“August!” The shout comes from up the street, and that’smyAugust. I recognise him, and I feel the fear in his voice like it’s my own.
I shove the bodies off, dragging myself from under them. I gasp in a deep breath, palms bleeding as I use the rough ground for purchase, trying to free myself.
His shout echoes off the buildings. “Stop! Don’t do this!”
One set of feet pounds the pavement, another after them.
Asshole August can’t have turned on us. Was he only waiting for this? The first opportunity to tear us apart?
My instinct is to yell out for August, tell him I’m here, but if I have a chance of getting the drop on that asshole, I have to use it.
Breaking free, I clamber over fallen bodies, leaping to the rare empty spots of pavement where I don’t have to feel guilty using a leg as a walkway. I stumble and fall, clamber up, scramble as fast as I can, listening for their footsteps.
“August!” he shouts. “Don’t. Please.”
I chase the sound of his voice. He’s close. I can’t make out the words of the voice that replies to him, but I recognise the tone. It is that bastard Asshole August. What’s he saying to him? Apologising for crossing us like this? For gaining our trust, then betraying us?
My August’s voice comes clearly. “You don’t have to do this. There are other ways.”
An alley opens on my right, dark and stinking, strewn with garbage. There, in the middle of the mess, is my August, hands up, terrified.
And standing between us, holding a gun, is that bastard double-crosser, who says only, “I’m sorry.”
“August!” I scream.
The fucker stops, dips his head, and it takes a moment for him to turn and look back at me. He keeps the gun on my August the whole time, but there’s something in his stance, in the darkness of his face…
The clothes only register after the gun and the danger. He’s wearing a long navy coat, enormous black boots that I’ve never seen before.
That’s not Asshole August.
It’s anewAugust.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
BAD AUGUST
AND… AUGUST…
As quickly as the new August registers me, I understand what’s happened. I keep my hands high as I step into the alley, a mirror to my own dear August. “That’s not the August you’re looking for.”
“August, don’t,” my August warns.
“It’s not him,” I insist. “I did it. All by myself. It was me. He’s completely innocent.”
The man’s eyes narrow, working over the strange situation.
“That’s a lie,” my August snaps.
What the fuck is he doing?
“August, don’t do that.” My heart’s in my mouth. I can tell by the flash in his eyes, he’s not about to listen to me.
“He’s lying,” he shouts, sending my pulse skittering. “It was me, all me. I found a particle. The-the Blackthorne particle, I called it. I made an accelerator, and I tore through all those worlds. It was me.”
“Stop it now, August!”
But he doesn’t stop at all. Only yells over the top of me, “If you need to kill me, you can do it. Then send him back.”
