He was always there. Caleb had taken it for granted that he always would be. How cruel that just as Caleb had begun to understand how much he needed Aidan, Aidan wanted to leave. Forever.
Until now, Aidan had always had the power to go into the Nowhere, but Caleb had never genuinely worried about him disappearing. He always came back—or more often than not, he took Caleb with him when he went. Life without Aidan was inconceivable, the future a yawning void with no exits.
Whatever it took to make him stay, Caleb would do it.
17
Innocent
Aidan chewed a mint and paced around the green room while they waited to go on set. He couldn’t sit on the couch next to Caleb. The loneliest place in the world, he’d discovered, was six inches from the person you’d hurt.
This interview would be a live broadcast, something they hadn’t done since working with Miss Tallulah, but it should be similar to the other recent interviews in content. It would only be different because he’d upset Caleb.
It was too quiet in the room, only the sound of his shoes scuffing the carpet. Caleb hadn’t flipped a magazine page in ages, and Oz was so absorbed in his tablet that he might as well not have been there.
“Are you going to to do it today?” Caleb asked, his eyes on the magazine, like he was talking about going to the grocery instead of getting dumped on television.
Fake dumped. They weren’t really together.
“No,” Aidan said. God, that made him feel like he’d swallowed a lump of ice. “It’s too soon.”
“Hm.”
Oz would turn himself in on Friday, five days from now. With Caleb treating him so coolly, it would be an eternity. The bed’s big enough that we won’t have to touch, he thought, and his throat closed up. He stopped pacing and dropped into an armchair. That wasn’t what he wanted at all.
It didn’t matter. He had always known this would hurt him.
He hadn’t realized that it would hurt Caleb. All those ex-girlfriends, he’d always bounced back from them in a couple of days. This wouldn’t be any different. More importantly, it would be worth it, because nobody would be coming to abduct Caleb. Nobody would ever hold him hostage in exchange for Aidan. Nobody would torture him for information.
You’ll be safe, he wanted to say to Caleb. Somebody else will love you. History had demonstrated that over and over. Caleb was easy to love. He could have anyone. People would line up for their chance.
It just can’t be me.
Aidan would explain all that later, when Oz wasn’t in the room. Right now, they had to go on TV and pretend.
Aidan prayed Caleb was in the mood to cooperate. He was the best at this and they all knew it. Most of the questions would be the same. Quint would get asked about his change of heart and his plans for the future; Caleb would get asked about his heroics. If they were lucky, the host would ignore Aidan or only ask him softball questions about being in love with Caleb. If things got too close to a touchy subject, Caleb would slip in and turn the conversation toward some likable story—if he wasn’t too pissed at Aidan, that was. He had such a talent for it. Aidan mostly remembered their wild adolescent hijinks as embarrassing and frustrating to the adults around them, but Caleb could make anything cute.
Aidan owed him so much.
As they exited the green room, Caleb rolled the sleeves of his blue-grey button-down to expose his forearms. Aidan didn’t want to stare appreciatively—didn’t have the right—but he couldn’t help himself.
“Yeah,” Oz said. “Do that in front of the camera and everyone’ll love you.”
“Fuck off,” Aidan said.
They filed onto the set, where there was a leather couch at an angle to their host’s wooden desk. His name was Ken Garnett and he stood to greet them, unfolding his legs from his chair and striding over. His suit emphasized the long lines of his body. He wore glasses and was grey at the temples, handsome and well-coiffed in a non-threatening, politician way.
Or, Aidan supposed, a talk-show host way.
Aidan shook his hand, trying not to inhale in the scent of his cologne, and then the three of them settled on the couch. Caleb slung an arm over the back of the couch, his hand landing on Aidan’s shoulder.
Oh, thank fuck, he was in the mood to act. This would be easy. Aidan tried not to let his relief show while he listened to Oz’s usual story about how he’d seen the error of his ways.
“Yes,” Garnett said, something cool in his tone. “Interesting how quickly you turned around on the subject of runners. Do you still feel that they pose a threat to society? That was your position until recently, wasn’t it?”
“I—”
“And for you to be associating with Aidan Blackwood now, it’s very strange, isn’t it?”
Caleb removed his arm from the back of the couch and sat up straight. He squeezed Aidan’s knee, presumably as a sign not to engage with this hostile line of questioning. Aidan didn’t need a reminder, but he understood why he’d received one. He’d always been most likely to start a fight.
“I don’t know what you’re implying,” Oz said, once he’d collected himself. A good answer. Not confirming anything, but forcing Garnett into the light. “I have a great deal of respect for Aidan and I think runners are a valuable asset.”
Aidan would have gone with valued members of society, but Oz was playing a recently reformed trillionaire, so maybe his word choice was more convincing. Regardless, it made Garnett lean in like a predator who’d smelled blood. He reached under his desk and pulled out a slim file.
Aidan’s stomach flipped. He should have known one of these goddamn talk-show hosts would want to play investigative reporter. He couldn’t afford to respond in his usual way—he had to be fucking likable, or their whole scam would fall apart. Christ.
If Aidan’s access to the Nowhere was ever going to come back, now would be the time.
Garnett slid his fingers into the file and opened it with exquisite slowness. “Mr. Quint, I have here a list of Aidan Blackwood’s inflammatory rhetoric and acts, perhaps I could—”
“Excuse me.”
“Yes?” Garnett asked. Aidan tensed. What could Caleb possibly say to defuse the situation? There was no anecdote cute enough.
“Who’s the most famous runner you can think of, other than Aidan?” Caleb asked.
Garnett wasn’t expecting to be questioned. He spread his fingers and drummed them on the open file while he thought. “Fehim Terzi, I suppose. Or maybe the Franklin Station Bank robber.”
“And what became of Fehim Terzi after the whole world celebrated his Istanbul-New York run?”
“Nothing much. He died young, didn’t he? Most runners do.”
Garnett’s nonchalant bullshit made Aidan rage. He had to know what had happened to Terzi. Everybody knew. What was Caleb doing? This wouldn’t help anything. They couldn’t talk about this; people didn’t like him. People didn’t like runners. He’d founded the Union with that in mind.
Instead of fidgeting, Aidan tried to project calm authority, like he knew exactly what Caleb was going to say, like they’d expected and prepared for all of this—or better, like he knew Caleb so well that he had perfect faith this would all work out. It was good to focus on something other than Garnett’s smug, punchable face.
If Aidan could still jump, he would already have landed a hit.
“Yes, runners do have a shorter average life expectancy than non-runners,” Caleb said acidly, not taking his eyes off Garnett. “In part because they’re frequently the targets of hate crimes. Terzi—the most famous runner in the world, by your own account—died because he was murdered. Assassinated, even. Strange that you don’t seem to know that, when you were about to present yourself as an expert on the subject of runners.”
“Oh, yes, I do recall something about that now. But it’s been decades, and it happened on the other side of the world. And it seems a bit of a stretch to call it an assassination.”
“The world is a lot smaller than it u
sed to be.”
Aidan shivered, and he couldn’t say if it was fear or excitement. He’d never heard Caleb—sweet, sunny, solve-all-the-playground-fights Caleb—sound so icy.
Caleb regarded Garnett, and then the audience, and spoke in a measured tone. “Fehim Terzi, the first runner to reveal himself to the world at large and a symbol of hope, was assassinated. He was poisoned. The killer’s apartment was full of long-distance surveillance photos and equipment for listening to everything Terzi did. There was evidence the man was part of an organization that wanted to exterminate all runners, but he killed himself shortly after murdering Terzi and his contacts were never discovered. This all happened decades ago, and it’s been forgotten by the world at large, but runners know it.”
Aidan shouldn’t be surprised. Caleb had cheered for every speech. Caleb had helped him found the Union. But it was still amazing, this proof that he’d really been listening. And he was willing to stand up for runners, even after Aidan had pissed him off. There was something in Aidan’s throat.
“So that’s one unfortunate incident. A violent crank. You don’t have any evidence of an organization,” Garnett said. “Meanwhile, there’s plenty of evidence of crimes committed by runners. After all, I just said the two other most famous—infamous—runners are Aidan here and the Franklin Station Bank robber.”
“If you saw someone shouting for help, would you scold them for being so loud?”
“No, not if they really needed it,” Garnett said, obviously resenting this line of argument. Caleb had wrested control of the conversation.
“Runners can be denied jobs or housing just for who they are. Our society forces them to the margins and then pretends it’s their fault. Do you know how many of the runners I know have been homeless at some point? Three-quarters, at least. That’s appalling. We should all be outraged, and yet hardly anyone talks about it. When Aidan protests, people notice. He’s doing the right thing.”
“Is he? If there are so many homeless runners, shouldn’t he be helping them instead?”
“He is. He does. Aidan is a hero.”
Well. That was excessive. He opened his mouth to dismiss it, and Caleb cut him off with a hand signal. Aidan felt strange, sitting here in silence while Caleb argued. He’d never experienced anything like this. Caleb had been so serious and determined the whole time.
It didn’t feel like a performance.
Aidan liked it way, way too much. He shouldn’t. It wasn’t making either of them seem harmless and cute. This wasn’t what they’d come here to do.
It’s not believable that I would dump him after this, he thought, an absurd flicker of panic. Worse, Caleb was making himself a target. Even if Aidan jilted him in front of the whole world, you couldn’t say this kind of stuff in public without repercussion. Nasty articles and news segments. His defaced image on protest signs. Hate mail. Someone had once thrown a brick through the window of a house where Aidan was staying, after a photo of him entering found its way to the darker corners of the internet. Any of that could happen to Caleb. They would come for him too, now.
Caleb knew that.
Caleb had witnessed the aftermath of the abduction, categorically the worst thing that had ever happened to Aidan. He knew it could happen again—especially if they failed to put Quint in prison. He knew it could happen to him.
Aidan had tried to shield him from that. Had tried to choose for him. This was Caleb choosing for himself.
Aidan had hurt him and here Caleb was defending him despite everything. Caleb was on TV using his platform to talk about runners’ rights.
“I understand you have a rosy view of Aidan, but surely you agree the Franklin Station Bank robber is a criminal?” Garnett said, desperate to regain some ground. “You can’t argue that she’s innocent.”
“Yes, let’s talk about her,” Caleb said. “She was fourteen at the time she attempted the robbery. Do you know what happened to her?”
Panic overtook excitement. They shouldn’t talk about Laila. She didn’t deserve to be dragged through the public consciousness again, and more controversy was bad for their fragile plan.
“She went to prison, as people who get caught robbing banks usually do,” Garnett said.
The audience was still, and the six-piece house band across from them hadn’t produced so much as as a ba-dum-tss since they’d come on set.
All Aidan had to do was reach out and squeeze Caleb’s knee. He’d get the message and back off as gracefully as possible. Maybe they couldn’t salvage this interview, but they could wander around the city handing out thousands of dollars in cash to passing strangers. That would turn public opinion in their favor again.
Despite the nervous energy racing over his skin, Aidan’s hands might as well have weighed two tons each. He couldn’t move them. He was as rapt as everyone else in the studio.
Caleb stared down Garnett and said, “And how did they keep a fourteen-year-old girl in prison?”
“Not a girl. A runner.”
Caleb ignored this. “Starvation, Ken. Starvation and sedation. That’s torture. She was fourteen years old.”
“She planned and almost succeeded in carrying out a bank heist. She was a dangerous criminal and she had to be stopped.”
In the silence, Aidan could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. Caleb raised his eyebrows. “You support torturing kids?”
If they were going to blow it all up, at least it would be righteous. Caleb was brave as fuck. More passionate about the cause than Aidan had realized.
No, not just the cause.
Holy shit. He’s in love with me.
Caleb deserved so much better than what Aidan had offered him. Aidan owed him the whole truth, every last terrified bit of it, from Brian and his surveillance photos to the nightmares where he was still in the cell. Caleb deserved to know how Aidan felt.
Aidan gave up on controlling his own facial expression and watched Caleb’s instead. He’d narrowed his eyes at Garnett. He looked ferocious. Sure of himself.
It was hot as hell. Aidan shouldn’t be thinking about that now.
Garnett spread his hands on his desk like his suit and his set could lend his horrific position some gravitas. He addressed the audience smoothly. “I support controlling a dangerous segment of the population. Extreme means are necessary. There are monsters among us.”
“Unconscionable.” Caleb nearly spat on the carpet. “I already told you how hard it is to get a job or an apartment in this country if anyone knows you’re a runner. It’s no wonder that some of them need to steal to eat. Runners made it possible for us to construct a space elevator, to build a civilization in orbit, and in turn, we’ve stood idle while radical ideologues hunt them down and murder them. We’ve used vile, abusive means to torture and imprison them. Worse, people like you have encouraged that.”
Caleb paused and Aidan thought he was storing up to launch into another rant. Instead he slung one arm around Aidan, the other around Oz, dragging them close. He glared at Garnett and said, “Laila Njeim was a desperate fourteen-year-old girl who made a bad choice. You’re a monster.”
And the three of them disappeared.
Aidan caught him before he hit the kitchen floor. Caleb stayed still and waited for his vision to come back. The jump shouldn’t have been so hard—even with two people, it was the first time he’d entered the Nowhere all day.
It sounded strangely loud in Quint’s house. Maybe the jump had screwed up his hearing.
Aidan pulled him fully upright. Caleb blinked. There were twenty people in Quint’s kitchen.
What the fuck?
When he looked at them, still fuzzy and trying to figure out why they all had masks or makeup or veils on, they burst into cheers. Most of them had beers or wine glasses in hand, but a few of them were raising whole bottles. The specially insulated, glass-fronted wine rack under the marble island, he noted, was empty.
Someone pushed through the crowd. At least it was the one person
whose strange makeup Caleb recognized, even with tears running down her face. Laila hugged him hard enough to hurt.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t have to th—”
She squeezed him sharply. “Shut up.” She loosened her hold and then yelled toward the ceiling, “Someone get this man a drink!”
Another cheer went up. Shit, were they chanting his name? He was too dizzy for this. Caleb said mildly, “It’s a little early for that, for me, I think.”
“I heard the world is a lot smaller than it used to be,” Laila said.
A moment passed. Why had she said that? She looked so expectant. “Are you quoting me?”
She laughed. “My point stands. ‘It’s five o’clock somewhere’ is extra true when you can teleport.” She kissed his cheek and let go of him. He wobbled, still dazed, but Aidan appeared at his side an instant later, a steadying presence. “If you don’t want one, it’s fine. But the rest of us are going to drink as much of Quint’s cellar as we can.”
“Fine with me,” Oz yelled, hoisting a bottle of champagne over his head to more cheers.
Someone pressed an open bottle of champagne into Caleb’s hand. He stared at it without drinking.
“Let’s go back in the living room and watch it again,” someone shouted. The voice was familiar. Without faces to match, it was hard to place people. Most of the Union members filed out of the kitchen and it quieted down.
“How did they all find this place?”
“I told them where it was,” Laila said. “I started getting messages during the interview. And I was sitting in that giant living room alone and I thought, well, why not have some company?”
From the living room, Caleb heard his own voice, the recording turned to maximum volume. A cheer drowned out the recording. He blushed.
Laila patted his shoulder. “I have a party to attend. See you later.”
“What’s happening?” Caleb asked Aidan after she was gone.
“We don’t get many victories, so we celebrate even the smallest ones,” Aidan said with a shrug. “The Union is choosing to see this as a victory.”
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