Chapter 16
Foggy Settings aren’t Known for Relaxation
We’re okay.
He lay there for a while, not wanting to move.
His body ached in places he was going to have to think about later but didn’t want to think about now, and he could feel Asher’s heartbeat against his spine.
More than anything, he wanted to close his eyes and go back to sleep.
Nothing insane had happened yet. The walls weren’t moving, monsters weren’t falling out of vents, there were no alarms blaring.
He was just here, in a nice hotel room, sleeping naked with Asher.
It was so painfully normal he could almost forget everything that had led up to this point.
Almost.
It wouldn’t last. It never did. Something would change again, and then he and Asher would be running or hiding or fighting their way to the end of the game and he would get Asher to leave with him this time. He didn’t know where that certainty came from, but it was there.
This is the last game. We’re getting out.
Eventually he slid out from under Asher’s arm, wincing with every shift of his body against the sheets, gathered his discarded clothes from the floor as quietly as he could, and moved on unsteady legs to the bathroom.
The tile was freezing on his bare feet, but as he shut the door and flicked on the light, the full scope of what he had asked Asher to do caught up with him as he stared at a reflection in the bathroom mirror that was much worse than he imagined.
His eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, his lower lip was puffy and darker than it should be.
From his neck down was a mess of bite marks and hickeys, bruises in the shape of fingertips, dried blood around his collar bone and one nipple.
When he turned to the side, one entire asscheek was bright red, purple in some places…
I look like a puppy’s favorite chewtoy.
He stared at the marks, his face hot as his mind unhelpfully replayed all the sounds, the words, the way his body had responded to good boy and the threat about the headboard and the part where his thighs gave out and Asher’s hands took over and his mind went somewhere it had never been.
Stop. Stop thinking about it.
He splashed water on his face and used a washcloth to clean himself as best he could, combed his tangled hair out with a plastic wrapped comb on the sink, and dressed himself slowly, the drag of his boxers and jeans over his ass introducing him to a different level of hell than he was used to.
The sweater did not cover the marks left on his neck, and if anything, looked like it was designed to explicitly accentuate his neck.
When he came out, Asher was sitting on the edge of the bed in just his jeans, holding up the dress shirt he couldn’t put back on because the buttons were scattered across the ground, his hair still wrecked from Levi’s hands.
His eyes landed on the sweater’s collar, and he grinned, tilting his head slightly.
“You can’t look at me like that in front of the others,” Levi said.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re reading a restaurant review you wrote.”
“I’ll try,” Asher said.
Yeah right.
Levi sighed. He walked over to the small closet of the room and opened it, spotting a cream colored t-shirt sitting on a carry-on bag on the floor. “Is this yours?” he asked as he bent over to grab it.
“No, this is your hotel room,” Asher said.
Levi glanced back, about to ask how Asher had his hotel room key, but paused because Asher’s cheeks had reddened and the tilt of his head had increased by several degrees. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Asher laughed. “You’re the one bending over where I can see, it’s not my fault you have a nice ass.”
Levi stood up too fast and winced as every sore part of him inside and out protested the movement. “Shut up.” He threw the t-shirt at Asher. “Come on, we should get back out there so I can embarrass myself with an apology.”
“Come here,” Asher said as he caught the shirt.
“No, we need to figure out—”
“Please?” Asher asked, his mouth forming a little pout.
Oh, fuck me.
Levi felt the pull of it in his chest before he had time to defend against it, that small protruding lower lip and the soft mismatched eyes above it doing more damage than any of the actual damage Asher had done since they woke up here.
He wanted to cross the room. He wanted to put his thumb on that lip and push it back where it belonged and then kiss Asher until the pout dissolved into the smile underneath.
He wanted to stay in this room with the rumpled bed and forget that there was some new horror waiting for them somewhere.
He hated that he wanted it. He hated that Asher knew he wanted it. He hated that the pout was working.
“Fine, what do you want?” Levi sighed, moving back over to the bed. Asher caught his wrist, pulled, and Levi went easily, too easily, into a kiss.
It wasn’t a quick kiss…this was the kind of kiss that had a plan — slow at the start, his hand sliding up to cup Levi’s jaw, his thumb at the corner of Levi’s mouth coaxing it open, and then deeper, unhurried, like everything could wait because Asher had asked and Levi had come.
Heat bloomed at the back of Levi’s neck.
His hand had ended up flat against Asher’s bare chest. When Asher finally pulled back, Levi’s mouth chased him by half an inch before he caught himself.
“That’s all I wanted,” he murmured, and the smile he flashed was the one Levi never knew what to do with — the soft one with no edge.
His thumb stroked once across Levi’s bottom lip, and then he pulled the t-shirt over his head, his hair sticking up in three directions when it came through the collar, and Levi’s hand was still on his chest until the fabric pushed it away.
He smoothed the shirt down, gave Levi’s hip a quick squeeze, and stepped back like nothing had happened.
“Come on. Let’s go embarrass you in front of your friends. ”
Levi stopped at the window at the end of the hall near the room, peering out at the thick fog.
It was unsettling. Nearly opaque, and with the darkness, it felt like his eyes couldn’t process it as something that was technically just a mist. It looked solid.
Every few seconds, it shifted, almost like there were shapes moving through it, but he couldn’t tell if it was close to the window or far. It just was.
“Whatever this game is, it has something to do with that fog,” Levi muttered.
“Worry about that later,” Asher whispered in his ear as he wrapped his arms around Levi. “This is the nicest place we’ve gotten to be in together. Can’t you just enjoy it for a few more hours? For me?”
That doesn’t get us out of here…
“Okay,” Levi said. “Come on, dovey, lead the way.”
Asher grew tense behind him for a split second, then spun Levi in his arms and kissed his forehead.
Levi’s forehead was still buzzing as they returned to the lounge, and it was noticeably warmer than the hallway had been.
The gas fireplace had been lit, casting the leather couches and arm chairs in a warm orange light.
Jasper had his feet kicked up on the coffee table nearest to the fireplace, beer in hand, and what looked like the remains of a charcuterie board in his lap, like he had decided it was solely his. He looked up as Levi and Asher came in.
“Hey, man!” He placed his feet back on the floor and almost stood, then seemed to have a moment of panic between greeting Levi and losing an entire row of summer sausage. “You good?”
“Yeah.” Levi’s voice was still rough. “Sorry about leaving so fast.”
“Don’t be. Owen tried to explain cryptocurrency to the table after you left. You missed nothing.”
Owen, in an armchair opposite Jasper, looked up from his book. “It wasn’t cryptocurrency, it was blockchain architecture, and the distinction matters —”
“It doesn’t,” Jasper said, rolling his eyes.
I’m probably going to miss Jasper the most when we get out…
Don’t think about that.
“Have you guys noticed how foggy it is out there?” Levi asked. Asher squeezed his hand and he forced himself to ignore the tinge of guilt growing in him over it.
”I was telling everyone about meteorological data for this region, but Tyler said that was boring,“ Owen said. “Fog events average three to four days during this season, which means this is entirely within normal parameters. I looked it up.” He held up his book as if it contained meteorological data, which it almost certainly didn’t.
“If the roads are this fucked in the morning, how will the bus come pick us up?” Tyler asked, turning away from the window with his arms crossed.
“What, did you schedule a hot date for when you get back from a company trip?” Maddie laughed from the unattended bar.
“He most certainly did,” Zoe said without looking up from a notebook she appeared to be doodling in.
“Don’t slutshame me, Zoe,” Tyler said.
Maddie appeared at Levi’s elbow with a glass of dark liquid and ice. “Oh good, you’re back. I made too many of these. Drink this.”
“I’m not really —”
“Drink it.” She pressed the glass into his hand, eyeing his throat, then winked. “It’ll help. I’ll get you one too, Asher.”
The evening settled into something that felt almost normal. Conversation. Drinks. Owen reading passages from his book to anyone who wandered close enough to be trapped. Maddie refilling glasses. Tyler at the windows.
“Has anyone else noticed the cell signal died?” Jasper held up his phone, the screen glowing in the warm room, the signal indicator empty. “Not even roaming. Just gone.”
Zoe checked hers. “Same. Must be the fog.”
“Fog doesn’t kill cell signals,” Owen said, then paused. “Usually.”
There it is. It’s starting.
Levi was on a loveseat near the fire with Asher’s arm draped over his shoulders.
Every few minutes he’d press his lips to Levi’s temple or the top of his head, casual, unhurried.
Once, during a lull, he turned his head and said “I love you” against Levi’s hair, quiet enough that nobody else heard, and Levi leaned into his side a fraction more.
He let the conversation move around him, his body sinking into the couch, the fire warm on his face, the bourbon doing what bourbon did while he tried to pick up little details that might give him more information.
The game always has rules. What will this one have?
The fog. The shapes. The retreat. Eight people in a lodge.
He watched Ethan play a ton of games about people isolated in foggy villages or towns—those were always so scary Levi had nightmares.
But he had lived and died more than a dozen nightmares at this point…
there wasn’t much more the system could create that would surpass what happened on the ship.
He was staring at the fire, resting his head on Asher’s shoulder, the bourbon glass warm in his hand, when Owen went silent mid-sentence — he’d been explaining the geological formation of the mountain range, the type of granite — and he stopped.
His mouth was still open, but his eyes became unfocused and wide.
Levi followed his line of sight to the bar, but Maddie was just talking to Tyler.
Owen looked at his hands, then blinked a few times. “I just had the strangest...” He shook his head. “Sorry. Lost my train of thought. Anyway. As I was saying, the granite —”
Nobody else seemed to have noticed.
It could be a clue. A red herring. The game ran out of facts for Owen to spout… Levi was more than ready to let it drop, especially after Maddie brought more drinks over, declaring they were Manhattans. Levi had never had a Manhattan, but he was certain they weren’t made with cherry Jolly Ranchers.
Fifteen minutes later, Maddie had been laughing when she just stopped. She was standing near a far window, drink in hand, elbowing Elliot over something Levi couldn’t make out, and suddenly her laugh cut off mid-inhale. Her eyes fell to her glass and stayed there.
“Maddie?” Elliot tapped her shoulder, his brow furrowed. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah…” Her voice was distant and wrong. “I just... do you ever feel like nobody would notice if you weren’t here?”
The quiet murmurs of the room paused. Jasper looked up. Owen’s book lowered. Asher’s thumb stopped on Levi’s shoulder.
That isn’t a thing Maddie says.
“Sorry. Weird thought. Long day. Who needs a refill?” Maddie went back to the bar, but Levi sat up a little straighter. Someone going a little blank like that once was an anomaly, but twice? “Come on guys, it’s our last night on Elliot’s dime and the bus won’t be here til 10:00 AM. Live a little!”
He scanned the room, looking at where Owen was sitting, where Maddie had been standing…
the only thing out of the ordinary was the fog through the windows, pressing against every pane like it wanted in.
At the far end of the room, past the bar area, one of the tall windows was cracked open.
An inch. Maybe less. Fog curled in through the gap — a thin line of grey wisping across the sill, catching the firelight as it dissolved into the room’s warmth.
“I need to go close that window,” Levi said softly and squeezed Asher’s hand before he stood up. The cold hit him three steps before he reached the window, like a draft with a weight to it, settling against his face and his hands and the front of his sweater.
A tendril of fog was still curling through the last inch of gap as he closed the window, dissolving as it wisped around his wrist, brushing across the inside like a breath, and a thought arrived in his head fully formed:
No one would notice if you were gone.
It wasn’t his voice. Or Maddie’s…
It was Ethan’s.
It was Ethan’s voice, in the exact same cadence he had used on the phone three weeks before he died, when Levi asked him how he was and Ethan had said I’m fine, you worry about me too much the way he always said those words, and somewhere underneath it had been this exact sentence, and Levi did not hear it then.
His hand shook as he flipped the latch shut and returned to Asher’s side, sitting down just a bit too carefully.
“What was that?” Asher asked.
“There was fog coming in,” Levi kept his voice down. “I felt something when I touched it.”
“What kind of something?”
“Despair.” Levi swallowed hard, staring at the fire. “We need to stay away from the fog... and keep the windows closed. We need to keep everyone away from them.”
Asher draped his arm back over Levi’s shoulders, pulling him closer. “Okay. Done.”
Just like that. No argument. No who cares, they don’t matter or any kind of challenge…
He really is in a good mood…let’s hope it lasts from now until whatever the game has planned for tomorrow at 10:00AM.