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Prologue:
An Inauspicious Homecoming
“Severe thunderstormsand high winds outside of Denver may delay arrival times. The current temperature is sixty-two degrees.”
The overhead lights buzzed with a low hum, which seemed to increase in volume the longer he sat beneath them. The disembodied voice from the monitor behind him was robotically stilted yet still unnervingly upbeat, giving a high-level overview of the weather in half a dozen major cities, and he supposed he ought to be grateful it wasn’t raining on top of everything else.Could be worse. You could be in Denver.
Lowell Hemming was no stranger to airports. Quite the contrary — they were a part of his weekly existence, his time traveling in the air nearly equal to the time he spent in cars, particularly when he was shooting in a region where paved roads were a vague suggestion and automobiles were not commonplace. He’d slogged, barely awake, through customs at every major airport in the unification, Europe, and Asia; had hauled his gear through the single gates of small, rural tarmacs, and had picked his way across muddy airfields in places where running water was a privilege enjoyed by very few.
Every birthday and holiday and wedding for which he’d come home, short visits between jobs that somehow had always managed to simultaneously seem interminable and like no time at all, each trip bookended with time spent in the Bridgeton airport. He was no stranger to helipads or landing strips, and he knew the Bridgeton airport better than any other aviation hubs he regularly traversed. He knew the fastest way to baggage claim, knew how to circumvent the food courts and where the cleanest bathrooms were. He knew the shortcuts between terminals and recognized the faces of employees who’d worked there for years, but the one thing he didn’t know and had never expected to learn was how absolutely desolate the place felt when empty.
The food court, usually teeming with travelers and screaming children, was deserted and entirely at his disposal, his and his alone . . . if any of the chain restaurants were open, of course, but they weren’t. The three bathrooms he liked the best in this airport were on less traveled corridors, frequented mainly by pilots and businessmen and other people who spent more time in the air than they did with their feet on solid ground, who knew the value in a quiet place to submerge their face in cool water and grab a quick shave before they were on to the next leg of their journey. Those bathrooms seemed too far out of reach now, those far-flung hallways even emptier and more echoing than the main thoroughfares, a creeping sense of doom bouncing off the marble floors with each footfall. He had never been in an airport as empty as the Bridgeton airport was just then, devoid of life and sound . . . except for him.
There had been no response from Grayson when he had sent the text that he was boarding his plane leaving Tokyo and then another as his plane was taxiing out of LAX. Gray hadn’t responded until Lowell sent the third text, just before the seatbelt light dinged off on the connection arriving in Bridgeton, sudden anxiety kicking up his heart rate.
How is any of this my problem?
He hadn’t known how to respond.
The only plus to the nearly empty plane and skeleton crew operating the airport was that his bags had been gate-checked, and he’d not been forced to leave the terminal to go down to baggage claim, where the chairs were few and the air always too cold as he waited. There’d been no further messages from his brother. He’d strapped his bags together and pulled them like a trolley, too keyed up to sit once he realized he was possibly stranded, a reality that seemed more and more likely as he did laps around the familiar corridors, until the silence and lack of people began to make him feel uneasy, sending him scurrying back to the main terminal to take up residence on one of the many banks of low seats that were at his singular disposal.Are you a wolf or a mouse?
He realized he’d already been there for an hour as the voice continued to cheerfully outline delayed arrival times. There had been no messages. No calls. Nothing from anyone that would have indicated he’d been thought of or remembered, or that Gray was en route. When his phone remained silent, no further communication from Grayson clarifying what the fuck he meant, Lowell swallowed down his frustration and sent a message to his brothers’ group chat, his pulse thumping in his throat.
Is anyone picking me up?
I’m here. My plane already landed.
The six of them had an ongoing group text, occasionally full of banter and good-natured mocking, the occasional trip down memory lane, and threats of bodily harm for pranks enacted. The group text was most often used to communicate plans at home. Edicts passed on high from their father, brunch and dinner plans, baby and house sitting needs, full moon plans. Following along with the chimes of his phone, Lowell often felt like a spectator, looking in from the outside at the window of his brothers’ shared lives. He knew that Gray and Jackson had a standing racquetball date every Sunday morning, except those weekends that fell over a full moon, and that Trapp and Liam studied pre-med work together every Wednesday night that Trapp wasn’t scheduled at the firehouse. Jackson had convinced Owen to be a mentor for his Woodland Scouts’ youth robotics club, and Liam responded to nearly every direct question with a gif or meme. Lowell didn’t like admitting that he felt isolated or left out, and so he watched his brothers make plans and bicker, lurking silently as if it were a fandom group and he was an awkward teen with a secret stack of lovingly-made art, not quite ready to take the plunge on getting involved.
The first response to his query was from Jackson, whose house he would be traveling to for his stay in Cambric Creek.
Good thing you left when you did. I read they’re starting to close borders
My first break in classes is at two thirty
The guest suite is all ready when you get here!
He stared at the phone uncomprehendingly, glancing in the upper left corner of the display to check the local time. 7:14 a.m. He had taken the redeye out of LAX, just as he normally did, for Grayson was an early riser and never minded being at the airport at six in the morning. Factoring in his layover, it had been nearly eighteen hours since he’d left Tokyo. The planes were nearly empty, with no in-flight dinner service, and the majority of the shops at the airport were closed. He wasn’t sure what Jackson expected him to do for another seven hours, but he was certain, as the phone buzzed again, that the meager staff working at the airport would notice the presence of his emaciated corpse by then.
Kiddo has goldfish class today with mom, so I don’t know if they’ll be home when you make it over
Lowell had no idea what a goldfish class was, and at that moment, he decided he didn’t care. Seven hours was stillseven fucking hours, and apparently Jackson thought he was going to magically appear in the driveway, luggage in tow.
I read something this morning about species-specific travel staying open
This will be good for the non-human airlines
They need to figure this shit out before spring break
We already have our Cancun tickets
Lowell ignored the message. Liam was eighteen, still in high school, and was allowed to be completely self-absorbed, but that didn’t mean Lowell had to care about his youngest sibling’s spring break plans, not just then.
Trapp was the next to respond.
I’m on my last 24 of house duty.
Why didn’t you make plans before you left?
