t know, they were more likely to surreptitiously straighten their posture. Over the years since he’d become so physically imposing, he’d adjusted his behavior accordingly, and now he spent a lot of time smiling, being polite, making himself non-threatening.
When he walked into the room with Travis Alvey, he shed every last one of those mannerisms.
He woke Travis up roughly, dragged him upright, and kept a grip on his arm.
It was easy, even satisfying, to loom over Travis. He was taller that Kit, but he wasn’t a large man. Fashionably slender, he didn’t look like he spent much time in the weight room. Emil invaded his space and forced him to back up into the wall.
“You feel good about yourself? Feel big and strong?” Travis said. He was probably aiming for defiant, but his voice quavered at the end. He was, as Emil had suspected, not in shape to make a run. Not without help.
Emil smiled, glad Travis had gotten the point. “You’re going to help me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Pick a reason,” Emil said. “You threatened some people I care about, you’re powerless and I’ve got a hold on you, anyone who might have been your ally in this facility is chained up in a closet, and I think maybe, just maybe, you care if Kit lives or dies.”
“I pointed a gun at him,” Travis said. “So I don’t know why you’d think that.”
“You didn’t kill him.” Emil tried hard not to make it a question.
“Of course not. He jumped. It’s hard to shoot a runner.” Travis didn’t say that defensively so much as offensively, like he was daring Emil to try.
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead,” Emil said, channeling Miriam. As angry as he was with Travis, he didn’t actually want to kill anyone.
Travis scoffed. “You wanted to feel scary a second ago, but you don’t have the guts to kill me. You’d make your little attack dog do it.”
Emil shrugged. “Or I could hand you over to the two people whose imprisonment and starvation you facilitated. It’ll take them a while to get back on their feet, but once Laila and Aidan can access the Nowhere again, it’ll be pretty hard for you to get away from them. I’m sure they have a few things to express.”
Travis had done a valiant job of keeping a disdainful expression on his face, but his eyes got a touch bigger at that. It almost made Emil wonder if he felt guilty. Then he plastered on his smugness again and it was like it had never happened. “Fine. What do you want?”
“Kit hasn’t come back here,” Emil said. “Not even for Laila. If he had any control over where he was, he’d be here or at Zinnia Jackson’s. I need to know if he’s alive. You can get me there.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“You get me there and back, I’ll forget to sedate you, and then you’ll be free,” Emil said. It was distasteful, letting Travis go unpunished after he’d shot Lenny, but it also solved the problem of holding him prisoner. Emil couldn’t plan a rescue mission and a mutiny based on Heath and Winslow’s unconscionable mistreatment of Laila and Aidan and then turn around and starve his own captive.
He didn’t know Travis well, but given that he was in Kit’s circle of acquaintances, he probably lived on the fringes of society, taking payments in cash for being a supernatural courier. Work for Quint Services, steady and high-paying, had probably seemed like a dream to him. And if he’d developed some objections along the way, it would have been too late. Heath and Winslow would have threatened him and anyone he cared about.
Travis let out a humorless bark of laughter. “I’ll never be free. You don’t understand what they did to me. Heath and Winslow made me their little captive pet.”
“But you’re a runner.”
“Not anymore I’m not. They poisoned me. Now I can only get into the Nowhere if they give me their antidote, which they dole out in tiny doses so I can follow their orders. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’d done the same to Aidan and Laila.”
Travis was Heath and Winslow’s first experimental subject. Shit. Emil’s grip loosened.
“I don’t know where they keep it, of course,” Travis said. “But I know it’s around here. I can’t run unless you get me some. Of course, once you give me that shot, you won’t have any control over where I take you.” He obviously took pleasure in the thought. “I could leave you in the Nowhere.”
Emil didn’t let his revulsion show. That wasn’t possible. Emil was enough of a coward to know. When the experiment had started, he’d asked every scientifically minded person he knew, a number of whom were world-class experts on the Nowhere. If a runner lost hold of you, the Nowhere just spit you back out—usually, but not always, right where you’d started. That little bit of uncertainty was enough to keep most runners holding on tight, but it was just the randomness of the exit point that was a concern. You couldn’t get stuck in the Nowhere.
At least, that’s what Lange had said before he’d gotten trapped there.
“You’re right,” Emil said. “That’s a risk I’ll have to take.”
“Let go of me. I’m not going anywhere until you bring me the antidote.”
“The shot of adrenaline worked on Aidan and Laila,” Emil said. With reluctance, he dropped his grip on Travis. “If they went through the same treatment as you…”
“Sure, maybe it’ll work one time. But that’s not enough. You find me Heath and Winslow’s stash, you bring me all of it, or we’re not going anywhere.”
“What does it look like? Can you give me any other useful information?”
“It’s a clear liquid. Heath is always the one who gives me the injection.”
Emil stalked off. He convinced one of Heath’s lab techs, a young woman named Mei, to unlock the lab and every cabinet in it. She couldn’t or wouldn’t answer any of his questions about this alleged antidote. Emil couldn’t tell if Heath had really been so secretive, or if Mei was afraid of crossing her.
Emil decided to trust her when she huffed, tried to pull her hair into a ponytail, and then gave up halfway through, carding her fingers through it and knocking her glasses askew. “Of course I’m afraid! But she also kept secrets. This whole place is creepy as fuck. Look. I don’t want to believe anything you’ve told me about what Dr. Heath was up to, but something’s telling me it’s all true. I came here with you, right? I unlocked the door. I’ll do what I can. We’ll go through the lab together. If I know what it is, I’ll tell you.”
Mei could identify every clear liquid they found except one labelled DPR8. There wasn’t much of it, only a few syringes’ worth, but Travis would just have to deal. “Thank you, Mei.”
“I want out,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen here, but I just want to get out and work in a normal lab. No more cutting-edge science for me. No more being caught between you and Quint Services. And no more ghosts!”
“Do the other lab techs want out too?”
“Can you imagine them wanting to stay?” Mei asked, which was a good point.
“I’ll see what I can arrange,” Emil said. He couldn’t make any promises since Travis might drop him in the ocean in the next thirty minutes, and he had no real negotiating power with Quint Services anyway, but he would try. “Lie low, okay?”
“As if I’d do anything else.”
Emil left Mei and brought the liquid to Travis. He complained, as predicted, about the small quantity, and he would have backed out of their deal if he’d known that Emil was holding back on him, but Emil administered that lie and the injection into Travis’s arm with calm authority.
“They’ll find me,” Travis said. “If I can’t run.”
“If you need a shot every time you jump, this leaves you with two jumps after you bring me back here. You’ll just have to choose wisely.” Emil almost added I know that’s not something you’re good at but he decided against further antagonizing Travis before they jumped.
Travis eyed him. “You should be more afraid of Quint Services than you are. But whatever. I’ll take you to the shitty bar where Kit’s weird old lesbian friends live.”
They’re his family, Emil wanted to say. But what did he know? He’d met Zin once. And Kit had told Emil not to look for him, and here Emil was, teaming up with the man who’d pointed a gun at Kit and started this whole mess.
“Not like it’s hard for me,” Travis continued, looking extra smug and suggestive. “I’ve been there enough times.”
“Take me to the front door,” Emil said sharply. “Not Kit’s bedroom.”
And that was how he ended up in front of Zinnia Jackson’s bar with Kit’s ex-fuck-buddy. He knocked and she called out “We’re closed!” in an irritated voice.
“It’s Emil,” he said, knocking again. “We met… Saturday morning.” The days were running together. “I was with Kit.”
The door swung open. Zin held a broom menacingly. Her red curls were flattened underneath a bandana and she’d been crying. Her expression went from stormy to surprised and back again as she took stock of the two men at her door. “If you’re gonna tell me Kit’s dead, do it now and get out of my bar.”
They weren’t technically in her bar, but Emil knew better than to point that out. “So you haven’t seen him?” he asked, his heart falling.
“Not for days,” Zin snapped.
“He disappeared yesterday afternoon,” Emil said. He tried to put on his reassuring-figure-of-authority voice and it didn’t work. He sounded faint. “He was… with me, more or less, before that. I was hoping I’d find him here.”
Zin’s whole demeanor changed. “Oh, baby,” she said, and passed the broom to Travis so she could hug Emil. “I know.”
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed him into the soft bulk of her body. Emil didn’t deserve this comfort. Kit had told him not to come here. He took it anyway, letting Zin squeeze him and murmur “you’ll find him, I know you’ll find him” in his ear.
She let go eventually. Travis shoved the broom back at her, furious about the whole exchange, and she accepted it without really looking at him. “Do you want to come in for some coffee? Tea?”
Emil had all the information he needed. Kit wasn’t here. He needed to go plan another rescue, one he had no idea how to carry out.
But Zinnia Jackson had hugged him and invited him in and for the first time since he’d arrived, there was the faintest ray of hope in her eyes. “You can go through his things if you need to,” she said. “For clues.”
Emil didn’t think there would be any clues. This wasn’t a normal missing persons case. “Yes. Tea would be lovely.”
He could almost feel Travis roll his eyes.
“You too,” Zin said, addressing Travis for the first time. “I know you’ve never liked me, but you meant something to Kit, and you’re helping Emil, so you might as well come in.”
Travis didn’t protest any part of that assessment, but he did follow Emil into the bar. Zin was already in the tiny kitchen in the back, pulling things out of cabinets. “Go ahead upstairs,” she called. “You know the way.”
It was awkward, going into Kit’s bedroom while Travis hovered in the doorway. Travis had spent a lot more time here than Emil, but he leaned against the doorjamb in silence while Emil knelt on Kit’s mattress and sorted methodically through piles of clothes. His wardrobe was a rainbow of color and texture arrayed around Emil. There were a few items that Emil didn’t fully understand, and it made him wish he’d known Kit longer and seen more of his style. But there was nothing to indicate where he might be, or if he was even alive. It was beautiful and utterly useless.
Emil folded things and began to put them back as neatly as he could. He paused with a sweater in his hands. It was red with a wild, zigzagging black pattern, it looked far too big for Kit, and Emil suspected the slashes in it were purposeful. There was nothing at all practical about it, and yet Emil held onto it. Kit might be anywhere, in any climate, and if he was found—when he was found—he’d need clothes. He’d worn Emil’s t-shirt and shorts into the secret room. As far as Emil could remember, he’d been barefoot when he’d made the run. His boots were still on Emil’s floor, tangled in seaweed.
Emil selected an assortment of clothes for every type of weather he could imagine and he plucked another pair of boots from Kit’s floor. Then he got up.
Travis raised his eyebrows at Emil holding an armful of Kit’s clothes. “Thieving? Didn’t think you were the type.”
Emil had done plenty of shoplifting in his misspent youth, but Travis was correct. “I’m going to find him,” he said, pushing past Travis and heading downstairs. “Now come on. Award-winning vocal legend and pop icon Zinnia Jackson invited us to tea.”
Tea would have been lovely if Travis hadn’t sat there glowering the whole time. Zin smiled when she saw the pile of clothes in Emil’s arms. “You know,” she said, leaning on the bar across from him. “The first time I ever took him shopping, that was when I knew.”
“When you knew?” Emil asked.
“Oh, I liked him before that,” Zin said. “Even loved him. He’d been with us for a few weeks by then—we found him in the back alley, looking at Louann’s bike. No idea where he’d come from. But he looked hungry, and we had food, so we invited him in. We spent a long time searching for any family members, or foster family, any kind of caretaker, but he didn’t want to talk about it and nobody seemed to be missing him. It broke my heart and I thought, well, I want to keep him safe, even if nobody else does. So we let him stay. But when I set that boy loose in a store and told him I’d buy him whatever he wanted to wear, he came back with an absolute mess of textures and colors—you would not believe what he’d managed to find—that was when I knew he was my child.”
“Ah,” Emil said, thinking back on Zinnia Jackson’s pop career, filled with feathers and sequins and leather and mesh. She’d never shied away from any color or pattern. “A family resemblance.”
“He didn’t know it then,” Zin said. “Maybe he still doesn’t. But I knew. And I saw the look on Louann’s face in that store. She’s a hard woman to read, unless you’re me and you’ve been crazy in love with her for decades. She just kinda smiled and said ‘Guess he’s staying.’ And I knew that was Louann speak for ‘every time I look at either of you I want to explode with love, I am so wild about both of you I can hardly contain it,’ and sometimes I like to prove to her that I can speak her language, so all I said was, ‘Guess he is.’”
Emil smiled at that story. “Kit seems a little bit like her, too.”
“Oh, no, not really,” Zin said. “Louann’s quiet and understated by nature, but she expresses herself all the time. You just have to know how to listen. It’s different with Kit. He’s afraid.”
Their conversation suddenly felt even more intrusive than going through Kit’s things. And Emil had no doubt that wherever Kit had ended up, he was afraid. “I should go,” Emil said. “If we’re going to look for him, there’s no time to waste.”