St Petersburg, Russia.

  When they arrived the next day in Saint Petersburg, Reeve had no plan at all. The ten-plus hours they’d spent in the van, slowly rotating drivers out, had put them all off spending any more time inside the vehicle. They could set up in a hotel for now or temporarily displace someone from their home. Both of those required him to use his telepathy. The last choice was to seek out a Sanctuary, but Reeve didn’t trust that he’d be able to pry Alex back out of their claws again. Reeve drove slowly, giving himself time to think.

  “You’ve got sneaky telepathy, right?” Hannah asked over his shoulder from the backseat.

  “Something like that.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Reeve squinted. “Well, it’s worse than not using it at all, but I don’t think we have much choice. We’re broke. Not like we can go back and sell that house.”

  “If you gotta use it, you gotta,” Gareth said solidly next to him.

  He could feel Alex holding his tongue on the Sanctuary thing. He’d know that Reeve knew. Reeve gave up on the outskirts and started back toward downtown to look for a motel-style place with private entrances to limit interactions.

  “There’s the plane,” Hannah suggested.

  “What about it?” Reeve snapped, harsher than he’d meant to.

  “Well, you could sell that.”

  “To who?” Reeve asked incredulously. “How many people do you think are looking for a black market million-dollar jet?”

  “More than none,” she muttered.

  “I’ll float it to Maggie the next time I can get online, but I don’t want to drag her back into all this and put her in danger.”

  “Or,” she began, then trailed off.

  “What?”

  “We could use it to hop continents. Really get them off our trail.”

  Reeve tried to bury the sick feeling and stay on task. “Oh, yeah? Did you learn to fly recently?”

  “Reeve,” Alex started, but Hannah bore him over.

  “Would have been a better use of my time the past few months than construction projects.”

  “Guys,” Gareth said, raising his voice.

  Reeve wasn’t having it and matched his volume. “What do you want me to do? Put an ad in the paper? Unregistered private jet seeks discreet and extremely understanding pilot for no pay. Brain trauma included.”

  Hannah got quiet. “You know you could get a pilot if you wanted one. Would it inconvenience some poor sap? Yeah, but you wouldn’t hurt them. And if you’re saying your telepathy is going to give them brain trauma then all this shit must be my very own zero-fun coma hallucination.” She huffed and sat back. “I know you don't want to because it hurts. Of course it hurts, but we can’t let ourselves get killed because of it.”

  Reeve swallowed the lump in his throat. “Floundering around in Australia or something is not going to be any safer than doing it here. It’s not a step to take until we have a real plan for when we get there. The plane is there if we need it.”

  “Wait,” Alex spoke into the silence.

  “Alex, please, I can’t—”

  “Not that,” he snapped back. “Turn right here. Here! And pull over.”

  Reeve turned sharply down a side street and parked along the side of the road. “What?”

  Alex pointed back toward the road at a two-story home surrounded by a corrugated metal fence. “I keep seeing these signs by houses. I think it’s probably for sale or for rent or something. If we pull the sign, we can just squat for a bit with telepathy as a backup.”

  Of course Alex would think of squatting, and Reeve would have neglected to consider it. Funny how easy it was to forget those were Alex’s roots. Reeve used this telepathy to scan the house and it was, in fact, empty. He turned the van off.

  “Let’s do it.”

  The house had an oddly ornate feel to it that was at odds with the banal decorating. All the doorways were dramatically arched but there was still a set of kids’ bunk beds with superhero sheets. The kitchen was bare, so they made do with whatever snacks they swiped when refueling the van.

  Sitting around the oval dinner table, they began to deflate. Gareth looked dead on his feet and Alex seemed more pensive than normal. Hannah gave Reeve a long look. “Sorry about earlier.”

  “It’s fine. You weren't completely wrong.”

  “Thanks.”

  He could tell she was fighting not to roll her eyes. Sometimes even he didn’t know why he chose to say the things he did. “Let’s shower, get a couple hours sleep, and then reassess. I’ll take the first three-hour watch.”

  “Then you can wake me up,” she sighed.

  Reeve took that as an agreement of truce. Alex, quieter than normal, gave him a soft kiss on the cheek and headed off to pick a bedroom along with the rest of them. Reeve hoped he wouldn’t try to be funny and pick the bunk beds.

  He took a couple caffeine pills and, extending his telepathy field around him out into the neighborhood to keep watch, sat by the window to think. It wouldn’t do for him to not have any ideas to offer when they regrouped. If he kept up with his telepathy, they could get a few days out of living here. It would be easy enough to keep the neighbors from noticing them and if buyers came to see the place, even easier to make them not want to buy the house. That didn’t solve their problem though.

  First things first, they needed the space and time to figure out what kind of life they wanted to live without being bogged down with distractions. If Reeve could find someone or some place he felt alright about cleaning out, they could get out of town with enough cash to buy themselves time somewhere they wouldn’t have to rob anyone. While “legal” identification was out of the question, he could try to locate a forger through the families--though that might put them too close to Entropy, or in debt to the Church. But it could work.

  There was always the place in Ukraine. He owned the farmhouse free and clear, and it was plenty of room for the four of them. It was hard living without running water or electricity but not impossible. Still, he didn’t love the thought of going there. It was a place that held memories and it had been a while since he’d had that. Plus, they'd buried another man there out by a stand of trees. He wondered if it might be healing to visit a grave, even if it were the wrong one. He doubted it.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  The hours passed slowly, but they passed. He found Hannah in the top bunk bed with one arm hanging over the side. She looked like such a limp rag doll that he almost didn’t wake her. He’d have taken the whole watch himself, but he wanted the time with Alex. She grunted, but didn’t argue when he touched her awake.

  He found Alex in a bedroom across the hall. Even though he tried to be as careful as he could, he still felt Alex stir awake as he was getting undressed. There was enough light filtering in from the street to see him, sleep soft with heavy lidded eyes, watching Reeve as he climbed into bed. The sheets were cold but nothing like the bed he’d last been in. He slid his arm under Alex and nestled in closer. Alex pressed his warm cheek against Reeve’s shoulder and adjusted the blankets around the two of them.

  Reeve was beyond exhausted and Alex was sleepy, but he couldn’t help himself from touching Alex’s face, running the pad of his thumb lightly down the side of his cheek. It was a wonder to him that he could do this. That they’d come through everything in a way that he could climb into their shared bed, touch his face, and, if they weren’t so sleepy, kiss him. This future for them wasn’t something he’d ever even allowed himself to dream about. Before that night in Berlin and certainly not after.

  Alex knew him in a rare way that Reeve didn't feel he had the capacity to be sufficiently grateful for. Especially now that his life had come apart at the seams and there was no way forward to put it back together correctly. There was a giant, endlessly painful hole that Alyosha had left behind. Alex still stood in the center of the chaos that Reeve’s heart had become and leaned in instead of flinching. The depths of his caring for others and tenacity even in the lion’s mouth left Reeve speechless. It was a privilege to be loved by this man and one he didn't understand how he could possibly deserve.

  Reeve realized too late he was staring and Alex had noticed.

  Alex smiled at him. “Hey, pervert.”

  Reeve let out a shocked laugh and when he was able to open his eyes again, Alex was still watching him, lips quirked in a smile.

  “Do you know what I was thinking just now? I was thinking about how I couldn’t possibly express how much I love you and how amazing you are.” He was trying not to sound defensive, but he couldn’t help but smile either.

  “And I was thinking, ‘Lookit this pervert getting into my bed.’”

  Reeve laughed until there were tears in his eyes. “Oh my god, Alex.” He pulled him closer and breathed in the scent of him.

  “Are you tired?” Alex asked.

  He didn’t want to be. “Yeah. You?”

  “Yeah.” Alex gripped him tighter. “Do you care?”

  “No,” Reeve said into his hair before pulling back to kiss him hard. His heart felt full enough to break.

  ---

  SolCorp Office. Kyiv, Ukraine.

  Anise del Sol was working in her office when she was startled out of her concentration by the sound of her name in a familiar voice. Looking up, she saw Adler standing in her doorway in a new suit, his glasses pushed up to rest in his hair.

  “Hey,” she exclaimed, standing up and hurrying around the desk. Half at a run she slammed into him, squeezing him hard around the waist. “It’s been like a year.”

  “It’s been ten months," he corrected, hugging her back. She relaxed into it, his chest moving as he chuckled. “And you were in Turkey on assignment for seven of those, and then Moldova.”

  “That leaves three months,” she argued, “that you didn’t come see me.” She released him and cocked one hip. Kyiv had been operating more and more without him there in person.

  His amused grin and smile lines by his eyes were warming. “I’ve been a little busy.”

  “Oh yeah? Doing what?” she joked. He didn’t immediately justify that so she went on. “I didn’t feel you get in. I’m not used to that.” Normally, his telepathy would have taken over the Kyiv office like an atmosphere.

  “I’m getting in the habit of reeling it in.” He closed her office door. “And I’ve been busy,” he told her pointedly, “doing things like making sure your reports get put in front of Louis Solomon.”

  Her mouth fell open. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious. So there was no need to be semi-involved in a coup to get LA’s attention. He’s going to know who you are. That’s what you’ve always wanted right?”

  She nodded. Whenever she’d daydreamed of it, it had always been Mackenzie Davis sitting at that desk praising her for her work, but she was adjusting.

  “Good. So how are you liking Analysis?” He unbuttoned his jacked and sat down on the chair in the corner of her office with an amused smirk, one leg stretching out to the side. After a skip of her heart, she sat down in her chair behind her desk. It felt meaningful in some way. Significant. Anise tried not to read too much into it.

  Anise had been working at the Saturn Analysis desk for the past year and was given her very own office. All these years after spending her days in Academy dreading wallowing in obscurity, it was still a little bewildering in the best of ways.

  “I kind of love it.” Her face scrunched up like she was confused, but it was only a matter of being surprised in herself and she felt she needed to explain. Field agents or their contacts would deliver intel reports and it was up to Analysis to analyze the data and create a document that efficiently gave the Saturn officers what they needed to know. “It’s like I get to work through five missions in an afternoon without having to deal with being hit on by mediocre men.”

  “You’re a treasure,” he grinned. “So are you bored of being in the field then?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Did you hit your head or something?”

  “Good, because I have a new assignment for you. Off the books, and you’re going to need some time to prepare.”

  Her pulse quickened. “What is it?”

  “You’re going to be promoted and transferred to LA to work in Analysis under Saturn’s Second.”

  He let her take a moment to process that. She breathed into her belly to keep her composure. “This is why you pulled me from the pilot program, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  She hadn’t expected that sort of bluntness for some reason and his face softened at her surprise.

  “I suppose that’s not entirely true,” he admitted. “I was also impressed with how badly you wanted to be who you are now and I knew I could give you that. I wanted to see how far you could actually go if I took away your restrictions.”

  “And?”

  “And you’re not even close to peaking.”

  She flushed with pride and got back to it. “Besides whatever assignments I’m given in LA, what will you want me to do?”

  “Befriend Ms. Diaz. Rise in her ranks; it shouldn’t be hard for you. Pull whatever unfavorable information on us that surfaces in assignments before it gets to her. I want to know what Saturn knows before he knows it.”

  She nodded solemnly. “I can do that.”

  “I know.” His confidence in her was a thrill and also a little scary.

  “Will I be working with anyone?” It was a risky question and she knew she was overstepping. It wasn’t generally acceptable to ask who else in a covert environment was part of the Reformation. Information was safer in scattered hands.

  Surprisingly, he looked sincere. “No,” he told her. “Saturn has been annoyingly unassailable. Until now, I didn’t have anyone I thought could slip under the radar surrounded by Sol’s top covert agents.”

  Anise was trying hard not to think about that. These would be the highest ranked Saturn agents in the entire Corp. It was their job and their instinct to read people and recognize deception. They knew the game. They knew all the moves.

  “And besides that,” Adler told her as he got to his feet and walked around the back of her desk, “Davis was too clever. She was judicious in who she let into her office. Vetted all the candidates meticulously and rejected telepaths outright.”

  She stayed sitting. “And Solomon?”

  “He’ll approve you. But it’s going to take some time. I’m going to need to work with you to ensure you can lock all this,” he gestured around the room, “down tight. LA is a whole other ballgame, as they say. That will also give you a few years to keep putting out exemplary work and prove your merit. There can only be so much nepotism before it raises eyebrows.”

  “Years?”

  “What’s the matter? Don’t want to train with me anymore?”

  “Just eager to get at it.”

  He put a hand on her head, thumb stroking her hair. “I know you are.”

  His approval shone with a brightness she couldn’t describe. When he looked at her like that, sometimes she toyed with the silly idea of calling him “Dad” or something. It was childish and something not within reach of gens, but still it bubbled up from somewhere in her, though she couldn’t say where. It’s not like she’d ever expected to have a father figure. The idea was only introduced through media and lessons about the outside world, but something subconscious had latched on. Anise knew that Adler must have known her thoughts, but he never disabused her of them or prevented her from thinking them. She held that as a small, unspoken gesture.

  “When do we start?” she asked.

  “Soon. For now, I have to go.”

  She pouted, mostly because she knew it would amuse him.

  “Everything okay?”

  “It will be. Neptune has been trying to kill an old friend of mine and I’m making sure the only person that gets to him is me.”

  “Why don’t you just change their orders?”

  “Gideon’s orders. He doesn’t want manipulations to have a paper trail, at least for the next two years, so I’m stuck doing some legwork at the moment. It’s temporary.” She saw him take in something from her thoughts, even though she couldn’t have even said what she’d been thinking just then. She knew her face was neutral, she had a poker face like no other, but he always knew everything about her. “I’ll be back soon,” he said warmly, a comforting reassurance.

  “Don’t be gone too long,” she teased, “or I might just book a plane to LA all on my own.” Being able to make jokes about disobeying him felt like a privilege, and she knew it always terrified her office mates.

  “I do believe you might,” he laughed. “I’ll call you.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  ***