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“Why aren’t you scared?” Quint screwed his eyes shut, fear racing through him, yet Leo pulled back to brush his thumb against Quint’s cheek. Above, clouds moved at a fast time-lapsed speed and as Quint’s heart pounded loudly in his chest, Leo offered him the softest smile.
“We’re going to be okay.” Leo touched his forehead to Quint’s.
Quint choked back a sob. “How?” He screwed his eyes shut and gripped tighter around Leo. “It’s never going to stop, is it? We’ve got nowhere left to go.” A tear trickled down his cheek.
Leo kept his stroke at Quint’s cheek light, tender, “Everything ends. What happens here is what’s meant to be. I don’t know why or what’s causing it, but if we die here, now, we die together.”
Quint let out a cry. “I don’t want to die. Not when we’ve only just started living together.”
Leo tightened his grip around Quint. “It’s our time.”
“No. No, no. It’s not the end.” It couldn’t be. Too much anger settled in. After spending a lifetime searching for his soulmate, losing him now…?
Leo forced him to face him. “Rather we fade together now than face the anarchy that’ll be born out of this destruction.” Leo’s voice sounded old, so, so old, so much more resigned in that moment. “Let go. Don’t be scared. I never could stand to see this level of fear in your eyes.”
This level… like they’d lived and died a thousand times like this together. Quint looked up and caught the tear rolling down Leo’s cheek.
“I love you so much.” It came so quietly off Leo in the pound of the hard rain. “I’ve been trying to find you for so many years, I lost count.”
“I love you too.” Quint shook, not understanding an ounce of Leo’s calm.
Water crashed over the summit, hunting them out, but still Leo swiped a thumb at Quint’s cheek.
“See you in the future,” he whispered quietly to Quint.
Quint tried to find a reply, needed to, but a wall of water slammed into his back, taking his breath, then tearing them apart as he cried out at the injustice of it all.
ChapterOne
SECTOR 1320ADR3 OF THE UNIVERSE.
“Welcome back. A rough ride, that one, right, Leo?”
Quint glanced around quickly, thrown. Gone was the rapid struggle to try and choke out water, to fight the force of it dragging him down—the pain over losing his grip on Leo and watching him disappear into the darkness of the water.
Why was there a woman talking to him as if he knew her? No, she hadn’t been talking to him, she was talking to—Leo.
Quint’s breath caught in his throat as he turned to find Leo at his side. “But you… youdied?” He pulled him in so hard and fast.
Leo eased him off. “Only our bodies did.”
“What…?” What the hell was he talking about? Leolookedthe same: all the silver to his long hair, maybe not as chaotic and wind and water swept, but his eyes… they were the same stunning brown. His height still matched Quint's, his build slightly bigger…. An ethereal mist surrounded him, surrounded them both, leaving Quint with a feeling of being close in mind but not physical form, but….
Leo took his hand, and Quint jolted. Hand-holding usually brought them close, but this? This burned through to his core, fusing something internal that set the ethereal mist around them shivering.
“You’re finding it hard to remember this place for a reason,” Leo said gently.
Quint didn’t understand. He remembered… everything: where he’d been born, his best friend growing up, regretting meeting Leo so late in life—the struggle to breathe, water filling his lungs….
What he still couldn’t get his head around was why Leo had been so free from fear during their last moments in the storm. Why there was no fear ruling his eyes now. “Who…areyou?”
“Who arewe.” Sadness echoes in his eyes. “It’s… it isn’t my place to make you remember and reveal the universal truths. All I can say is that I’m called a Player. Every time I reincarnate into a new life, I keep my past life memories, bringing everything I’ve ever learnt with me. But when we stand here, we have a choice: to be a Player or become a Reboot. Last time we stood here, you chose to Reboot. You wanted to forget.”
Quint blinked at him. “Why would I forget about loving you in any lifetime?”
Leo didn’t say anything for a moment, and some of the mist around him dulled, lost its shine. “Loving… that’s the best part. But losing…?”
Quint fell quiet. Yeah, he understood, still caught in the grip of a final hard, sea water in his throat…. He understood. “Why… why couldn’t you tell me?” He looked at Leo. “That we’d see each other again?”
