August squeezes my hand. “He’s right. I’m sorry to say it, but he’s right.”
“No.” I shake my head in complete denial of their ridiculous logic. “Love will find a way. Love always finds a way.”
“It does,” Jon agrees.
“What would you know?” says Assassin August, tone sharp and sharply judgmental.
Jon gives him a small shrug. “It’s not what I know. It’s what all the best music’s built on. The best lyrics. The best poetry—because that’s what songs are. Books, movies, plays, paintings—all of human creativity. Love’s an essential function of who we are and how we exist. It’s written in the stars.”
All three of us stop and stare at him. Weirdly succinct. Weirdly lovely. Classic Jon.
“It’s not Bon Jovi,” my August offers gently.
“It’s not what?” asks Assassin August.
But my August ignores him. “It’s not fiction. It’s real lives, real pain, real loss.”
“It’s pure destruction,” Assassin August agrees with him. “Someone has to put an end to it. And truly, it gives me no pleasure to be the one to do it. But that August’s torn a hole in the fabric of the multiverse. He’s the thing that’s making it continue to expand and tear. He’s the only one who can stop it.”
“Yeah, sure, by finding the right universe,” I argue. “Not by doing what you’re both talking about.”
“You can’t play Russian roulette with existence like that.” He shifts his gaze to my August. “I’ve been over your work. I’m a particle physicist too, and I cracked the same thing you did in my own universe. Only I had some common sense and didn’t bloody do it.”
August’s face hardens against him, and Assassin August softens his voice. “My world’s a bit more advanced than yours. We detected the branes of the other universes vibrating beside our own. We were working on a way to measure their mass, their age, you know, doing basic research like scientists do.”
This time, my August rolls his eyes then looks away, so Assassin August focuses on me instead. “That’s when we realised worlds were disappearing. It took a while, trying to figure out if they’d just shifted away, or been removed. But then we found one. We watched it change size, swell, bigger and bigger, then get sick and shrivel.”
August tries to pull his hand away, so I snatch it up and hold it close to my chest.
“I remembered the work I’d done,” Assassin August continues, eyes on our joined hands. “Remembered the reasons I put it away. In my world, I was the only person who ever came up with that, that I know of. And it was strange watching the scenario play out before my eyes, as if I’d done it myself. And that’s when I realised. I had done it myself. Because after all, there’s an August in every world. An exact copy, except for a few life experiences.”
“Or a lot of life experiences,” August interrupts. “We’re not all as similar as you’d think.”
The words hit me hard. Things he said this morning coupling with this, and my heart squeezes as the thought occurs to me. “Did you meet me? In those other lives?”
“I met Augusts. I met us.” His gaze is clear on me, but troubled, and I don’t think I can take another confession. Not the sort I’m imagining.
“Am I… Have you…” I can barely even form the words. “Were there other Augusts?”
He knows exactly what I’m asking, and catches all the fear with the press of his lips to mine. “Never. Never once. I’ve met them, but they were never you. You’re the only one. You are so special. And you have no idea. That crushes me. That’s why I’m doing this. I can’t let anything happen to you.”
His hand in my hair soothes me as he takes my head to his shoulder.
When Assassin August speaks again, his voice is gentler. “The particle signature for Augusts is the same in every world. I told my team what my theory was, and together, we were able to locate you. In whatever country you travelled to, in every life, we found the August who belongs, and the August who doesn’t. Then it became a race against time. Find a way to get me through to you safely. Even if there was no way to get me back. I volunteered to go.”
He’s brave. And noble. And he tried to kill my boyfriend, and I really don’t know how to feel about this.
“Your world just allowed you to do that?” Jon asks. “They’re fine with you hopping worlds to kill people?”
The tension falters with a laugh from Assassin August. “Fuck no. It’s just the university.”
“What university?” August asks.
“Manchester University. Number one in quantum physics. We were trying to secure some more funding for a big project next year. Thought this might cinch it.”
“That’s academia for you,” August laughs out. “Fucking brutal.”
“Publish or perish,” Assassin August jokes.
