“I always wake up with you.” He swallowed hard. “Every time. Every reset. If I’m not next to you, you’re somewhere nearby…that—that’s how it works.”
“Okay.”
“This time I didn’t.” Asher stared at the ground. “I was — it was back there… just the white. And cold. Andempty, Levi. I was alone in it and you weren’t there because offucking Owenand I—” He shook his head. “That’s never happened before. Or I don’t think it has. I can’t — I don’t know if it has.”
That was where we went when we beat the game. That’s the way out…why did he go there? Why are we still here?
“Come here,” Levi said.
“I need to find —”
“Come here. Please.”
Asher came. He sat on the edge of the bed and Levi put his arms around him from behind, resting his chin on Asher’s shoulder. Asher was rigid for a moment and then his body gave, his spine settling back against Levi’s chest, his hands unclenching in his lap.
“The fog first,” Levi said, quiet, against his shoulder. “We stop the fog. Then we deal with Owen.”
“He shot me, Levi.”
“I know. And we’re going to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But if you go kill him right now, everything plays out the same.The fog comes, someone breaks, people die. We have to fix the cause, not the symptom.”
Asher’s breathing was still fast, his head snapping to the door as he stared at the handle. “I can hear the lock still.”
Levi squeezed him tighter. “I need you with me, dovey. Not down the hall killing someone. With me.”
Asher’s hand found Levi’s wrist where it crossed his chest and just held it. “Okay,” he said softly. “Seal out the fog...then once all this is gone, we can be happy. Just you and me. Together.”
“Together.” Levi pressed a kiss to Asher’s shoulder and didn’t say anything when the sound of a ventilator echoed in his ears.
The hallway was different.
Not horribly so, but the runner going down the hall was a different color. The windows were smaller. The walls were just wood paneling. Everything looked more rustic and warm than before. They would need to find the supply closet, the game always seemed to keep the essential items, but it might have moved. Once they established where things had moved, they’d seal the windows, the vents, the doors.
If we can get ahead of it, all we need to do is wait. Then we can leave. We need to leave.
Levi glanced down the hall and saw the kitchen door swinging, its hinges carrying it back and forth in decreasing intervals. The light from inside spilled into the dark hallway in a stripe that widened and narrowed with each swing. Asher stepped in front of Levi, pressing a finger to his lips before rolling his shoulders and balling his fists at his sides.
Levi already knew what was waiting inside for them as they approached and the smell filled his nostrils: copper and waste, the smell of a body opened up.
Two staff members were on the kitchen floor in lodge polos. One lay face down near the industrial sink, the blood pooled around his torso already tacky at the edges. The other was slumped against the wall beside the service entrance, smears above him at chest height, his hands and face in strips of sliced flesh and muscle. Asher grabbed a knife from the knife block as he approached the body by the sink.
“One of them is missing,” he said, nudging the corpse with his foot.
Levi pulled his gaze from the man with the ruined face towards the pantry, its door left wide open, and heard a soft sound. Wet. Rhythmic. Gasping. Like someone was crying quietly in the dark behind the shelves.
“Don’t.” Asher’s hand closed on Levi’s arm as he moved toward the pantry. “They killed the people in here. What do you think’s going to happen if you try to play hero right now?”
Levi yanked his arm back. “We don’t have time for this, Asher. If we don’t go see, that means there is a murderer in the resort with us. You heard what the ranger said. We have to try,” he said, his throat tightening. “We were too busy messing around to notice that Owen and Tyler were falling apart before, and it got us killed. We can’t let that happen again.”
Asher’s hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of Levi’s hair. “Don’t. Say. That.” He pulled Levi closer, his grip tightening further as he tilted Levi’s head back to force their eyes to meet, his cheek twitching and his eyes narrowed. “Don’t ever say that again.”
Levi grabbed at Asher’s hand, tears pricking his eyes as the sting in his scalp became overwhelming. “I’m sorry—”
“When we do things together, it means something, Levi. Do you understand me?” Asher whispered, his lips brushing against Levi’s. “It’s notmessing around.”
“I’m sorry,” Levi said again. He forced himself to relax, to stop pulling at Asher’s hand.It’s the fog, he told himself. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Asher’s grip loosened as he pressed a kiss to Levi’s lips, then released his hair. “I know, baby,” he said, brushing the tears from Levi’s cheeks as his face settled. “I love you.”
