Sunlight falls through the open window, finding me where I’m burrowed in the comforter, stirring me awake. I sit up slowly, feeling peaceful and unwound, blinking at the blurry figure at the end of the bed. My sleep-addled vision clears to reveal Aiden, shirtless and cross-legged in his grey cotton shorts. He’s chowing down on a bowl of oatmeal, his bedhead just as wild as mine probably is right now.

He straightens up when he notices me awake, and I’m treated to an absurd, heart-stopping, full-frontal view of his bare torso and wideset shoulders. Bronze skin against white sheets. He stretches out to put the bowl on the dresser. A vein in his rounded bicep rises with the movement and falls away again when he draws his arm back, disappearing beneath velvet-smooth skin. Warm sunshine, feathered by the shifting leaves of the trees outside, falls in little patterns across the graceful curves and ridges of his body.

Okay, so I’m very awake now.

“Hi,” he says, grinning at me.

“Hey, um, you look-”

He dives across the bed without warning, sending me bouncing. I laugh and struggle upright, taken totally by surprise, but before I can move too far, he tears the comforter off of me and climbs right up between my legs. He puts a hand to my chest and pins me to the mattress with it, flattening me out on my back.

Before I can blink, I find myself the happy recipient of a long, sweet kiss. Brown sugar flavored, presumably from the oatmeal he just finished snacking on. Or it starts out sweet, anyways, but I’m wildly turned on and a little bit hazy from the feeling of being able to trace my fingers up his exposed back. Soon it moves a bit beyond sweet.

I open my legs a little more; he fits himself up against me, and I discover that he’s clearly enjoying this just as much as I am. He slips his tongue into my mouth, kissing me down into the pillows. My heels dig into the mattress as I bite back the sound mounting in my throat.

It escapes me anyways. Aiden pulls back, smiling, and the look on his face is positively sinful.

We stop for a second, breathing fast, staring at each other. I’m wishing that I hadn’t bothered to borrow a pair of his pajama shorts last night. Turns out things might have been easier if I’d gone with a t-shirt and boxers. One less infuriating layer of fabric between us.

He leans down to place a kiss directly onto my Adam’s apple.

“You’re in a good mood this morning.” I suck in my breath sharply as he drags his tongue up my throat. My fingernails dig into his back, but he doesn’t object.

“Mmm, shouldn’t I be?” he murmurs, nibbling on my neck. His warm breath flutters over my skin, lighting my nerves on fire. “We had a huge success yesterday, we were too tired to properly celebrate, but now…” He pushes his hips down into mine, teasing himself as much as he’s teasing me. I let out a helpless little sound, my hands fumbling to catch in his hair. “Now, we finally have some time.”

He pushes up my shirt and starts kissing his way down my stomach.

“And you call me a little demon,” I tell him, grinning.

He doesn’t answer. The kisses come to a sudden stop. I prop myself up on my elbows.

“Aiden? I was just kidding. You can call me that whenever you want, seriously.”

He’s sitting upright, paused over me, staring at the wall above my head. The sexy grin he’d been wearing has vanished, replaced by an uncertain frown.

“Hey, are you alright?” I ask, sitting all the way up. He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at me. I gently touch a hand to his face, concern starting to overtake the - um - everything else.

A burst of white-blue light suddenly races through his eyes, which widen and blink rapidly. He draws in a deep, shaking breath. I realize all at once that I’ve seen this face on him before. I know exactly what this is.

“Someone’s in trouble,” I guess, and he nods. “Really? Right now?”

“Soon.”

“Fuck.” I stumble out of bed and grab my socks from the floor. “Fatal trouble?” I pull on my socks and take his face in my hands. “Babe.” He blinks and looks up at me. “Fatal trouble?”

He tips his head to the side, listening.

“Yes,” he finally says, and I whip around as fast as I can to find my keys.

“Wow. You know, the only thing that could have stopped me from taking off your pants right now is a life-or-death situation, and what happens? An actual life-or-death situation. Unbelievable.” I snap a finger in his face. “Hey, come on, magic man, I can’t drive us there without you listening!”

Aiden seems to shake awake: he springs into action and seizes a shirt from the dresser. We both get our shoes on and race downstairs.

“What the fuck?” Kent calls, as we streak past him on our way out. “Do I need to implement a no running in the house rule? Where are you guys go-?”

Aiden shuts the door after us, and we run pell-mell for the car.

~~~~

The last time someone needed help, it was Ralph, and we had to drive to the middle of fucking nowhere. This is turning out to be the opposite. Aiden is guiding me along roads that I know don’t lead out of Ketterbridge. Apparently we’re after someone currently in town.

I’m chattering away. Aiden didn’t have to ask; I know by now that it helps him listen. He’s rigid in the front seat, his hand gripping the side of the door so hard that his fingers are slowly turning white.

“Jamie.” He cuts me off mid-sentence.

“What, are we there?”

“I don’t think-” He turns to look at me. I can’t really look back, not while I’m driving, but one glance at his expression is enough to send a deep chill through my veins. “I… I don’t think we’re gonna make it in time.”

“What?” My hands tighten around the steering wheel. “No, we left right away, we’re probably almost there-”

“It’s going to happen any second. I can hear it.”

I grab his hand and squeeze his fingers.

“Just stay focused, just tell me where to go-”

“Wait - pull over!”

I swerve the car to the side of the road immediately. The driver behind us honks violently, but I could care less at this particular moment. Aiden unstraps himself and flings the door open, so I turn off the car and follow suit. We both get out and take in our surroundings. My car is stopped on a hill overlooking an intersection with a gas station on one corner and a few shabby stores on the others. Cars are parked along the sides of the street. There doesn’t appear to be anything unusual going on.

“Aiden?” I dart around the car to stand next to him. “What-?”

“It’s her.” He points down the hill.

There’s a woman on her way out of the gas station, a plastic bag hooked around one wrist. She’s looking at her phone, sunglasses on.

“What - what’s going to happen to her?” I can hear the panic in my voice - Aiden said that we have seconds, not minutes - “What do we do?”

“I don’t know, I-” Aiden hesitates for half a breath, then sets off running down the hill.

“Aiden!” I take off after him, my heart pounding wildly - what the hell is this woman going to think if she looks up and sees two men she doesn’t know just sprinting at her? She has headphones in, I can see the cord even from here.

We jolt to a stop at the bottom of the hill. The woman across the street takes a cursory glance around the intersection, then steps out onto the road, still typing something on her phone.

“HEY!” Aiden shouts, so loudly that I jump. The woman looks up just as a car comes tearing into the intersection, blowing straight through the red light. She gasps and scrambles back towards the sidewalk, dropping her phone on the pavement. The car’s tires screech, spinning out as the driver tries to avoid her.

Aiden seizes me and crushes my face into his chest. I feel the racing of his heartbeat against my cheek.

There’s a bone-shattering crunch, the smashing sound of breaking glass and metal and plastic. A distant scream. Aiden’s hand on the back of my head pulls me in even closer, barring me from seeing whatever just happened.

I’m shaking, trembling and trembling, afraid to open my eyes.

“You asshole!” I hear someone shout. “What the fuck!”

Aiden lets out a long-held breath and releases me. I turn slowly to look. The woman is getting to her feet on the sidewalk. One of her sandals is out in the middle of the street, along with all of the contents of the bag she was holding. An orange rolls away and disappears down a storm drain as I watch.

It looks like the car that nearly hit her swerved into a parked car, instead. Glittering debris is spread out on the pavement, smoke rising from the hood. The driver gets out, green in the face, a small trickle of blood dripping from his forehead, but otherwise unhurt.

“Oh my god, are you alright?” he gasps, one hand to his head.

“What sort of driving is that, you idiot?” snaps the woman, scowling. “You could have killed me!”

Aiden slips his hand into mine and tugs on my fingers.

“Come on,” he says softly. “Let’s get out of here.”

~~~~

I don’t even remember the ride home. I’m numb, a little bit in shock, I guess. I don’t know what to do with myself, what to think or what to say. My fingers are still shaking.

I surface from my stupor and realize that we’re parked in front of my apartment building, and probably have been for some time. Aiden is sitting with his hands on the wheel, his worried eyes fixed on my face. He glances away when I shift to look at him.

Silence, for a long moment. Aiden unstraps himself. I sit perfectly still as he gets out and closes his door, then loops around the car and opens mine. He leans down and touches a finger to my chin.

“Do you want to go inside, or do you want to stay here?” he murmurs.

I unstrap myself and get out. Aiden locks the car and takes my hand.

The next thing I know, I’m sitting on my couch. Aiden is in the armchair, sitting with his arms around his knees, watching me. I reach out for him, and he moves at once, padding over to sit next to me. He folds an arm around my shoulders, and I lean my face against his chest, taking deep breaths of his vetiver aftershave. Just having him close is an instant relief, and I finally feel like the ground is steadying out beneath my feet.

“Why are you not more freaked out?” I mumble into the fabric of his shirt.

“I’ve been hearing people live and die my whole life, man.” He presses his nose into my hair. “I mean, it was a little easier when I could just get fucked up and not think about it, especially after hearing somebody… after hearing...” I feel him sigh against the top of my head. “God. I want a drink so fucking bad right now.”

“Aiden, don’t-”

“No, of course not. I’m just saying. I want one.”

I want one, too, but I’m not about to have one. I can’t even think of a meaner thing I could do right now. I’ll just have to calm down on my own, and that’s it.

“We almost didn’t make it,” I stammer.

“I know.”

“That was a complete fucking stranger.” I pull back to look at him. “So when you said you can hear everyone’s energy, you really meant everyone?”

“Not everyone.” He brushes a strand of hair out of my eyes. “Only people in Ketterbridge or from Ketterbridge. But yes, I do hear all of them.”

I spend a moment absorbing that.

“I know you told me that it’s loud in your head,” I finally manage. “But I didn’t realize how loud.”

How can he deal with this all the time?

After we rescued Gabby, the elation of success had blotted out the blind terror of plunging into the river, the stress of a life in our hands. When we saved Ralph from Cameron, it was scary, but then we literally traveled through time in a Corvette, and I forgot about everything else.

This time, though. This time it’s actually hitting me. What almost happened. What we almost saw. I slump back against Aiden’s chest, dazed.

I get the sense that he’s working his way towards saying something. The silence stretches on for a few minutes, but I wait.

“Jamie.” He takes his arm from my shoulders and gently nudges me upright. “This isn’t fair to you.”

“What?”

“This - I never should have-” He stops, swallows. “You need to know what it means, to be with me. I know you’ve probably thought about it on your own, but I’m going to lay it out for you, because I need to be sure that you understand this. I meant to talk to you about it sooner, I just - got caught up and - I was just so happy that-”

He breaks off, blinking rapidly, and my heart twists.

“Aiden, what…?”

“Look, this is how it’s always going to be. My whole life. I can’t stop hearing any more than I could stop breathing. I’m going to try and save everyone I can, but there will be times when I lose people. It’s unavoidable. No one who came before me has a perfect record, no one. Mine is already far from perfect. Kasey isn’t the only one I’ve lost.”

I stare at him, my head spinning. “I... honestly, I don’t know what to say."

Something moves in the depths of Aiden’s eyes. He nods, like he expected as much.

“I never wanted to drag you into all this.” Suddenly he’s looking anywhere but at me. “But when I heard Gabby about to crash, I panicked, I didn’t know what to do… and now you’ve been helping me listen, but you shouldn’t have to. This is my thing to carry, not yours. You shouldn’t have to see stuff like this. You could live a perfectly happy, normal life with someone else.”

I reach out to take Aiden’s face in my hands, and he leans back. Catches my fingers before they get there. Gently pushes them away. The movement stops me still.

“Where are you going with this?” I ask, my voice scraping.

“Jamie, this shit is a lot to handle, okay? It basically broke my mom.” He stops abruptly, and I wonder whether he even meant to say that part out loud. “It’s just… things could be easier for you.” He finally looks up at me, his expression pained, like he’s forcing himself to say his next words. “Things would be a lot easier for you, without me. That’s the fact. You wouldn’t have to deal with any of this, or see this horrible stuff, or cope with my fucking moods when I lose someone-”

“Aiden-”

“No, seriously, listen to me.” He takes an unsteady breath and stares right into my eyes. “I want you to think about it. I mean, really think about it. If this isn’t what you want, I understand, but I - I’d rather know now...” He fades off and has to start again. “Whatever you decide, I won’t hold it against you, not for a second. I promise I’ll still help get William back for Kasey.” His voice wavers, tight and strained like something about to break. “I’ll let you go, if that’s what you want. No one would blame you.”

I feel like all of the blood has rushed out of my heart at once.

“But-”

He gathers himself together and presses a finger over my lips.

“Please. Do this for me. This isn’t a decision to be taken lightly.”

I’m so fucking lightheaded right now. Do I need to go get my inhaler? He’s just looking at me, waiting for an answer.

“Okay, I... I’ll think about it.”

Aiden nods, looks away, and gets to his feet. He hesitates, then leans down and puts a kiss on the top of my head. Lingers there for a moment, his nose buried in my hair.

“Thank you.” He draws back and quickly runs the back of his hand over his eyes. “Take all the time you need.”

And then he’s gone, and I’m alone.