It was the kind of evening Wyatt preferred, and the red-orange glow cast by the setting sun made everything feel otherworldly.

  The microwave pinged, and he walked into the kitchen to grab his cup of noodles and the last of the root beer.

  It had been eight days since he’d arranged his brother’s bail, and there’d been no word from Teddy or sign of Flip.

  Bail had taken every dime he had and they’d be lucky not to get evicted come the first of the month. Let alone keep the lights on and food in the refrigerator.

  He’d thought about going to Clay, not that Clay had that kind of money, but he might have been able to get it from his grandmother. But then Samuel would have found out about it, and Wyatt wasn’t sure he could survive that humiliation.

  With no sign of Teddy or his thug, Wyatt wondered if it had just been a ploy to keep him in the house. Teddy liked to keep tabs on him, not out of brotherly affection, just that he liked to know he could find Wyatt if and when he needed him.

  He’d be royally pissed if he found out it had all been bullshit, but as it was, he had told everyone that he was down with the flu. The store had bought it for six days before finally calling him to let him go, and even Clay had come knocking twice, looking doubtful.

  He ate his noodles, flipping through videos on his phone, and looking for something to distract him. He eventually grew bored and turned on the television and fell asleep to a poorly plotted TV movie with a blond actress he vaguely recognized, falling for her hometown hunk.

  When he woke up, the credits were rolling and he felt overwhelmingly melancholy.

  He stood, stretched, and forced himself to toss his empty noodle cup away, and his can in with the rest of the recycling. Something outside caught his attention. He turned out the light behind him to see better and pressed his nose against the cold pane of glass.

  Someone still loitered by the bus stop. This time it occurred to Wyatt that the dark figure might not have been waiting for the bus at all.

  He grabbed at the drapes, pulling them together, leaving just a sliver to peek through. When he looked again, the person was still there, the glow of a cigarette appearing whenever the shadowed figure moved to take a drag.

  “Shit.”

  Wyatt ran into the living room, pulling the curtains in there too. He debated a moment, wondering whether he should leave. Maybe Mrs. Cain would let him hide in her rooms for a few hours. He could let the asshole turn the place over and only come back when the job was done. It was a laughable idea. The landlady would never let him stay and Wyatt would have rather been roughed up than go begging across the hall.

  He peeked back through the curtains and searched the darkness again for the shadow and the tell-tale orange glow, but there was nothing. He wiped at the glass and looked again. The street was completely deserted. Maybe he’d imagined it. Not that figure, he knew what he’d seen, but they might not have been watching the house, and there was no reason to think it was the same person from all those hours before.

  No reason except for his gut instinct.

  He could call the cops just in case, but at most they would do a quick drive-by, if they made anything out of his concern at all.

  Wyatt was still trying to decide what to do when there was a knock on the door to the hall that almost sent him scurrying to lock himself away in his bedroom. Instead he held his breath and waited.

  After a long moment of silence the knock came again, this time louder and more insistent.

  “Wyatt? Wyatt, are you in there?”

  Samuel’s voice loosened the vice around Wyatt’s chest and started that all too familiar sick flutter in his stomach. He slipped to the door, stealing a look through the peephole. It gave a hazy, yellowed view of the hall, and Samuel with his angry face, his mouth tugged down at the corners.

  When he reached up to knock again, Wyatt quickly worked to undo the locks and opened the door.

  “Hey.” He forced a smile. “Come on in.”

  Wyatt pulled the door wider, stepping aside, and letting Samuel pass before peeking into the hall and pushing it closed again. When he turned around, Samuel was studying the room around him. He’d grown taller than when they’d been friends. Wyatt had thought so from his occasional glimpses of him in line at the market or in the hall but seeing him again in the space where they had spent so much time together confirmed it. It was strange how much a person could change in three years.

  He was taller, certainly broader, and Wyatt still thought he was remarkably handsome.

  When Samuel turned round, he didn’t look as if he’d been having the same kind of thoughts as Wyatt. His dark brows were drawn together with either concern or disappointment. It was a look Wyatt remembered far too well.

  “Where’s Teddy?”

  “Teddy?” The visit and the question were so unexpected, Wyatt flailed to come up with any kind of response. “What do you mean?”

  Samuel made an irritated noise before reaching out to grab one of Wyatt’s arms and shoving up the long sleeves of his T-shirt. He studied it, twisting it left and right before moving to the next. Grab. Shove. Twist.

  “Stop that.” Wyatt yanked his arm back, slapping at Samuel’s hand when he didn’t want to let go. “I’m not using, for fuck’s sake.”

  He had promised Samuel he wouldn’t, and he never had.

  “Yeah, sorry.” Samuel didn’t sound particularly apologetic, but he relented, folding his arms protectively across his middle. Wyatt had done that, made himself a person Samuel felt the need to defend against. If only he could have gone back in time. Changed the past. But he couldn’t. You had to live with your mistakes.

  “Clay said you’ve been M.I.A. for more than a week.” It was a statement, but Wyatt felt the need to defend his lie.

  “Yeah, not feeling great. Better tonight though.”

  Samuel nodded and then, as if by impulse reached out, using his fingers to turn Wyatt’s head this way and that, studying his face.

  “Teddy hasn’t touched me either.” Wyatt knew he sounded defensive. Annoyed. He remembered all too well the times Samuel had found him bruised, his brother passed out on the couch. It was easier to be pissed than touched at the concern. “Want to check my urine for blood?”

  Samuel scowled, dropping his hand. “You’re never that sick, Wyatt.”

  He shrugged, saying nothing, and Samuel let out a weary sigh. As the silence between them stretched, it was everything Wyatt could do not to confess the truth, but that would have accomplished nothing. Nothing but add one more fuck-up to Samuel’s reasons to loath him.

  Besides, Samuel had moved on. Wyatt had seen that. He’s seen the other guys, college guys with smart clothes and futures. Men with better prospects than a twenty-one-year-old bagboy with an addict brother.

  Samuel deserved better and Wyatt knew he should want that something better for him.

  “You should probably go.” Wyatt took a step back. “I’ve got work in the morning.”

  It was a lie, but everyone deserved some dignity.

  Samuel started to say something, but Wyatt cut him off, pulling open the door to the hall.

  “Thanks for checking up on me. Tell Clay I’ll give him a call next week.”

  Samuel ran his hand over his head before finally stepping outside.

  “Night, Wyatt.” He called the words over his shoulder, heading around the steps to the other side of the landing and his own front door.

  “You don’t get it. You don’t know what it’s like to have no control over your own life.” He said the words, but they didn’t make him feel any better.

  “But you do have control, Wyatt. You’re a goddamned adult.”

  * * * *

  Wyatt woke to the sound of the front door. Half asleep he assumed his brother had finally come home, but when something smashed on floor he bolted from his bed. He pressed his ear against the thin wall, eyes closed, and concentrated on what he could hear.

  There was the sound of heavy footsteps and the murmur of two people. Neither voice was Teddy’s, and the reality of that made the hair on the back of Wyatt’s neck stand up.

  There was a thump and a crash and the sound of splintering wood and Wyatt’s bedroom wall vibrated against his ear. He stumbled back, hugging himself and listening to the sound of the place being tossed. There was breaking glass and the sound of furniture being tipped over, and Wyatt’s heart kicked in his chest.

  He regretted not begging the landlady for a couple of nights on her couch. Even a park bench would have been better. But, despite everything, he had clung to the hope that Teddy had been full of shit.

  There was another terrible crash from the direction of his brother’s bedroom and he leapt to the door to double-check if the sad little button lock was pushed. It wouldn’t do a damned thing.

  He looked around. There was a chair. Wedge it under the knob? And a shit Ikea dresser, which weighed about eight pounds. And all those things, the lock, the chair, the dresser, all of it would give away that someone was here, someone who might know something. Someone to take all that pissed off out on.

  “Fuck.”

  When Wyatt heard a noise in the hall that connected his room to his brother’s, he didn’t have time to question or second guess what he was doing. He just had to do something.

  He undid the lock on the door to the hall, grabbed his camera case from off his dresser and slipped its strap over his head and across his chest, and then worked the room’s only window open. The glass was brittle, and the wood of the casing warped, but it was always easier to open in the cooler months. If it had been the middle of summer, he would have been fucked.

  There was no place to go, not really. The fire escape didn’t run on this side of the house, you could only grab it from the kitchen, but he knew that with a good hold on the lintel above his window, he could get himself up high enough to reach the eave above. If he could manage that, he knew he could reach the third floor.

  Slipping outside, he balanced precariously on the balls of his feet, grasped the top of the window with one hand, and pushed the glass closed with the other. It left him no choice but to fall or climb, because going back was not an option.

  Another loud bang came from inside the apartment and he boosted himself up, arms straining, his legs wide, using his bare toes on the window casing and the wooden shingles—ignoring the splinters—looking for any possible leverage.

  Once he managed to grab the eave, it was a surprisingly simple matter to reach one of the top windows. He hadn’t thought about how to get inside the third-floor apartment, hadn’t thought much past escaping his room and getting far enough out of sight to not be easily spotted if someone thought to poke their head outside, but by sheer luck, he found the window open, as if it had been expecting him.

  Wyatt pushed himself through the upstairs window, knocking over a shelf as he fell through, barely managing to catch a heavy-bottomed vase before it smashed on the floor.

  His first thought, once he was certain his own noisy entrance had been swallowed up by the noise downstairs, was that the heat was stifling. It was not like the normal heat one would expect from an attic room. The outside had been cool, almost cold, enough at least to penetrate his thin T-shirt and the cotton of his pants in the handful of minutes it had taken him to scale the side of the house. But the room was hot and humid, as if Mr. Walters had kept a greenhouse. Maybe he’d grown pot or something. The thought made Wyatt laugh, even as his heart raced and his muscles shook from the climb and all the adrenaline still coursing through his body.

  The combination of it all made it impossible for him not to close his eyes. Giving in, he spread out on the hard floor, arms thrown wide, and let the exhaustion take him.

  Chapter 4

  1888, SS City of New York

  Saalik leaned on the railing, watching the water and listening to the sound of the ship. It was late, the decks mostly deserted. Saalik had been on boats before—Elizabeth loved to travel—but nothing quite like the SS City of New York. It was magnificent.

  She’d retired early, and he was feeling too impatience for their arrival in the States the following morning to sit still in the cabin.

  One of the crew, a porter he recognized from the first day, walked by, giving him a smile. It was a smile he thought might have been an invitation for him to follow, but he didn’t. There would be plenty of time for that once they’d landed in New York. Plenty of time for that once he was reunited with his bottle they’d shipped ahead of them, and he felt less uneasy.

  When Elizabeth had explained all she’d learned about what he was and what was needed to free him, he’d instantly, and in no uncertain terms, refused. It was not a risk he was willing to take.

  His initial reaction had not surprised her, though it had surprised him, and she had made him promise to think about it. To take his time. She’d said that the voyage across the ocean would take ten days, and by the end of it, he might very well change his mind.

  He hadn’t.

  Saalik looked back in the direction where the handsome porter had disappeared and sighed. Elizabeth knew him well, but in that she’d been wrong.

  He pushed himself up, deciding he might just be able to sleep. Or, maybe he would read until morning. He took his time heading back to their cabin, loving the activity of the crew and the smell of the sea air. It reminded him of something. Something he felt sure was from a past he no longer remembered. The smell of the sea always did.

  He let himself in to their rooms, quiet as not to wake Elizabeth, and stood trying to guess what she might have done with her books. She might have put them away on a shelf or left them in her trunk.

  “Saal?” Elizabeth’s voice was quiet from the next room, and Saalik pushed her door open just enough to peek in.

  “Did you need something?”

  “Come here.” She was sitting up and she patted the bed next to her. “Sit down.”

  He did as he was asked.

  “Saal, I want you to make me a promise.” She grabbed his hands in hers.

  “Is everything alright?” She looked pale. “Do you need me to fetch the doctor?”

  “I need—”

  “Are you seasick?”

  “Saal.” She slapped his hand to shut him up. “I just need you to make a promise to me. It’s important.”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  Chapter 5

  Wyatt was dreaming of the past again, remembering. This time he and Samuel were sitting on the couch. Samuel had told him he wanted to be a writer, and Wyatt had confessed he wanted to go to art school and become a photographer like his mother had been before his father had left, and he was showing him prints he’d made in his mom’s darkroom.

  There were photographs of a mouse in the alley, of Mrs. Morgan from downstairs feeding birds out her window, and one of Samuel blowing a kiss at the lens.

  Samuel had laughed, his eyes crinkling, and Wyatt had remembered thinking, for the very first time, that he was in love.

  When Teddy came home and asked them what they were laughing about, Wyatt had told him girls. Samuel had given him a look that said he understood but he didn’t. Not really.

  Wyatt woke to the sound of the ocean. It roared in his ears and he could smell the salt in the air and feel the heat of the sun as it beat down on his face.

  He smiled and opened his eyes to a darkened room. The curtains of the window above him blew in with a cold breeze, rain drops coming in with each gust. He was freezing.

  A movement drew his attention away from the open window and he found a man watching him. Wyatt jerked up, startled, banging his head against the wall in his hurry to be upright and the man watching him took a silent step back and laughed.

  “Fuck.” Wyatt squeezed his eyes tight, rubbing the spot at the back of his skull. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “But then, I don’t think you’re particularly brave.”

  “Huh?” Wyatt stopped rubbing and opened his eyes. The man was…well fuck, the guy was naked.

  Wyatt watched as he walked on bare feet around him where he sat on the floor of the unfamiliar room. One of the dead man’s rooms, he realized, and grimaced. “I’m sorry about Mr. Walters.”

  “Are you?” The guy stopped and studied Wyatt a moment as if trying to gauge the truthfulness of his statement. A trail of blue smoke drifted in a lazy and hypnotic way from his nose, creeping down his body to swirl around the wrist of his right hand, weaving playfully between his fingers. It was quite a trick, like how Wyatt’s grandfather had been able to breathe out donut shapes with his cigar smoke. “I’m not.”

  With that he turned around and silently padded out the room, leaving Wyatt where he sat on the cold floor.

  When Wyatt realized he wasn’t coming back, he pushed himself up and noticed that the shelf he’d knocked over the night before had been tipped back up and everything returned to its place. Slowly, he ventured out into the rest of the apartment. The rooms were much the same as his in that they had a similar floor plan; small eat-in kitchen, living room, a short hall that held a bathroom, a bedroom on either side. Beyond that, it was nothing like his own place. Instead of old carpet, the floors were warm dark wood with colorful rugs. The woodwork was a bright, clean white and, unlike Wyatt’s place where it had been replaced years before with something cheap, looked like it was original. The walls were a neutral cream. What you could see of it anyway, as each and every one was covered in sketches and tapestries, and paintings in large ornate frames.

  He maneuvered around the obstacle-course of furniture, following the sound of activity down the hall and into a bedroom where he found his host hunting through a chest a drawers, pulling out pants only to discard them on the floor.

  “Who’s that?” Wyatt asked pointing at the painting the hung above the dresser.

  “Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man.”

  “The painter?” Wyatt knew how stupid the words were before they were out of his mouth, and from the look on the naked man’s face, he agreed. Embarrassed, Wyatt looked away from his eyes, only then realizing what his host was doing. “Mr. Walters’ pants aren’t going to fit you.” The old man had been taller for one thing, and bigger around.