Chapter 23 #2
He always thought Royce had chased Zedd away because he cared about Cosmo, not because he wanted Cosmo all for himself.
And Cosmo had never seen Zedd threatening any of his past loves firsthand.
He hadn’t been sure how Zedd even knew about Marla or anyone else.
But Royce had known. Probably half of the harassment attributed to Zedd had been Royce making it up.
He loomed over Cosmo, his gaze icy. “I’m still going to give you my present, but I don’t think it’s any good now. He’s been in my trunk for four days.”
Cosmo screamed. Royce slapped a hand over his mouth and yanked him toward the door.
Cosmo sank his teeth into Royce’s finger and twisted in his grip, jabbing elbows and kicking feet.
Something jammed into his side; electricity popped and agony raced through Cosmo’s body.
His fingers spasmed, muscles full of fire ants.
Something hard looped around his wrists; he yanked away and tried to free his hands, but couldn’t pull them apart.
He staggered forward, unsure which bleary hallway was the right one. Everything was a fuzz of white and harsh fluorescents. Cool air buffeted his face as he shouldered through a door. Wrong way.
Royce grabbed a fistful of Cosmo’s hair and shoved him outside. He hissed, “Scream and I’ll stun you again. You’ll go right into the trunk with Zedd.”
Cosmo sobbed. Zedd’s black eye and broken fingers, his note swearing he’d leave Cosmo alone. It had been Royce’s doing. Royce skulking around his apartment with a flashlight and testing the doorknob.
Asphalt scraped under his shoes, his uncoordinated legs useless and weak.
Royce’s pine aftershave filled Cosmo’s nose.
Snot and tears ran down his face, his restrained arms full of itchy adrenaline he couldn’t use.
The lights of the gallery receded, and Royce’s car loomed ahead.
No. No, no, no. Cosmo was not getting stuffed in the trunk with his ex-boyfriend’s rotting corpse.
He twisted hard and broke free of Royce’s grasp, then slammed his head into the director’s nose. Royce gasped and put a hand to his face.
Cosmo ran.
“Help!” He stumbled, his ankle caving, and he shouldn’t have worn these shoes.
Royce yanked him backward, a hand over his mouth, and dragged him to the car.
Blood ran in a river from the director’s nose.
He pulled a gag around Cosmo’s mouth, then popped open the trunk.
A vaguely body-shaped object wrapped in a tarp took up much of the space.
Cosmo’s scream was muffled by his gag. He shook his head furiously.
“My gift to you,” Royce snarled. “The bane of your existence, strangled and snuffed out, just like you asked of me. Enjoy.” He hauled Cosmo inside and slammed the lid.
Darkness swallowed him. The sickly sweet smell of decay filled the trunk.
Cosmo gagged and concentrated on not vomiting.
The engine rumbled, and the car pulled forward.
He slid as far to the edge of the trunk as he could and groped for an emergency handle, but it was too hard to feel for anything, especially in the dark.
The rough carpet liner scratched at his cheek, and he was grateful that for a moment the sharp scent of motor oil overpowered the stench of rot.
The zip tie around his wrists caught on something pointy.
He worked against the metal, trying to saw the plastic apart.
A dusty memory surfaced of being at a birthday party as a kid.
There’d been a pinata, all the kids taking turns whacking the poor paper maché donkey with a baseball bat.
Candy rained from a split in the donkey’s belly.
Cosmo wanted all of it. He dove into the grass beneath the swinging bat, snatching up bubblegum, taffy, and even those gross little chocolate balls with the candy shells that came in a clear wrapper.
Someone yelled at him to get out of the way, to wait until the pinata broke open, but if he did that, the other kids would take it all.
On his second dive for candy, the bat slammed into his forehead.
He ran up to Mom, bawling. She scooped ice out of a cooler, wrapped it in a napkin, and pressed it to his growing goose egg.
Was that a good idea? she’d asked. He’d sobbed and shaken his head.
Are you going to do it again? No, he was not.
Some people were sensible. They listened to logic and to the good advice from their friends.
Then there was Cosmo, who had to learn everything the hard way.
If he’d listened to Déjà, if he’d advocated for himself more, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.
He could have quit Identical Dog at the first hint of Royce holding him back.
He could have told Royce to get bent when he’d demanded Cosmo cut his date short to help set up for the charity.
He could have had enough self-love to admit that he did deserve Micah.
They would never have broken up, and Cosmo wouldn’t have been walking up to a taco truck hollow and miserable.
None of that insight did him any good now, because he was going to die a horrible, painful death, and that wasn’t pessimism. It was presque vu. And now he knew why he wasn’t in Micah’s future. Why Everett needed to hide Micah’s razor and order him takeout with a criminal amount of cheese.
No Cosmo in any universe was going to get a happy ending, because he was going to be stabbed to death in the decrepit church that hosted his funeral party. He’d probably end up in the same grave as Zedd.
There’s room for two in your grave.
And after he died, he was going to haunt Déjà, and he was going to haunt Micah. Not to torment them, but to tell them how very sorry he was.
Micah – Pulling the Thread
Cosmo is gone.
The thought assaulted Micah as he arranged his pencils on the easel and nodded politely to something he didn’t hear from one of the onlookers.
Cosmo is gone. It cramped his stomach and sent a tingly panic shooting through his fingers. The worst part was he didn’t know why he’d had the thought or what it meant.
The only place Cosmo had gone was to fetch seltzer, but they were about to start, and he wasn’t out here yet.
Micah excused himself and headed down the hall. It was just his anxiety – he was under too much pressure with the event. Any moment, he’d find his love heading his way with a can of bubbly water, or maybe he’d gotten caught up in a conversation about one of the exhibits.
His dread increased with every step. Clarence stood beside Micah’s portraits with a group of people. He flagged Micah down and said, “There’s our man of the hour. We were just remarking how–”
“Have you seen Cosmo?”
“No, but–”
Micah hurried past. Cosmo is gone.
Presque vu flooded him with a sudden memory from the other timeline.
Goosebumps erupted on his arms. This had happened before.
He’d find a box of bagels spilled across the floor of the break room, and a bottle of seltzer in the hall.
And when he found scattered zip ties and spattered blood in a parking space outside, he was going to call the cops.
Except when this happened in the adjacent universe, no one had known where Royce had taken Cosmo.
They wouldn’t know until days later when it was far too late.
He shoved through the back door and sprinted for his car. With trembling hands, he dialed 911, then hopped into the driver’s seat and peeled out of the parking lot.
“Lemon Disco Police Department. What’s the address of the emergency?”
“My boyfriend has been abducted!” Micah ran over a curb and sped through a yellow light. “He’s being taken to the old church on Cherry Lane. Please hurry; he’s going to kill him!”
But there was still time. They’d changed things in this universe already, and if Micah got there before it was too late, he could change this. He’d snag another thread from the string of time. He’d yank the fucking thing out as hard as he could.
The emergency operator asked him for his phone number and name.
His hands cramped around the steering wheel, accelerator mashed all the way to the floor.
The buildings thinned out, making way for farm fields and cow pastures.
His headlights sliced through the dark, momentarily flashing on cars ahead until he sped around them.
“Where are you now?” the operator asked.
“I’m on my way to the church.”
“Sir, it’s not advised for you to put yourself in danger–”
“He’s going to kill him!” Micah’s voice fractured. “Please, Christ, you have to get there now.”
Royce had probably murdered that ceramics artist too, the one he wanted sexual favors from who was eventually found dead in her bathtub.
There wasn’t anything to use as a weapon in the car, but if Micah got to the church before the police did, he’d improvise. That’s what people did. They strangled women with shower curtain ties and beat men with wall sculptures.
He searched his mind for more details of the impending events – if he knew exactly where Royce would be with Cosmo, he could figure out how to approach to catch the bastard by surprise – but the only other future memory beyond the blanket of dread was of Micah sitting in the shower with his clothes on, icy water beating down on his face, until Everett walked into the room and hauled him out.
There was no time to mourn the fate of Other Micah. The road sign for Cherry Lane loomed. Micah pulled into a sharp turn, and the car skated on loose gravel. The phone flew from his hand and clattered across the floor. He slammed into a mailbox, and it bounced off the windshield.
A red taillight glowed ahead. At first he thought it was a motorcycle, but then the other light flashed on momentarily. Blinkblinkblink – blink – blink – blink – blinkblinkblink. Micah’s heart leapt. Oh, his baby was smart.
His first instinct was to rear-end Royce’s car, but he couldn’t do that with Cosmo in the trunk. He hung back. Cosmo would be safe until they stopped.
Darkened houses and barns passed from view. Reflective mile markers flew by. The flashing taillight burned into Micah’s retinas. It suddenly went dark, and the car sped up. Shit. Micah floored the accelerator. If Royce knew someone was on to him, he’d keep driving until he lost them.
He pulled up alongside Royce, then drifted into his lane.
Royce laid on his horn and tried to weave around Micah, but Micah yanked the steering wheel to the right and slammed into the side of the other car.
The side mirror shattered. Royce tried to cut ahead, swiping the nose of Micah’s car, but fishtailed and swerved onto the shoulder.
The car veered down the embankment, bounced violently, and crashed into a utility pole.
The pole listed and glass sprayed from the windshield as the front end of the car crumpled.
Smoke billowed in the beams of the headlights.
Micah hammered the brakes, and ice scrapers and water bottles flew into the front seat.
The trunk of Royce’s car popped open, and Cosmo clambered out. He dropped into the grass, then ran into the field. Micah’s heart lurched. He jumped out of the car and vaulted down the ditch. Rocks and brush slashed at his arms, and sweet-smelling rot drifted on the cold breeze.
He hadn’t saved himself from Derek. Every Micah would let Derek in, turn to get him a glass of water, and get smashed in the face with a ceramic sculpture over and over.
He hadn’t saved Cosmo from Royce. Not at the bar, and not at the abandoned church on the other timeline.
But the universe was giving him a do-over. This time, he would do what his other selves couldn’t. He loved Cosmo, and he wasn’t going to fail.
Royce’s silhouetted figure stumbled out of the car.
He turned and sprinted after Cosmo. Light winked off the blade in his hand.
Cosmo screamed, the sound cutting above the crash of Micah’s heartbeat and the trill of crickets.
Cosmo fell, scrambled up, and veered for a house in the distance.
Micah gained on them, and just as Royce looked back, he tackled him.
The blade flew from his grip. He reached for it, but Micah slammed his fist into Royce’s face.
Blood flew from his mouth. He tried to pull away, but Micah snatched his tie and yanked on it.
Royce let out a strangled cry. This absolute piece of shit had hurt Cosmo enough, and Micah might not be able to do anything about Cosmo’s other self, but he could save this one.
Hauling back hard on the tie, he punched Royce again and again. Micah’s glasses flew into the dirt as Royce clawed at his face. He jabbed a thumb into Micah’s paralyzed eye, and white-hot pain burst in his vision.
Micah cried out and shielded his eye. A knee jabbed into his chest, dirt and rocks scraping beneath him, and Royce smashed his fist into Micah’s jaw. Blood flooded his mouth.
Fingers wrapped his throat, Royce’s eyes blazing and lips peeled back in a red snarl.
Micah threw frantic fists, but his chest was full of razor blades, his body trying to seize up.
No! He had to fight back. If not for himself, for Cosmo.
Gasping, he clawed at Royce’s hands, but the man’s fingers dug harder into Micah’s windpipe. White stars burst in his vision.
Fight back! Get up! You have to–
A rock crashed into Royce’s head with a sickly crack.
Cosmo wrapped his arm around the director’s throat and hauled him back, his eyes wild.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance!” His voice was ragged and strained, face streaked with dirt and blood.
“Because the only one who’ll be warming a grave now is you! ”
Cosmo shoved him into the dirt and slammed his fist into Royce’s face. Micah kicked him in the balls with the force of nine months of frustrated rage. Royce gasped and choked, hands flying to his crotch. Where was that switchblade?
Sirens wailed, lighting up the night. A cop car slid to a stop, and an officer jumped out and skidded down the embankment.
Micah waved his hands. “Over here! I placed the 911 call!” He backed up as the officer trained his gun and flashlight on Royce.
Shivering, Cosmo clutched his elbows and clenched his teeth. Micah wrapped his arms around him and held him as tightly as he could.
“This time was different,” Cosmo murmured into Micah’s neck.
This time was different.