Viitasaari, Finland.

  The house was cold and hard to heat but they were making it work. After a few trips into town, it seemed more feasible to imagine staying there long term. Alex was surprised and relieved by the number of people in town who spoke English fluently. The Story was quiet, with long, silent winter days and nights that reminded him of Beatty in their singular feeling, but on the other end of the spectrum—though, he much preferred the desert heat and couldn’t imagine ever feeling otherwise.

  Alyosha’s absence was a heavy thing through it all, leaving nothing untouched. It colored every laugh, every sleepless night, every trip to the grocery store. Alyosha was in the gaps in their sentences, the lulls of their conversations, where he should have been, interjecting with some witty (or level-headed) comment and his big smile.

  They blew through their cash quickly by the time they had made themselves comfortable with food, some more basic furniture, an extra bed for Hannah and Gareth’s room, and some things to keep them busy—a deck of cards, a few books that seemed dull to Alex, and tools to start fixing the place up. That last one was a task he had very little faith that they could accomplish on their own, but almost a year later, they hadn’t burned the place to the ground yet.

  It felt weird not to be living under red lights or covering their windows. For some reason, it hadn't felt as strange while they were traveling, but inside a home, Alex was finding it hard not to think of it as a Sanctuary. It could be. He had considered bringing it up but tabled it until later. Being able to kiss Reeve in the kitchen when he wasn’t expecting it, or snuggle into him on the couch and feel Reeve lean back into him and press his lips to Alex’s hair without worrying about anyone’s reaction was argument enough for Alex to wait on that for the time being, despite the pangs of guilt he had whenever he thought of Misha.

  And he thought of Misha and the others a lot, particularly when dealing with the everyday logistics of the four of them being out on their own. Everything seemed to cost money. Constantly. Alex wasn’t naive. He knew existing wasn’t free and he’d known that the Church had been an overwhelming support and the reason they hadn’t starved or died. They’d given them anything they needed, and it hit him those first couple of months just how much of a strain on their meager resources the group of them must have been. And they’d done it without complaint.

  Reeve had gone back to using his knack to get them what they needed for the first few months, but using it so often had them all anxious of attracting attention to themselves. Plus, they had started to come up against things that telepathy couldn’t work for. Like calling the people who supplied their water and electricity. Without Reeve’s fake papers, they would have been fucked. They needed steady cash, but all that red tape it had taken for the privilege of paying someone for utilities seemed pretty pointless to Alex, and it didn’t lend any confidence that they’d be able to get steady jobs without papers in the rural area they were living in, where jobs seemed scarce to begin with.

  After a close call with local police asking Gareth and Hannah for identification while they were out getting food without Reeve to smooth it over, they all agreed the current system wasn’t working. Reeve bit the bullet and used his telepathy to apply for IDs for the three of them at the local police station (with fake names of course) but since the things weren’t printed on site, they were waiting for notice to go pick them up at a bus station, or something absurd like that. He would have told Reeve to get his ears checked coming back with those instructions, if Alex hadn’t been standing right next to him. It was stressful waiting to hear and he knew they were taking a huge risk, but their options were limited and it seemed like a light at the end of the tunnel of sorts.

  That didn’t change the fact that after over a year of constant running, it felt wrong to suddenly sit still. Alex felt aimless and on edge. It seemed like they all did. As much as he wanted it, it felt dangerous and none of them could quite shake that. It made the days long and hard.

  The nights were better. They were chilly and deafeningly silent except for the eerie whistle of the wind through the pines, but there was Reeve. The heat of his body, the perfect feeling of the weight of him pressing on Alex’s chest, and the way he would plant these small kisses on any part of Alex that was in front of him afterward, once they were finished and sleepy and sated with it. It was enough to make Alex long for their nights from the moment the sun came up. They were figuring each other out more every day, both in the ways in which their relationship was changing from friends to lovers, and also physically—though between his psychometry and Reeve’s telepathy, it hadn’t taken them long to learn what the other liked and wanted.

  Still, he should have known better than to let himself get too comfortable.

  The day they’d lost the house had gone like any other. Up with the sun to feed the furnace, have a light breakfast, and start back in on the long list of renovations they were working on. Alex, as it turned out, had a head for plumbing and was close to finishing up fixing the leak in the upstairs sink. Reeve was up on the roof, patching what he could and laying tarp over what he couldn’t. When he wasn’t doing that, Reeve would clean and cook. And Gareth and Hannah were working on replacing the damaged section of the flooring in the upstairs hallways. The cardinal rule through all this was to never allow Hannah to get her hands on the nail gun because she was obsessed with wanting to test her long-range accuracy.

  It got dark early that far north, and sometime after sundown, Alex was helping Reeve cook dinner.

  "Hey," Reeve asked over the thump of chopping up some carrots, "Hannah does still have more of her veggie-whatever, right?"

  Alex stirred the ground meat, frying on the stove. "You'd have to check the fridge, my friend."

  Reeve set his knife down and crossed behind him to the refrigerator.

  Alex cleared his throat. "Um, excuse you, what did you forget just now?" Out of the corner of his eye he watched Reeve smile and retrace his steps. Alex couldn't help but smile too, sly and pleased, as Reeve groped his ass over his jeans and laid a kiss on the back of his neck.

  "Better?" Reeve smirked, back on course to check for leftovers.

  "Yup."

  "And, yes, she does,” he said from the fridge. “I'll just get this reheating."

  Alex heard the beep of the microwave and then the whole house was thrown into darkness.

  "Damnit, Reeve."

  He figured they must have all used the exact wrong combination of appliances. He could hear a chorus of swears on the floor above them.

  “I’ll get it,” Reeve called, and Alex could hear him making his way to the utility room to check the breakers by the loud creaking of the floorboards. Alex stood still at the stove, not keen to step away from the fading glow of the electric coils, the only light in the room. More swearing; more floorboards both above him and on the first floor.

  “What is it?” Alex asked.

  “I can’t see anything wrong,” Reeve complained.

  “Have you tried using a flashlight?” Alex cracked.

  “Hilarious.” More creaking. “Just stay where you are, will you? I’ll figure it out and I don’t need you tripping.”

  Alex squinted into the dark. “I haven’t moved.”

  “What do you—”

  Alex saw Reeve’s flashlight beam sweeping toward him from inside the utility room light up a figure that shouldn’t be there for the briefest second, and he choked as his heart leapt in his throat.

  “Neptune!” Reeve yelled, switching the light off again.

  Alex didn’t need to be told twice. Grabbing the frying pan, Alex swung the pan at full strength in front of him with a whooshing sound. His ears had become attuned to the too-quiet sounds of their woods so when the floor creaked beside him, Alex swung blind, trusting that Reeve would stop him from knocking his lights out. With a jarring that traveled down his arms, he clipped someone. As fast as he could, he stepped forward and swung again and nailed someone good. He heard the body hit the ground.

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  He’d never been able to get out of the habit of always keeping a box of matches in his pocket, so he dug it out. He was strangely worried that the soft clattering of the matches in the box in his shaking hands would give away his position—and not the resounding sound of cast-iron against bone.

  The match struck and Alex squinted into the flare. At his feet, he saw a Neptune agent in black tac gear and night vision goggles, unmoving. Alex was suddenly at a loss for what to do next.

  His weapons were upstairs in the bedroom, other than a gun they kept by the front door. Reeve was too quiet and Alex couldn’t feel him in his head, he realized with building panic. Then he heard the flurry of gunshots above him where Gareth and Hannah were. He looked at the agent on the ground, seeing the chaos back at the construction site, and Alyosha knocking on the door. The Neptune agent, coming to, pulled a stun gun from his gear with an effort, and Alex kicked it away. That was it.

  Alex dropped the match.

  He figured most of their gear would be flame resistant, but between whatever wasn’t and the cooking grease that had been flung off the pan, the back of his balaclava went up. For a split second, Alex felt the pull of his scar and a wave of nausea at the remembered pain that flashed through him unbidden, but he pushed it away—no time to spare a thought of remorse for these bastards anyway.

  The fire lent a little more light to the room and, bending to grab the gun, Alex ran to the utility closet as the agent started to shout. Looking, he saw another Neptune agent teleport into place beside the one on the ground and teleport the two of them away again. Well, that explained how they’d gotten in without them noticing. Alex lit another match. Reeve was laying on his side, taser darts sticking out of his chest. He spotted Reeve’s dropped flashlight and switched to that, giving Reeve a quick once over. He was alive, but must have hit his head on the way down. He’d feel like hell when he woke up.

  Flashlight in hand, Alex made a break for the front door, ready to shine it into any night vision goggles he saw. Of course the rifle wasn’t where they’d left it, and as he swore a bluestreak. Alex looked out the window at their front yard. One Neptune agent was rubbing snow on his recently on-fire friend, who was groaning in the dim blue glow of the moon. Alex shoved the door open and fired off the stun gun. The teleporter went down in an ugly, yelling rictus. Holding the trigger down to keep the voltage pumping, Alex took the opportunity to rip a pistol from one of their thigh holsters. Gritting his teeth, Alex dropped the stun gun and fired four shots into the two agents before either of them could recover.

  What Alex wasn’t prepared for was Gareth making a rough landing beside him, having either fallen or jumped from the unstable and unusable second floor balcony right above the front door.

  “Jesus!” Alex crouched over him. Gareth pulled himself up with an effort. “You okay?”

  Gareth just panted, “Genny,” and took off limping toward the side of the house and the decrepit shed where the gas-powered generator was stored. That’s when Alex noticed the dark cord of their cut powerlines standing out against the snow on the ground.

  Alex bolted back into the house, gun and flashlight in front of him. He still didn’t know how many more agents were in the house. He found Reeve in the kitchen, leaning heavily on the table with a hand over his eyes to block the shine of the flashlight.

  “You good?”

  Reeve nodded. Alex would come back to check on him, but he still hadn’t laid eyes on Hannah yet, so he ran up the stairs. The upstairs was eerily quiet as he swept his flashlight side to side and into the bathroom at the top of the stairs. He stepped around the body of a Neptune agent face down in the hallway. Between his light and the floor creaking, he gave up on stealth.

  “Hannah?”

  Alex peered into the back bedroom that he and Reeve shared, but didn’t see anything out of place.

  “I’m in here,” came Hannah’s voice from across the hall in her and Gareth’s room.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Not really.”

  Alex tried the doorknob but it wouldn’t budge. “I can’t get in.”

  “That’s ‘cause there’s shit against the door.”

  “Can you move it?”

  He heard her groan with annoyance. “Yeah.”

  While he listened to the slow dragging sound of furniture, the lights flickered back on. Alex dropped his head back with relief and was able to do a quick sweep of the rest of the second floor before he heard Hannah open the bedroom door and call, “You should have let me have the damn nail gun.” Her tone was flatter than he was used to hearing.

  Alex squeezed inside the room with her. She looked unhurt but sore, and when she turned, he could see two taser barbs sticking out of her back, still trailing their wires. There was some blood on her cream sweater but it didn't look like hers. The body of a fourth Neptune agent with his face near beat in was on the floor by Hannah’s bed. There clearly had been a rough struggle in there. The small table at the head of her bed had been overturned, breaking a glass. Both a dresser and Gareth’s bed were out of place from having been shoved up against the door. A bloody-looking hammer from their floor replacement efforts was lying near the dead Sol agent. It clearly hadn’t been pretty.

  “This is probably gonna hurt,” he told her, grabbing her shoulder from behind. It took more force than he’d expected to pull the barbs out and the first one took a couple tries. She bore it admirably.

  “I need to finish the sweep of the house,” Alex said.

  “I’m right behind you.”

  Thankfully, other than Gareth and Reeve, the downstairs was empty, so the four of them stood around the kitchen table.

  “We’re leaving right now, yeah?” Alex pressed.

  “Yeah,” Reeve agreed.

  “Glad we fixed so much shit,” Hannah grumbled.

  “Alright,” Gareth sighed. “Everyone pack what you can carry and let’s get the fuck out here.”

  They did. It hurt more than Alex had expected it would have. It was the longest they’d lived anywhere since Beatty, and the only home he and Reeve had ever made together. Their bedroom. Their space.

  “It’ll be okay,” Reeve said into the silence as they stuffed things into bags.

  “I know.” When he thought Reeve wasn’t looking, Alex checked the drawer where he knew Reeve kept Alyosha’s fake papers to make sure Reeve hadn’t forgotten them. He hadn’t. At the last second, Alex wrapped his pillow up in the thick, comfy blanket they’d gotten in town when they’d first arrived so he’d have something to Read. Reeve didn’t question him about it.

  Downstairs, Hannah was throwing food into a tote bag and it hit Alex how comfortable he had gotten having a home base, a kitchen with food in it. He sighed internally. He’d done it before. He’d fall back into it.

  It wasn’t until they’d gotten outside that they saw the tires on their camper had been slashed. Without saying anything, Gareth went back and found the keys on one of the agents.

  “Should we shut off the generator?” Hannah asked.

  Alex gave half a shrug. “Why?”

  He, Hannah, and Reeve, pulled what they wanted to keep from the camper and then they all piled into the now-packed black Neptune SUV.

  “Where to?” Gareth asked.

  “Just drive until we find some sort of van or something,” Reeve said, lacing his fingers into Alex’s and squeezing his hand tight. “We obviously can’t keep a Sol vehicle. God knows they’re tracking everything in this.”

  They swapped it out for a red SUV in town that belonged to the nice young man who worked late at the corner store. Reeve telepathed the keys from him. Alex felt bad about it, remembering his good English and all the times he had fun suggesting local snacks to them whenever they’d make their purchases.

  Once they’d moved their things again, Gareth got them back on the road.

  “The IDs?” Gareth said simply.

  “Yeah,” Reeve agreed and no one said anything else about it. They’d all agreed to risk it.

  “Okay,” Hannah said into the melancholy quiet. “Two things. One, kinda thrown by the whole taser thing. I’m not complaining, but I sort of figured they’d be fine to murder us, no questions asked.”

  “The night vision,” Reeve said. “It’s hard to accurately identify people. Surprise and subdue us too fast for me to use my knack and then execute with the lights on. They couldn’t risk killing Alex because he never graduated.”

  “Jesus Christ, how long is that gonna fly?” Alex scoffed.

  “Not complaining, but yeah, after a certain point that’s gotta run out,” Hannah agreed. “Okay, two. I’m going to say this as kindly as I can.”

  “Okay,” Alex said, feeling the tension in the car go up, which hadn’t seemed possible.

  “Reeve, how did Neptune manage to roll up on the house and then get into our house without you knowing?”

  Reeve let out a long breath. Alex set his hand on Reeve’s thigh.

  “I guess I’ve gotten out of the habit of being on high alert and constantly having a net out to sense absolutely every mind in the area. I wasn’t looking.”

  “Okay,” Hannah continued. “Again, as kindly as possible: do you think you could maybe get back into that habit?”

  “I think that’s pretty clearly my only move, yeah.”

  Alex leaned his head against Reeve’s shoulder. It sucked how much fell on Reeve, but there was really nothing for it and Hannah wasn’t wrong.

  “I’m sorry to be that guy,” Hannah added.

  “No, it’s okay. You’re right.”

  “So what do we do now?” Gareth asked, clearing his throat. “Go back to the Church?”

  Alex’s heart leapt at that, despite having no doubts about how that suggestion would be received.

  “No way,” Hannah snapped.

  “Now we learn,” Reeve projected over her. “We flew under the radar just fine until we tried to put your photos in the system. If you stay off the grid until we have a way to get you fake papers like mine, we should be okay.”

  “The Church could probably help with that,” Alex interjected. “How else do you think they get around?”

  “He’s got a point,” Hannah said with a groan. “A point that I hate.”

  “Don’t you think we’ve caused them enough trouble?” Reeve sighed.

  Alex rolled his eyes, even though they wouldn’t see it in the dark. “Well, you three, maybe. And I wouldn’t be okay with us just rolling up and demanding papers. I’m just saying if we were there, that would be taken care of.” He was pretty sure the others wouldn't think twice about using the Church for their resources without aiding their cause, but the thought of that made him angrier than he wanted to be at his family right now.

  “Right, but that’s three out of four of us being useless. We agreed to give this a go. We knew there were going to be hiccups. We’ll learn. We’ll figure out a way to make this work.”

  There was a silence. Alex was worried they wouldn’t figure it out, but he buried the thought, hoping Reeve hadn’t caught it.

  “So,” Gareth began. “First things first, where are we sleeping tonight?”

  “I think you’re looking at it,” Reeve replied. “Let’s get someplace populated though, first, so we can disappear a little. Helsinki?”

  “For now.”

  ***