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The morning was so clear it felt staged.
Shane noticed it before he noticed anything else: the hard blue sky through the hotel window, clean and bright and endless, the kind of blue that made glass buildings look unreal. He stood in front of it in his half-buttoned shirt, tie hanging loose around his neck, phone trapped between his shoulder and ear while he tried to find his cufflinks.
“Say that again,” he said.
On the other end, Ilya made a low, displeased sound.
“I said you look stupid in blue tie.”
“You can’t see me.”
“I can feel it.”
Shane smiled despite himself and bent to check under the edge of the bed. One cufflink had rolled beneath it, of course. He could see the silver glint just out of reach.
“It’s navy,” he said.
“Still stupid.”
“It’s a sponsor breakfast. I’m not wearing one of your shirts with all the buttons open.”
“They would give you more money.”
“They would call security.”
“They would say, look at Hollander, finally interesting.”
Shane laughed, quiet because the room next door was probably still asleep. He got down on one knee and reached under the bed, fingers brushing carpet and dust and finally the cufflink.
“You’re in a mood.”
“I am not in mood.”
“You’re absolutely in a mood.”
“I woke up alone.”
Shane’s smile softened before he could stop it. He sat back on his heels, cufflink in his palm, and looked at the enormous windows again. Outside, New York was already awake. Yellow cabs. Tiny dark figures moving below. Steam rising from somewhere in the street.
“I’m back tonight,” Shane said.
“You said maybe tonight.”
“Because the team might want me at dinner.”
“The team can eat without you.”
“Sure, Rozanov.”
“I am serious.”
Shane could hear it beneath the grumbling now, that small tightness in Ilya’s voice. The part he tried to hide under sarcasm, under accent, under being impossible on purpose.
They had only had three nights together before Shane had to leave. Three nights in Montreal where Ilya had shown up at his door with a duffel bag and no explanation, as if coming over was casual, as if he had not driven across the city just to sleep with his face pressed between Shane’s shoulder blades. Three nights of Ilya taking up the bed like he owned it. Three mornings of Shane making coffee while Ilya complained from under the blankets. Three careful, stolen, private things. Now Shane was in New York, wearing a navy tie Ilya apparently hated, due downstairs in twenty minutes for a breakfast meeting with men who said things like marketability and cross-border appeal, and Ilya was back in Montreal pretending he was not lonely.
“I’ll come back tonight if I can,” Shane said, gentler.
There was a pause.
“You say that like I am wife.”
Shane threaded one cufflink through his sleeve.
“You’re the one calling to complain about my tie.”
“I am calling because you left your ugly grey sweater at apartment.”
“You called at seven-thirty in the morning to tell me that?”
“Yes.”
“You miss me.”
“No.”
“You miss me so much it’s embarrassing.”
“I have the sweater. It is comfortable.”
“My sweater misses me too.”
“Your sweater likes me better.”
Shane leaned against the side of the bed and laughed again, a little helplessly this time. The sound filled the clean, impersonal hotel room and made it feel less like a place he had slept in alone. For a second, he let himself close his eyes. He could picture Ilya exactly. Hair sleep-messy. One cheek creased from the pillow. Probably standing barefoot in Shane’s grey sweater, the sleeves pulled over his hands, looking out at the Montreal morning like it had personally offended him. Maybe smoking near the cracked kitchen window even though he would deny it if Shane asked.
“Don’t smoke in my sweater,” Shane said.
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“You have no proof.”
“Ilya.”
A soft exhale. Almost a laugh.
“Fine. I am smoking beside sweater.”
“That’s worse.”
“It is not worse.”
“It is literally worse.”
“I open window.”
“Because smoke finds windows?”
Ilya made that sound again, the one that meant Shane was being annoying and also that he liked being annoyed by him. Shane stood and crossed to the mirror, phone still pressed to his ear. He looked too polished for how he felt. Dark suit. Clean shirt. Hair combed into obedience. Captain's face, even though he was not at the rink. Even though nobody here needed him to be captain. He tightened the tie and imagined Ilya’s mouth twisting with disapproval.
“Still stupid,” Ilya said, as if he could see him.
Shane’s chest did something small and dangerous.
“You’re creepy,” he said.
“I know you.”
That landed differently. Too simply. Too directly.
Shane looked away from his reflection. Outside, the morning light struck the towers across from him until they looked almost white at the edges, enormous and calm and impossible to move. He had walked past them last night after dinner, head tilted back like a tourist. He had even thought of calling Ilya then, just to say, You should see this. You would pretend not to be impressed and then stare for ten minutes.
Instead he had gone to bed early, because he was responsible. Because he was boring. Because he was Shane Hollander and he had an eight-thirty breakfast meeting in Lower Manhattan and a flight home later if everything went well.
“I should go,” he said, though he did not move.
Ilya was quiet.
“Ilya.”
“I know.”
“I’ll call after breakfast.”
“You always say this and then some old man talks to you for three hours.”
“Probably two hours.”
“Awful.”
“Deeply.”
“You should leave.”
“I should.”
Neither of them hung up. Shane picked up his watch from the bedside table and fastened it around his wrist. He had seven minutes before he had to be downstairs. Ten if he walked fast. Twelve if he decided the people waiting for him could survive disappointment.
“Ilya,” he said.
“What?”
He almost said it. It was right there. Ridiculous. Too big for a hotel room, too big for a phone call, too big for where they were in whatever this was. They had not named it. They had not made promises. They had not figured out how to exist in the same city without pretending coincidence had dragged them there. But Ilya had called because he woke up alone. Shane had answered before the second ring. That had to count for something.
“I’ll be home tonight,” Shane said instead.
The silence on the other end changed.
“You better,” Ilya said.
Shane smiled down at the carpet.
“Or what?”
“Or I keep sweater.”
“You already stole it.”
“Then I steal more things.”
“Very threatening.”
“I am serious.”
“You’re a menace.”
“You like menace.”
“I tolerate menace.”
“You love menace.”
Shane’s throat tightened. He swallowed it down and reached for his jacket.
“Yeah,” he said, too quietly. “Maybe I do.”
For once, Ilya did not make a joke. Shane could hear the faint city noise on Ilya’s end too, distant and smaller than New York’s: a truck passing, some door closing, the hush of breath near the receiver. The ordinary mechanics of a morning. The world going on because it had no reason not to.
“Call me after breakfast, Hollander.”
“I will.”
“Promise.”
Shane slipped his room key into his pocket.
“I promise.”
“Good.”
“Don’t smoke.”
“Too late.”
“Ilya.”
“Goodbye, Shane.”
The use of his first name made him stop with his hand on the door. He wanted, suddenly and absurdly, not to go downstairs. He wanted to sit on the edge of the bed and keep Ilya on the phone until checkout. He wanted to change flights, skip breakfast, leave the suit on the floor, and be back in Montreal by lunch. He wanted the grey sweater and the cramped kitchen and Ilya pretending not to wait for him.
Instead, he opened the door. The hallway smelled faintly of coffee and industrial cleaner. Somewhere, an elevator chimed.
“Bye,” Shane said softly.
The line clicked dead. For a moment he stood there, phone still in hand, listening to nothing. Then he tucked it into his jacket pocket, squared his shoulders, and walked toward the elevators.
***
Ilya kept the phone pressed to his ear after the line went dead. The call had ended; he knew what silence sounded like. Still, he stood by the open kitchen window and listened to nothing, Shane’s grey sweater pulled over one hand, the last curl of cigarette smoke slipping out into the morning.
“Idiot,” he murmured.
He was smiling. Shane had called him before breakfast because Ilya had sent three messages complaining about the empty bed. Shane claimed the call had been intended to stop the harassment. Ilya knew better. Shane had wanted to hear his voice before going downstairs. Before walking over to the World Trade Center. Before his meeting. Some sponsor breakfast in the North Tower, Shane had said. He had not remembered the floor when Ilya asked. Something high enough to have a view, apparently. There would be league officials, corporate people, photographs, handshakes.
Shane had complained about the tie. Ilya had complained about the entire concept of breakfast meetings. They had spent twelve minutes pretending neither of them minded being apart.
I’ll call after. Promise. I promise.
Ilya looked down at the phone again, considering calling him back just to be difficult. Instead, he put it on the kitchen counter and reached for his coffee. The apartment was too quiet without Shane in it. That had started happening recently. Places became wrong when Shane left them. Ilya’s own rooms had somehow rearranged themselves around another person’s presence, and now every absence had shape. The mug Shane had used before leaving still sat upside down on the drying rack. His book was face down on the arm of the couch despite Ilya repeatedly informing him that this damaged the spine. One of his clean shirts was folded over a chair because he had decided not to pack it and then forgotten it entirely.
Pieces of him everywhere. Private pieces. Nobody knew. Not Shane’s teammates. Not Ilya’s teammates. Not the league people currently eating pastries with him in New York. Not their agents. Not friends who had begun noticing that Ilya disappeared strangely often on his days off. Only Yuna and David knew.
That had not been planned. Yuna had opened Shane’s apartment door one Sunday morning with the spare key and found Ilya barefoot in the kitchen, wearing Shane’s sweatpants and making coffee while Shane slept upstairs. It had been impossible to explain as hockey. David had looked at Ilya for a long, quiet moment. Yuna had looked toward the staircase, then back at him. Neither of them had been cruel. They had simply known. Since then Yuna occasionally called him without Shane, usually to ask whether her son was sleeping enough or eating something besides protein bars. David sent him medical articles he did not request. They treated Ilya as if he belonged to Shane in some meaningful way.
It frightened him. He liked it far too much.
Ilya filled the coffee maker and pressed the button. It coughed to life, loud in the still apartment. His phone buzzed. He reached for it immediately. Not Shane. His agent. Ilya silenced the call and left the phone facedown. He had practice later. A meeting before that. Something about publicity he had promised to attend and already intended to avoid. None of it mattered yet. It was still early enough that he could stand barefoot in the kitchen, drink Shane’s coffee, and be privately pathetic for twenty more minutes.
He turned on the television for noise. A local morning programme filled the screen. Weather. Traffic. A smiling presenter discussing some festival Ilya would never attend. He carried his coffee to the couch and sat heavily, one leg folded beneath him. Shane’s book pressed into his thigh. Ilya picked it up, found the scrap of paper Shane had been using as a bookmark, and put it properly between the pages.
“You are welcome,” he told the absent man.
The television shifted to commercials. Ilya drank his coffee. He thought about Shane coming home that evening. Shane would be tired and socially drained, his politeness worn thin. He would walk through the door, drop his bag, loosen his tie, and act surprised when Ilya kissed him before he had removed his shoes.
Maybe Ilya would make dinner. Maybe he would order dinner and transfer it into actual dishes so Shane believed, for six seconds, that he had cooked. Maybe Shane would stay. That thought came softly. Not stay the night. Shane stayed the night often now.
Stay.
The larger thing.
Ilya stared at the television without seeing it. He could not ask for that. They had not even found a name for what they were doing. They had not said love, except through stupid substitutes. Drive safely. Eat something. Text when you land. Take my sweater. Come home tonight.
They were cowards, both of them.
The programme returned from commercials, but the presenter’s expression had changed. She was no longer smiling. Ilya noticed because the silence in the studio felt wrong before he registered anything else. The woman touched one finger to the earpiece hidden beneath her hair and glanced away from the camera.
“We’re receiving reports,” she began, “of an incident in New York City.”
Ilya’s hand stopped halfway to his mouth.
The screen changed.
At first, he did not understand what he was looking at. Blue sky. A distant skyline. Smoke spilling from a building. The footage shook as whoever held the camera tried to focus. The presenter said a plane might have struck one of the towers of the World Trade Center.
The mug slipped in Ilya’s hand. Coffee washed over his fingers. He did not feel the heat. For several seconds, his mind remained perfectly blank. Not denial. Not even fear yet. There was simply no place inside him to put the image. Then Shane’s voice returned to him.
North Tower. Breakfast. Somewhere high enough that Keller won’t shut up about the view.
Ilya put the mug down too hard. Coffee sloshed across the table. He grabbed his phone. Called Shane. The line did not connect. He tried again. Nothing. A third time. The call failed before it began.
“No,” Ilya said.
The word sounded almost conversational. Onscreen, smoke poured from the tower in a thick black column. The camera moved closer. Papers fluttered through the air, tiny and white against the blue. Ilya pressed call again. Network error. Again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. He stood without realizing he had moved. The phone was clutched in both hands now, thumbs slipping across the screen.
“Come on.”
He called. Nothing.
“Come on, Hollander.”
Failed.
The presenter was speaking rapidly. Details remained unclear. It may have been a small aircraft. Emergency services were responding. People were being evacuated. Evacuated. Ilya seized on the word. Shane would leave. He would leave. Shane followed instructions. Shane was cautious. Shane would get everyone around him moving, probably irritating them with his calm voice and captain posture. He would be halfway down the stairs already.
Ilya called again. He imagined Shane seeing his name on the screen and answering with an exasperated little laugh.
Ilya, I’m busy.
I know. Shut up. Where are you?
Nothing. Ilya opened their messages.
Call me.
The message hung for a moment. Not delivered. He sent another.
Shane answer me.
Not delivered. Another.
Please.
His thumb hovered over the final word. He hated it immediately. Hated how naked it looked. Hated that Shane might see it and understand exactly how afraid he was. He sent it anyway. Not delivered. The television showed the building from another angle. The wound in the tower looked enormous now. Ilya lowered himself onto the edge of the couch because his knees had begun to shake. He leaned forward, elbows digging into his thighs, phone held directly beneath his face.
Call. Failed. Call. Failed. Call. Voicemail. Shane’s recorded voice filled his ear.
“Hey, you’ve reached Shane. Leave a message and I’ll…”
Ilya hung up so violently the phone nearly flew from his hand.
He could not listen to that voice. Too relaxed. Too normal. Shane on some ordinary afternoon recording a message without knowing it might one day become the only version of him Ilya could reach.
“No,” Ilya whispered.
He called again. Voicemail again. This time he let it continue.
“...get back to you as soon as I can.”
The beep sounded. Ilya opened his mouth. Nothing came out. What could he say? Nobody knew. If Shane’s phone was found by someone else, if the message was heard by league officials, teammates, reporters…
He could not say baby. He could not say I love you. He could not say please come home to me. His throat closed around everything true.
“Hollander,” he finally said.
His voice was almost steady.
“I saw news.”
Silence. He stared at the tower on the television.
“Call me.”
He should stop there, he knew he should. Instead his breathing caught.
“Please.”
He ended the message. For a moment, he sat absolutely still, then he called again. The news anchor was saying they did not yet know how many people were inside. She was speaking about the time of the morning, about workers arriving, about tourists. About offices. Restaurants. Meetings. Breakfast. Ilya stood again and began pacing. Five steps to the window. Turn. Five steps to the television. Turn. Call Shane. Fail. Repeat. He tried Shane’s hotel. The line was busy. He tried again. Busy. He searched for the league office in New York, hit the wrong number, hung up without speaking, tried another. An automated menu answered.
He swore and disconnected.
Who could he call? His teammates did not know. Nobody even knew he had a reason to call. Nobody knew that Shane had slept with his cheek against Ilya’s chest two nights ago. That Shane had left a shirt at the apartment. That Shane had kissed him at the door before leaving and then returned ten seconds later for another one.
Nobody knew Ilya was waiting for him to come home. He found Yuna’s number. His thumb hovered above it. He could not call her yet. Calling her would make this real in a different way. It would mean saying aloud that her son was inside that building.
Maybe she did not know. Maybe Shane had told them only that he was in New York. Maybe they were having breakfast somewhere, the television off. Maybe for one more minute his mother believed the world was ordinary.
Ilya could not be the person who ended that.
The the footage changed. A plane appeared at the edge of the screen. For less than a second, Ilya watched it move toward the second tower without understanding. Then it disappeared into the building. Fire burst through the other side. The presenter screamed. The camera jerked wildly. Ilya’s phone fell from his hand. It hit the floor but did not break.
He did not pick it up. He stood in the centre of the apartment, staring at both towers burning against the clean September sky. Not an accident. The room went strangely quiet. The television still spoke. Sirens wailed through its speakers. People shouted. The anchor kept repeating herself.
Inside Ilya, everything stopped. Shane was inside one of those towers. Shane had been eating breakfast. Shane had complained about his tie. Shane had promised to call. Ilya bent at the waist suddenly, both hands braced on his knees. His body tried to pull in air and failed. His vision darkened around the edges.
“No,” he said. “No.”
He dropped to one knee and grabbed the phone. Called. Nothing. Called. Nothing. Called. Nothing.
“Answer me.”
His hand shook so badly he pressed the wrong contact. He hung up before the person answered and tried Shane again.
Voicemail.
He threw the phone onto the couch and immediately snatched it back, terrified that Shane would call during the two seconds it was not in his hand.
“I am here,” he said to the empty room.
The words came without thought. He looked at the television as though Shane might somehow hear him through it.
“I am here. You call me.”
The phone remained silent. Ilya finally called Yuna. She answered immediately.
“Ilya?”
She already knew. He heard it in the way she said his name. His name, stripped down to terror. For a second, neither of them spoke. Then Yuna said,
“He told us the meeting was in the North Tower.”
Ilya closed his eyes. He had needed her to say something else. Anything else.
“No one can reach him,” she continued. Her voice trembled despite how carefully she controlled it. “David is calling the league. I’ve tried Shane twelve times.”
“I tried more,” Ilya said.
It was a stupid thing to say. Yuna made a broken sound that might have been a laugh under different circumstances.
“Of course you have.”
Ilya sank onto the couch. On the screen, the towers burned.
“Maybe he got out,” Yuna said.
“Yes.”
“He would have started leaving immediately.”
“Yes.”
“He was probably already downstairs.”
“Yes.”
They were not talking to each other. They were building a bridge out of lies and trying to stand on it together. David’s voice sounded faintly in the background, speaking urgently to someone on another phone. Yuna inhaled shakily.
“He called us last night.”
Ilya gripped the edge of the sweater in his fist.
“What did he say?”
“That the city was beautiful.” Her voice fractured. “He said you would pretend not to like it.”
Ilya pressed his lips together until they hurt.
“He was right.”
“I know.”
Silence stretched between them. Ilya could hear the television in Yuna’s home too, slightly delayed from his own. Two versions of the same horror overlapping through the phone.
“Yuna,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“I told him to come home.”
Her breathing stopped for one beat. Then she said, very softly,
“He will.”
Ilya bowed his head. Neither of them believed it enough. Both of them needed the other to pretend.
“I’ll call you if he calls,” Ilya said.
“And we’ll call you.”
The words mattered. They would call him. Not the team first. Not his agent. Not someone officially entitled to Shane. Him. Because they knew. Because even if the rest of the world had no name for what Ilya was to Shane, Yuna and David did. Ilya closed his eyes.
“Okay.”
They did not say goodbye. He put the phone down beside him without releasing it.
***
The first thing Shane understood was that the floor had moved. The whole room lurched beneath him with one violent, impossible jolt, enough to throw coffee from cups and send a tray of glasses crashing onto the carpet. The windows rattled in their frames. Somewhere above them, or below, or everywhere at once, came a sound so enormous Shane’s mind refused to name it.
For one suspended second, nobody reacted. A room full of league officials, sponsors, hotel staff, and men in expensive suits simply stared at one another.
The lights flickered. Someone screamed. The ceiling groaned. Shane was already standing. He did not remember pushing his chair back. One moment he had been listening to Keller explain something about broadcast markets, thinking about Ilya smoking in his sweater, and the next he was on his feet with his heart smashing against his ribs.
“What was that?” someone said.
“Was that an earthquake?”
“No, no, it was…”
Another crash sounded somewhere outside the room.
People began talking all at once. The doors opened. A hotel employee appeared in the doorway, face pale, one hand pressed to the radio clipped at his waist.
“Everyone needs to remain calm.”
“What happened?” Keller demanded.
“We’re trying to determine that, sir.”
“Is there a fire?”
“We need everyone to move toward the stairs.”
The word stairs broke the room open. Chairs scraped. People reached for briefcases and phones. Someone knocked over a table. The league coordinator, Sarah, stood frozen beside the wall, staring at the windows.
Shane followed her gaze. At first, all he saw was sky. Clear blue. Hard and bright. Then paper began drifting past the glass. Sheets of it. Hundreds. They turned slowly in the air, catching the sunlight as they fell.
“What the hell?” Brian whispered beside him.
Shane’s stomach folded in on itself. He could smell something now. Burned metal. Hot dust. Something electrical and wrong.
The employee raised his voice.
“Please leave your belongings and proceed to the stairwell.”
People surged toward the door. Shane reached for his phone. Ilya. The thought came whole and immediate. He had promised to call. His thumb found Ilya’s name, but the call did not connect. The screen stalled, then flashed an error he barely read. He tried again while moving with the crowd. Nothing.
“Shane.”
Sarah was still standing near the windows. He turned back.
“Come on.”
She looked at him without moving.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes were huge. Shane crossed the room, took her gently by the elbow, and pulled her away from the glass.
“We have to go.”
“My bag…”
“Leave it.”
“My phone is in…”
“You have your phone.”
She looked down. It was already clutched in her hand.
“Oh.”
“Come on.”
He kept hold of her until they reached the corridor. The hallway had become a crush of bodies. People poured from offices and meeting rooms, some dressed for work, some still carrying breakfast plates as if they had forgotten they were holding them. A woman was crying into her phone. A man in shirtsleeves kept saying that the elevators were down. Someone else insisted they had been told to remain where they were.
Nobody knew. Nobody knew what had happened, where it had happened, whether they were moving toward danger or away from it.
Shane’s heart was beating too fast. He could feel sweat forming beneath the collar of his shirt. He wanted Ilya. Not later. Not after he got outside. Now. He wanted Ilya’s rough morning voice in his ear telling him what to do. He wanted to hear him complain. He wanted the sound of his breathing. Anything ordinary. Anything that belonged to the world from ten minutes ago.
He tried the call again. Failed.
“Hollander.”
Brian was several feet ahead, holding the stairwell door open against the pressure of the crowd.
“Move.”
Shane put the phone away. The stairwell was already packed. People moved downward in uneven bursts, shoulder to shoulder, gripping the railings. The air was hot and smelled of perfume, sweat, concrete dust. Every few seconds the flow stopped completely, and a nervous ripple passed through everyone trapped on the landing.
“What floor are we on?” someone asked.
Nobody answered.
“Why aren’t we moving?”
“There are people coming up.”
“Firefighters,” another voice said.
Shane looked over the railing. Below them, firefighters were climbing upward through the crowd. Equipment on their backs. Helmets. Faces set with effort. People pressed themselves against the walls to make room. Shane watched one of them pass. The man’s eyes met his for less than a second.
Shane felt fear move coldly through his body. This was not a small fire. This was not something that would be over before lunch.
“Keep moving,” he said.
He did not know who he was speaking to. Sarah, maybe. Brian. The strangers around them. Himself. The line shifted another few steps. A woman ahead of them stumbled. Shane caught her before she fell.
“I’m okay,” she said immediately, though she was not.
Her heel had snapped. She tried to continue in one shoe, limping badly as the crowd pressed behind her.
“Take them off,” Shane said.
“What?”
“Your shoes. Take them off.”
She stared at him.
“Now.”
Something in his voice reached her. She kicked off the remaining heel, then bent to retrieve it.
“Leave it.”
“But…”
“Leave it.”
He put one hand behind her back and kept her moving. The stairwell shook again. A deep vibration passed through the walls. People screamed. Someone began praying. Shane’s body locked. For half a second, he saw nothing. Heard nothing. His mind emptied completely beneath the certainty that the building was about to come apart around them. Sarah grabbed the back of his jacket.
“Shane.”
He turned. Her face was wet.
“I’m scared.”
The honesty of it almost undid him. He was too. He was scared in a way he had never known before. This fear had no edges. It was in the walls. In the air. In every stranger’s face.
“I know,” he said.
His voice sounded steady. He did not know how.
“I’m scared too.”
Sarah’s mouth trembled. Shane reached back and found her hand.
“Stay with me.”
They moved. Flight after flight. Landing after landing. Time became impossible. Shane could not tell whether they had been in the stairwell for five minutes or forty. His thighs began to ache. Sweat ran down his spine beneath his shirt. His tie felt like a hand tightening around his throat. He tore it loose and shoved it into his pocket. Ilya had hated it. The thought hit him so suddenly that he nearly laughed. It came out instead as a broken breath.
Ahead, a man leaned heavily against the wall. People squeezed past him. Shane stopped. The man was older, grey-faced, one hand clamped over the centre of his chest.
“Sir?”
“I’m fine.”
Shane knew that lie.
“You need to sit?”
“No. Keep going.”
His knees buckled. Shane caught him under the arms. The sudden weight dragged at his shoulder, but Shane held on.
“Brian.”
Brian turned from below.
“Help me.”
Together they got the man upright, one of his arms around each of their shoulders.
“What’s your name?” Shane asked.
“Leonard.”
“Okay, Leonard. We’re going down.”
“You should leave me.”
“No.”
“I’m slowing you down.”
“No.”
Leonard’s breathing was shallow and fast. Shane knew almost nothing useful about heart attacks. David had explained things once. Shane could not retrieve any of it now. Aspirin. Keep the person calm. Call emergency services.
There were emergency services everywhere and none of them were available to this one man.
“Do you have medication?” Shane asked.
Leonard nodded weakly toward his jacket. Shane searched the inside pocket with clumsy fingers and found a small bottle. Leonard took a tablet under his tongue.
“Better?”
“Not yet.”
“It will be.”
Shane had no idea whether that was true. They descended three more flights. A voice from below shouted something nobody could hear. The crowd compressed backward. Someone behind Shane began to panic, pushing against his shoulder.
“Stop,” Shane said.
The pushing continued.
“Stop pushing.”
“We have to get out!”
“We all have to get out.”
“They’re not moving!”
“If you push, someone falls.”
The man behind him stared with wild eyes. Shane held his gaze. For one awful second, he thought the man might hit him, then the pressure eased.
“Thank you,” Shane said.
The man looked away. Captain voice. It was the captain's voice. Ilya would have mocked him for it. You think you can organize fire because you wear C on shirt.
Shane swallowed hard. He could almost hear him. He held onto that. The crowd began moving again. Leonard grew heavier between them. Sarah stayed close behind, one hand gripping Shane’s belt because there was nowhere else to hold. At another landing, they passed a woman sitting on the step with blood running down the side of her face.
Shane stopped.
“We can’t,” Brian said.
Shane looked at him.
“I mean, we have him.” Brian shifted Leonard’s arm higher. His face was white with strain. “We can’t carry everyone.”
Shane knew that. He knew it. Still, the woman was alone. She looked up at him with unfocused eyes.
“I can walk,” she said.
“Then walk with us.”
Shane crouched just enough to offer his hand without releasing Leonard. She took it. He pulled her up. The group changed shape around them. Brian and Shane carrying Leonard. Sarah holding onto Shane. The injured woman gripping Sarah’s sleeve. Five strangers bound together by hands and fear and the simple fact that none of them could afford to let go.
They continued downward. The air grew thicker. Somewhere below, alarms screamed continuously. Overhead announcements crackled through speakers, but the words dissolved in the stairwell noise.
Shane coughed.. His throat burned. He thought of Ilya standing at the kitchen window, cigarette between his fingers, wearing Shane’s sweater and pretending he was not waiting. The image was so vivid it hurt. He had almost said it that morning. Three words. Small words. Easy words. He had swallowed them because the timing felt wrong. Because they were on the phone. Because they had time. Because there would always be a better moment. He had said, Maybe I do. Coward.
“Shane.”
Sarah was looking at him.
“What?”
“You stopped.”
He realized he had. The people behind them were moving around the group now. Leonard sagged between him and Brian.
“Sorry.”
His hands had gone numb. He adjusted his grip.
“Come on.”
They continued. At some point, the stairwell widened and the movement accelerated. People began speaking about the lobby. About being close. About daylight. Relief moved through the crowd too early, wild and contagious. Shane did not trust it. He could not.
The air changed. Cooler. More space. They came through the stairwell doors into chaos. The lobby did not look like a lobby anymore. Glass covered sections of the floor. Water ran somewhere it should not. Security officers and emergency personnel shouted directions, sending people toward exits Shane could not see. The marble walls made every sound enormous.
He smelled smoke properly now. It coated the back of his throat. People were running. Others stood frozen. Shane and Brian lowered Leonard onto the floor near a cluster of injured people. A paramedic appeared, already kneeling.
“Chest pain,” Shane said. “He took something. I don’t know what.”
The paramedic nodded without looking up.
“Move out. Keep moving.”
Shane hesitated. Leonard caught his wrist.
“Go.”
Shane looked down at him. The older man’s face was still grey, but his eyes were clear.
“Thank you,” Leonard said.
Shane squeezed his hand once. Sarah pulled him toward the exit. They moved with the crowd. A security officer shouted at them not to look up. Shane did not understand why. Then they were outside. Noise hit him first. Sirens from every direction. Engines. Shouting. A low roar he could not place. The streets were filled with paper and debris and people staring upward despite the warnings. Shane stepped out beneath the clear blue sky and looked up. The tower above them was burning. For one second, his mind could not connect the building he had just left with the thing towering overhead.
Black smoke poured into the sky. Flames showed through the wound in the upper floors. All those windows. All those offices. All those people still above them.
“Oh my God,” Sarah whispered.
Shane could not move. The scale of it swallowed everything. He felt very small. Not a captain. Not an athlete. Not anyone capable of helping. Just a man standing in the street beneath a burning building, terrified out of his mind.
His phone. He grabbed it from his pocket. No signal. He tried Ilya. The call failed. Again. Failed.
“Come on,” he whispered.
The screen blurred. His hands were shaking so badly he nearly dropped the phone. He pressed call again. Nothing. There was a thunderous sound overhead. People screamed. A police officer began waving everyone away from the building.
“Move! Go! North! Keep moving!”
The crowd surged. Shane lost sight of Brian.
“Sarah!”
“I’m here!”
She grabbed his hand. They ran. A woman went down in front of them. People spilled around her, some stumbling over one another in their panic.Shane stopped. Sarah jerked against his hand.
“Shane!”
The woman was curled on her side, arms over her head. Shane looked up. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to keep running. He wanted to. God, he wanted to. He wanted to get away. He wanted open sky that did not have smoke in it. He wanted a working phone. He wanted Ilya. He wanted his mother. His father. His bed. The stupid grey sweater. He was so frightened he thought he might be sick.
The woman moved. Barely. Shane let go of Sarah’s hand.
“No,” she said immediately.
“I have to get her up.”
“Shane, please.”
The plea in her voice tore through him. He looked at her. She knew. She knew exactly how afraid he was because she was afraid too.
“I’ll be right there,” he said.
It was a lie. Neither of them knew where there was anymore. Shane ran back three steps, crouched, and hooked his hands beneath the woman’s arms.
“Can you stand?”
She did not answer.
“Ma’am, can you hear me?”
Her eyes opened.
“I can’t find my husband.”
Shane’s chest tightened.
“We need to move first.”
“He was behind me.”
“We’ll find him.”
Another lie. He pulled her upright. She cried out, one ankle folding beneath her. Shane caught her weight. Around them, people continued running. Sarah had not left. She stood several yards away, crying openly now, waiting for him. Shane got the woman’s arm around his shoulders.
“Come on.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I can’t.”
“I know,” Shane said, voice shaking at last. “I know. But we have to.”
Together, they moved away from the tower. Shane did not look back again. He kept one arm around the stranger. Kept his other hand clenched around the useless phone in his pocket. And with every step, one thought repeated in time with his heartbeat.
Ilya. Ilya. Ilya. He had promised to call. He had promised. He had promised.
***
By the time Ilya reached the airport, every screen had become a wall.
DELAYED. CANCELLED. CANCELLED. CANCELLED.
He stood beneath the departures board with Shane’s grey sweater pulled over his fists, staring upward while the words changed line by line. New York. Cancelled. Boston. Cancelled. Philadelphia. Cancelled. Toronto. Delayed, then cancelled.
Every route south was disappearing in front of him. Around him, the terminal had begun to fill with the confused noise of people who did not yet understand the shape of what was happening. Suitcases rolled over tile. Children complained. Businessmen shouted into phones. A woman at the information desk kept repeating that she had no additional information.
Ilya could hear the news from televisions mounted near the ceiling. Both towers were burning. The footage followed him everywhere. He looked away from one screen and saw another. Smoke. Fire. Blue sky. The North Tower. Shane. His phone was pressed so tightly into his palm that the edges had left marks. He called again. The call did not connect. Again. Network busy. Again. Nothing.
“Come on,” he whispered.
His thumb shook against the screen.
“Come on, baby.”
The word escaped before he could stop it. No one heard him. The entire terminal was becoming a place where people cried into telephones. He tried Shane again. Voicemail. Shane’s recorded voice reached him through the noise.
“Hey, you’ve reached Shane. Leave a message and I’ll… ”
Ilya ended the call. He could not listen to the rest. He pushed through the crowd toward the nearest airline desk. A line had already formed, twisting behind a barrier. Twenty people. Thirty. More gathering every second. Ilya walked past all of them.
“Sir,” someone snapped. “There’s a line.”
He kept going.
“Excuse me!”
A hand touched his arm. Ilya spun so fast the man recoiled.
“Do not touch me.”
His voice came out low and vicious. The man lifted both hands.
“Jesus.”
Ilya reached the counter. The woman behind it was already speaking before he stopped moving.
“Sir, you need to join the…”
“I need New York.”
Her expression tightened.
“All flights to New York have been suspended.”
“Then put me on next one.”
“There is no next one at this time.”
“There is always next one.”
“Not today.”
He stared at her. She looked exhausted and frightened. Her headset sat crooked over her hair. Behind her, other employees hurried between terminals, carrying printed sheets that seemed to contain no useful answers.
“I need to get to New York,” he repeated.
“I understand.”
“No, you do not.”
“Sir…”
“My…”
The word caught. Boyfriend. Lover. Partner. The person he had woken beside for three mornings. The man whose sweater was wrapped around his body. The man who had kissed him at the door and promised to come home. The man nobody knew belonged to him.
“My family is there,” Ilya said.
It was not a lie. The woman’s face softened, which somehow made it worse.
“I’m sorry.”
“I do not need sorry. I need plane.”
“All commercial air traffic is being grounded.”
“Then private.”
“I can’t arrange that.”
“Who can?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find someone.”
“Sir, even private aircraft may not be permitted to fly.”
“May not?”
Her eyes flicked away. That was enough. Ilya leaned forward over the counter.
“So there is chance.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said may.”
“Ilya?”
He turned. His agent was pushing through the crowd toward him, jacket half-buttoned, tie hanging loose. Peter looked as if he had driven to the airport without stopping for lights after Ilya called him. He reached Ilya and lowered his voice.
“There are no flights.”
“I know.”
“They’re closing airspace.”
“I know.”
“You can’t fly to New York.”
“I can.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I will pay.”
“It isn’t about money.”
“Everything is about money.”
“Not this.”
Ilya looked back at the departures board. New York. Cancelled. The word seemed to pulse. His phone remained silent. Peter touched his elbow. Ilya jerked away.
“Don’t.”
“Okay.”
“I need charter.”
“I called.”
“You called?”
“I called three companies on the way here. Two aren’t answering. One said they’ve been ordered to hold all aircraft.”
“Call more.”
“Ilya…”
“Call more.”
Peter inhaled slowly.
“Even if someone agrees, they may be forced down before the border.”
“Then helicopter.”
“The same problem.”
“Military.”
Peter stared at him.
“Ilya.”
“Call someone.”
“I do not have the Canadian military in my contacts.”
“Then find person who does.”
“You’re not hearing me.”
“No. You are not hearing me.”
People were looking at them now. Ilya did not care. His voice rose.
“He is there.”
Peter’s face changed.
“I know.”
“You do not.”
“I know Shane is…”
“No.”
The word cracked out of him. Peter stopped. Ilya’s whole body had begun to tremble. He curled one hand into the sleeve of Shane’s sweater, gripping the fabric until his knuckles hurt.
“You do not know.”
He could not say it. Not here. Not with strangers listening, with cameras on every wall and league people possibly somewhere in the terminal and his entire life built around nobody knowing.
He could not say: He is mine.
He could not say: I love him.
He could not say: He slept with his face against my heart two nights ago.
He could not say: This morning he told me he would come home.
Peter looked at him for a long moment.
“Okay.”
Ilya hated that softness.
“Do not talk to me like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like he is dead.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
“You think it.”
“I think nobody knows anything yet.”
“He was inside.”
“I know.”
“He was inside North Tower.”
“I know.”
“He is not answering.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know!”
The shout tore out of him. The terminal seemed to recoil. Several people turned fully toward them. A child nearby began crying harder. Peter went still. Ilya’s throat burned. He could feel tears pressing behind his eyes, hot and humiliating and impossible. He swallowed so hard it hurt.
“No,” he muttered.
Peter stepped closer. Ilya backed away.
“No.”
“Ilya.”
“No.”
“You need to breathe.”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“Then get me plane.”
“There is no plane.”
Ilya looked at him. The words landed harder than anything else had. No plane. No route through the sky. No shortcut. No way to cross hundreds of miles and reach into that burning building and drag Shane out with his own hands. For one second, Ilya’s face folded. It was small. Barely there. A tremor at the mouth. A flash of naked terror. He turned away sharply and pressed his fist against his lips.
He would not cry here. He would not. Crying would not get him to New York. Crying would not make the phone ring. Crying would not help Shane breathe.
Behind him, Peter said nothing. Ilya stared through the glass wall of the terminal at the planes sitting motionless on the tarmac. Perfectly good planes. Fueled. Whole. Capable of flying. All of them useless. His phone vibrated. He nearly dropped it.
Yuna.
He answered immediately.
“Did he call?”
“No.”
Her voice was thin. David spoke somewhere behind her, too far away to understand. Ilya shut his eyes.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“I am at airport.”
“Ilya, they’ve grounded flights.”
“I know.”
“You can’t…”
“I am getting there.”
Silence. Yuna did not tell him it was impossible. That was one of the reasons he loved her.
“David is trying hospitals,” she said. “The league has started contacting everyone who was at the breakfast.”
“He was in tower.”
“I know.”
“He had breakfast.”
“I know.”
“What floor?”
“We still don’t know.”
“Find out.”
“We’re trying.”
“No. Find out.”
His voice shook harder with every word.
“If I know floor, I can…”
He stopped. He could what? Calculate? Understand? Decide how afraid to be? Yuna’s breath caught.
“Ilya.”
He turned away from Peter and pressed his forehead against the cool glass.
“I told him to come home.”
“He knows.”
“He promised.”
“I know.”
“He promised me.”
His voice broke on the last word. He squeezed his eyes shut until sparks burst behind them. There was no hiding it from her.
“Yuna,” he whispered.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
The endearment nearly destroyed him.
“I cannot be here.”
“I know.”
“I cannot stand here while he is…”
He could not finish. On the television behind him, someone screamed. The terminal sound changed. A ripple. A gasp moving through hundreds of people. Ilya turned. Every screen showed the same image. One of the towers was collapsing. At first, his mind refused to understand. The top seemed to tilt. Then the building folded downward into itself, floor after floor disappearing beneath a monstrous grey cloud.
The terminal went silent. Completely silent. Even the children. Even the phones. Ilya stared at the screen. His hand loosened. The phone slipped against his ear. Someone nearby began praying. Another person said, “Oh my God,” over and over. Ilya could not tell which tower it was. He could not tell. The camera shook too violently. The smoke swallowed everything. The anchors were shouting, voices breaking, trying to understand what they were watching.
“Which one?” Ilya asked.
No one answered. His lungs stopped working.
“Which tower?”
Peter moved closer to the screen.
“I can’t tell.”
“Which fucking tower?”
“Ilya…”
“Which one?”
Yuna was still on the phone. He had forgotten.
“Ilya,” she said, and she was crying now. “It’s the South Tower.”
He closed his eyes. The South Tower. Not Shane’s. Not Shane’s. Relief hit him so violently it was almost nausea. Shame followed immediately. People had been inside that tower. People were dying, and Ilya’s body had flooded with gratitude because it was not Shane’s building. He bent forward, one hand on his knee.
“Oh God,” Yuna whispered. “Oh God.”
Ilya dragged air into his lungs.
“The North is still standing.”
“Yes.”
“He can get out.”
“Yes.”
“He has time.”
“Yes.”
“He is coming down.”
“Yes.”
They said it together. Built the lie together. The North Tower was still standing. Therefore Shane was alive. Therefore Shane was walking downstairs. Therefore Shane was moving toward the street. Therefore Shane would call. It was logic made from terror, but Ilya clung to it.
“I go by car,” he said.
Peter shook his head.
“The border…”
“I go by car.”
“It could take eight hours, ten, maybe more. Roads will be chaos.”
“I do not care.”
“They may close crossings.”
“Then I find another.”
“You can’t drive into lower Manhattan.”
“I get as close as I can.”
“Ilya.”
He rounded on Peter.
“No.”
The tears were finally visible now, bright in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall.
“No more no.”
Peter’s mouth closed.
“No plane. No helicopter. No crossing. No road. Everybody says no.” Ilya’s voice shook, fury and panic tangled together until they were indistinguishable. “He is there. So there is way.”
“There may not be.”
“There is.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know him.”
That silenced Peter. Ilya pointed toward the screen.
“He will help people. He will stay too long. He will be scared and pretend he is not. He will give someone his jacket. He will carry someone who cannot walk. He will do every stupid good thing until somebody makes him leave.”
His voice cracked.
“And nobody there knows to make him leave.”
Yuna made a broken sound through the phone. Ilya pressed the heel of his hand against his chest as if he could hold his heart still.
“I have to go get him.”
Peter looked at him. Really looked. At the borrowed sweater. At the bare feet shoved hastily into shoes without socks. At the phone clutched like a lifeline. At the terror Ilya had stopped being able to hide. Understanding moved slowly across his face.
“Oh,” he said.
Ilya’s expression turned murderous. Peter lifted one hand.
“I won’t say anything.”
“I do not care.”
It was a lie. He cared. He had cared every day for years. But not more than he cared about Shane, not anymore.
Peter nodded.
“Okay.”
“I need car.”
“I’ll get one.”
“Fast car.”
“I’ll get whatever they have.”
“No rental paperwork.”
“Ilya, I can’t steal you a car.”
“Then use mine.”
“Your car is at your apartment.”
“Get driver.”
“I’ll drive.”
“No.”
“You’re shaking too badly.”
“I can drive.”
“You can barely hold the phone.”
“I said I can.”
“And I’m telling you I’m driving.”
Ilya stepped close enough that Peter flinched.
“You slow me down, I leave you at road.”
“Understood.”
“I tell you go faster, you go faster.”
“Within reason.”
“Fuck reason.”
“Fine.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
This time, the words did not make Ilya shout. Peter took out his phone and began making calls. Ilya remained beneath the screens, watching the North Tower burn. His phone buzzed with another failed delivery notification.
Please.
Still not delivered. He opened the thread. Typed with shaking thumbs.
I am coming.
The message did not send. He tried again.
I am coming to get you.
Not delivered. Again.
Stay alive.
Not delivered. The tears finally spilled. One from each eye, hot and silent. Ilya wiped them away furiously with the heel of his hand.
“No,” he whispered to himself.
He looked up at Shane’s tower. At the smoke swallowing the sky. At the impossible distance between them.
“You stay alive,” he said.
His voice trembled, but it did not break.
“I do not care what it takes.”
Around him, the airport was collapsing into grief and confusion. Behind him, Peter shouted into a phone about a car. In his hand, Shane’s name remained silent. Ilya pressed call again. Network busy. Again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. He started walking toward the exit before Peter had finished arranging anything. He did not know how he would cross the border. He did not know how he would enter the city. He did not know whether roads would remain open, whether bridges would close, whether Manhattan would let anyone near it. None of it mattered. There were six hundred kilometres between him and Shane. Ilya intended to fight every single one.
***
The woman’s name was Elise. Shane learned that because she said it twice, like she was trying to remember it for herself.
“My name is Elise,” she gasped into his shoulder as he helped her north through the crowd. “My husband is Mark. He… he was behind me.”
“We’ll find him,” Shane said again.
The lie was easier the second time. Sarah stayed close on his other side, one hand locked around Elise’s elbow, the other still clutching her phone so tightly her knuckles had gone white. She had stopped crying only because the fear had moved deeper than tears. Her face was grey beneath her makeup. Strands of black hair had come loose around her temples. Her heels were gone.
The sky above them remained a beautiful, impossible blue. The whole morning still looked like a postcard from somewhere perfect, if you didn’t raise your eyes high enough to see the fire.
“Faster,” a police officer shouted. “Move north. Keep going.”
Shane nodded like the order had been given personally to him. He tried his phone again while half carrying Elise. No signal. Again. Nothing. Again. The screen froze for a second, searching, searching, searching. His battery icon had turned red without him noticing.
“No.”
He hit the side button. The screen came back weakly, dimmer than before. He pressed Ilya’s name. The call did not go through. Battery low.
“No, no, no…”
The phone died in his hand. The screen went black. Shane stopped walking. The crowd moved around him.
“Elise!” Sarah said sharply as the woman nearly slipped.
Shane stared at the dead phone in his palm. No. He pressed the button again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. As if force could drag life back into it. As if he could command this too.
“Shane!”
Sarah’s voice came from a distance he could not measure. He looked up. People were still moving. Crying. Running. Coughing. Calling names into the open air like the city might give loved ones back if asked correctly enough. The dead phone felt heavier than it should have. Ilya.
He had not called. He had promised. He had promised and now there was no way to reach him, no way to hear his voice, no way to tell him he was outside, he was alive, he was trying, he was…
A sound broke through the noise. A scream from somewhere above. Then another. The crowd’s movement changed. Tilted. People were looking up again despite every officer screaming at them not to. Shane looked too. For a second, his mind refused to understand what it was seeing. Something fell from the tower. Too small from this distance. Too fast. Then another shape. Another. Another. The world narrowed to a pinpoint.
“No,” Sarah whispered.
Elise made a thin, animal sound. Shane could not breathe. His body knew before his mind allowed it. People. People were jumping. His stomach heaved so violently he nearly dropped to his knees.
A woman beside him started screaming. Continuous. High and tearing and endless.
“Don’t look,” he said.
He did not know to whom. Elise was sobbing into Sarah’s shoulder. Sarah had her face turned away. Shane stepped in front of both of them on instinct, broad useless body between them and the burning tower, as if being large could make any difference at all.
“Keep moving,” he said.
His voice shook.
“Come on. Don’t look. Just keep moving.”
Elise could not. Her legs had given up completely.
“I can’t,” she cried. “I can’t, I can’t… ”
“Yes, you can.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He took her by both shoulders and forced himself to meet her eyes.
“Look at me.”
She was crying so hard she could barely focus.
“Look at me,” he repeated.
Her gaze caught on his face.
“Good,” he said, though his own voice was breaking now. “Good. You stay with me. We’re walking. One step. Then another.”
“I can’t find Mark.”
The words almost undid him.
“I know.”
“I can’t leave him.”
Shane flinched.
“You’re not leaving him. You’re surviving.”
He did not know where the sentence came from. Maybe David. Maybe Yuna. Maybe some buried piece of himself that had learned, long ago, how to keep moving while terrified. Elise’s mouth trembled violently. Sarah slid under her other arm. Together they made her walk. Around them, the city had become unrecognizable. Ash drifted down in a slow grey snow. Paper eddied around ankles and stuck to wet faces. A firefighter pushed past, heading toward the towers, and Shane caught just one glimpse of his face, young, jaw set too tightly, eyes bright with effort and fear. He was running toward the thing everyone else was running from. Shane wanted to grab him. Wanted to say don’t. Wanted to say you don’t have to be brave for everyone. Instead the man was gone in a blur of black and yellow.
Shane kept his eyes down. Shoes. Curbs. Broken glass. The back of a yellow cab dusted white. Anything but up.
They got half a block farther before Elise sagged again. This time Shane lowered her onto the steps of a storefront with its metal shutter halfway down.
Sarah crouched beside her.
“She can’t keep going.”
“She has to.”
“She can’t.”
Shane looked around wildly, as if there might be a medic standing conveniently nearby waiting to solve this. There were people everywhere, but no one free. No one unbroken. No one not already carrying someone else’s disaster.
His chest hurt.
“Stay here,” he told Sarah.
She stared up at him.
“Where are you going?”
“I need water. Or a medic. Or… I don’t know.”
“No.”
He blinked. Sarah’s face had gone from frightened to furious in a single breath.
“No,” she repeated. “You don’t leave.”
“I’m coming back.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked on the word.
“You don’t leave.”
Shane looked at her.
“I’m not leaving,” he said softly.
It was the closest thing to truth he had. Sarah’s eyes filled instantly. He crouched in front of them both.
“Elise, can you hear me?”
A weak nod.
“Good. Good. You stay here for one minute, okay? One minute. Lean back.”
He looked toward the half-open storefront. A middle-aged man stood just inside, pale as paper, holding the door with one hand.
“Can they come in?” Shane called.
The man nodded immediately.
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Back room?”
“There’s a bathroom. Water.”
Shane almost cried from relief. He got Elise to her feet again. Helped Sarah guide her inside. The shop smelled like dust and coffee and fear. Somewhere a radio was playing too loudly. Two employees huddled near the counter, both crying quietly.
“Stay with her,” he told Sarah.
“What about you?”
He looked at the dead phone in his hand. Looked toward the door. Toward the street. Toward the towers he could not stop feeling at his back.
“I’m finding a phone.”
Sarah caught his wrist before he could turn away.
“Shane.”
He looked at her. Her voice came out very small.
“Please come back.”
The plea sank straight through him.
Because she knew he was not all right. Because he knew it too. Because some part of him still wanted to run toward the fire every time he saw someone fall. Because he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving people there. Because if Ilya were in that tower…
No.
He shut the thought down so hard it felt physical.
“I’ll come back,” he said.
He stepped out into the street again before Sarah could hear how ragged his breathing had become.
Outside, the noise hit him all over again. The roar. The sirens. The distant shouts. And underneath it, now, always, the screams from above. Shane walked fast, eyes scanning desperately for anyone with a phone, any storefront still open, any police line, any ambulance.
He found a payphone half a block away with a queue already gathered around it. Dead. The handset hung crooked from its cord. One of the men beside it shook his head before Shane even asked.
“No dial tone.”
Shane moved on.
Another store, closed. Another payphone, someone smashing the receiver against the metal housing in sheer, useless rage. Shane’s throat closed. He kept walking. A man called to him from near a delivery truck.
“Hey. You all right?”
“I need a phone.”
The man held one up.
“No service.”
“Battery?”
The man blinked, then handed it over without question.
Shane took it with shaking fingers, already dialing from memory. Ilya.
Nothing. Not even enough signal to fail properly. He tried Yuna. Nothing. David. Nothing. The man was watching his face.
“Sorry, buddy.”
Shane handed the phone back.
“Thanks.”
He had taken only three steps when a sound rolled across the city unlike anything before it. Metal. Breaking concrete. A groan so deep it seemed to come from the bones of the earth. The crowd around him paused. Someone shouted. Someone else screamed,
“Run!”
Shane turned.
The South Tower was coming down. He saw it happen and still did not understand it. The upper floors collapsed into the lower ones, and then the whole building seemed to disintegrate into a billowing avalanche of grey. People started running before his mind caught up. The sound became everything. A monstrous rushing roar.
Shane’s body reacted first. He ran. Away from the wall of ash and debris devouring the street behind him. Away from the screaming. Away from the impossible sight of a building ceasing to exist.
He ran until his lungs burned and his dress shoes slipped on dust and something heavy clipped his shoulder and nearly sent him to the pavement. A kid someone stumbled in front of him. Seventeen maybe. Eighteen. Shirt and tie, intern-looking, face streaked white with ash. He had fallen hard and was trying to get up on hands that kept slipping.
Shane stopped. Every instinct in his body screamed keep going. Run. Run. Run. Instead he turned back. He grabbed the kid under the arm and hauled him upright.
“Move!”
The kid’s eyes were huge and blind with panic.
“I can’t…”
“Yes, you can!”
Shane pushed him forward. The ash cloud surged around the corner behind them like a living thing. There was no time. A recessed doorway yawned open beside them. Shane shoved the kid toward it, then threw himself after him. They hit the ground just as the cloud swallowed the street. A choking, grinding dark full of dust so thick it became substance.
Shane pulled his shirt over his mouth on reflex. The kid beside him was coughing, choking, trying to crawl deeper into the doorway. Shane grabbed the back of his collar and dragged him farther inside.
“Stay down!”
He could barely hear his own voice. The world outside the doorway vanished. The roar became muffled, then strangely far away, replaced by coughing, car alarms, the rain of debris. Shane tried to breathe and got powder instead. Every inhale scraped. His eyes streamed instantly. His skin felt flayed by grit. He curled over the kid without thinking, one arm over his head, broad shoulders making a shield against things still hitting the entrance.
He was shaking. The boy beneath him was crying. So was Shane. He could not tell through the dust and the tears and the coughing. His phone was still dead in his pocket.
Ilya did not know where he was. Ilya did not know he had gotten out. Ilya did not know anything. The thought came through the panic like a knife. He had promised to call. He had promised. He had promised. The darkness pressed in around them.
Shane’s lungs burned. The kid said something he couldn’t hear.
“What?”
“My mom,” the kid coughed. “My mom.”
Shane swallowed a mouthful of grit. His voice came out raw and wrecked.
“We’re alive,” he said.
He had no idea if it was true enough to offer. He offered it anyway.
“We’re alive. Stay down.”
The kid sobbed under him. Shane kept one arm over the stranger’s head and stared into the choking grey nothing where a city had been ten seconds ago.
He had never felt so helpless. So terrified. So horribly, humiliatingly small. And through all of it, under all of it, louder than the collapsing tower and the screaming and his own ragged heartbeat, one thought repeated itself with brutal simplicity:
Ilya.
If he got out of this doorway. If he got one more working phone. If he got one more chance. He would not waste another second pretending there would be a better moment.
***
The first hour of driving still felt like action. The car moved. Every kilometre was one less kilometre between Ilya and Shane. Every sign they passed proved that the world had not completely stopped, that roads still connected places, that distance could be eaten if they drove fast enough.
Peter kept both hands locked around the wheel. The radio spoke continuously, voices trying to describe something nobody understood.
Both towers had been hit. The South Tower had collapsed. The North Tower was burning. Emergency crews were overwhelmed. Lower Manhattan was being evacuated. Airspace closed. Borders tightening. Roads restricted. Casualties unknown. The same words repeated until they stopped sounding like language.
Ilya sat rigid in the passenger seat, Shane’s dead silence in his hand. Call. Network busy. Call. Unable to connect. Call. Voicemail. He hung up before the recording could finish every time. His phone battery was at sixty-three percent.
Peter had bought three chargers at the airport shop before they left. He had thrown them onto the back seat with bottled water, food Ilya had not touched, two road maps and a first-aid kit neither of them had discussed.
The charging cable ran from the dashboard into Ilya’s phone. He checked it every few seconds anyway.
“Signal?” Peter asked.
“No.”
“Try his parents.”
“They will call if they know.”
“Maybe they…”
“They will call.”
Peter stopped. Ilya stared through the windshield. The road unrolled beneath a sky too bright to belong to the day they were having. Fields. Trees. Houses. Gas stations. People mowing lawns. At one point they passed a schoolyard where children ran across the grass. From this distance, their movements looked joyful.
Ilya turned his face toward the window. He hated them. Then hated himself. Then called Shane again.
Nothing.
He opened their messages. The last message from Shane was from the previous night.
Meeting ends around eleven. Flight at six if Brain doesn’t decide I need to shake hands with the entire state of New York.
Ilya had replied:
would rather die instead
Below it:
not literally. come home.
Shane had sent a heart.
Ilya pressed his thumb against it. The radio voice changed. The presenter interrupted himself. There was shouting somewhere in the studio. A rustle of paper. Then silence long enough to become terror. Peter’s hand moved toward the volume dial. Ilya caught his wrist.
“Leave.”
They listened. The North Tower had collapsed. The sentence was spoken once. Then repeated. The North Tower of the World Trade Center had collapsed. Peter’s foot came off the accelerator. The car slowed. Ilya did not move. The radio continued around him. Reports remained unclear.
The collapse had occurred at… Emergency services… A massive cloud… People running…
The North Tower. Shane’s tower. Gone. Peter pulled onto the shoulder. The car rolled to a stop.
“No,” Ilya said.
Peter turned off the radio.
“No.”
Ilya looked at him.
“Turn it back.”
“Ilya.”
“Turn it back.”
Peter did.
The voices returned immediately, frantic and breathless. The tower had collapsed. Both towers were now down. Lower Manhattan was covered in smoke and debris. Peter said,
“We need to call…”
“No.”
“Ilya.”
“No.”
“You need a minute.”
“I need road.”
Peter looked at him. Ilya’s face had become terrifyingly still. The phone was clutched against his thigh. His other hand was wrapped in the hem of Shane’s sweater, twisting until the fabric dug between his fingers.
“We keep driving,” he said.
“They don’t know who got out.”
“Then he got out.”
“I’m not saying…”
“He got out.”
Peter swallowed. Ilya looked back through the windshield.
“He was already downstairs.”
He had invented this. He knew he had invented it.
“He always comes early. Breakfast ends early. He leaves before everyone because he hates sponsor people. He was outside.”
The meeting had been inside. Shane had been there. Ilya did not let himself touch that fact.
“He was outside,” he repeated.
Peter started driving again. For the next hour, Ilya did not call. He held the phone in both hands and stared at it. Waiting. Every vibration from the road travelled into his palms and became, for half a second, a call. Every half second ended in betrayal. The car accelerated south. Peter drove too fast and not fast enough.
“Faster.”
“We’re already…”
“Faster.”
“There are police everywhere.”
“I do not care.”
“I do.”
“Then get out.”
Peter’s jaw tightened.
“I’m not getting out.”
“Then drive.”
Peter pressed harder on the accelerator. The landscape blurred. The radio reported hospitals filling. Temporary triage stations. People walking north under layers of ash. Cellular networks overwhelmed. Emergency numbers jammed. No reliable list of survivors. No reliable list of dead. No reliable anything.
Ilya tried Shane again. Nothing. He called Yuna. David answered.
“Ilya.”
“Anything?”
“No.”
His voice was too controlled which meant he was close to breaking.
“We’ve contacted every hospital number we can get,” David said. “Most aren’t confirming names yet.”
“He may not have identification.”
“He has his wallet.”
“Maybe he lost it.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe phone broke.”
“Probably.”
“Maybe he is helping.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe he cannot leave.”
“Yes.”
They built another bridge. More lies laid carefully over open air. Ilya shut his eyes.
“We are close to border.”
David was quiet.
“They may not let you through.”
“They will.”
“Ilya.”
“They will.”
“If they don’t…”
“They will.”
There was no point arguing with him. David understood that.
“Yuna wants to speak to you.”
A rustle.
“Sweetheart.”
Ilya squeezed his eyes shut.
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, just…”
His throat tightened.
“Do not call me this now.”
Yuna inhaled shakily.
“All right.”
He could hear her crying anyway. Quietly, trying not to put it on him.
“I am going to find him,” Ilya said.
“I know.”
“He is alive.”
“I know.”
“You believe?”
A pause.
“Yuna.”
“I believe Shane would do everything he could to get out.”
“That is not answer.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
Ilya pressed his forehead against the window.
“He promised me.”
“I know.”
“He does not break promise.”
“No,” Yuna whispered. “He doesn’t.”
The lie was gentler from her. He let himself have it.
“Call me if anything.”
“We will.”
“If body…”
The word escaped. Both of them stopped breathing. Ilya’s entire face twisted.
“No.”
He struck his fist once against the dashboard.
“No. Forget.”
“Ilya…”
“Forget I said.”
“Okay.”
“There is no body.”
“Okay.”
“He is alive.”
“Yes.”
Ilya hung up. He stared at the phone for several seconds. Shane’s voicemail answered. This time Ilya did not hang up.
“Hey, you’ve reached Shane. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
The beep. Ilya’s breathing shook.
“I am driving.”
His voice sounded too loud inside the car.
“Airplanes are stopped, so I am driving. You probably know this because you are watching television somewhere and thinking I am insane.”
Peter glanced at him and then immediately looked away. Ilya rubbed his thumb against the edge of the phone.
“I am near border.”
He swallowed.
“They may not let me through. They will let me through.”
His mouth trembled.
“You do not have to call if you cannot. You just…”
His voice failed. He pressed his fist against his sternum.
“You stay where someone can find you.”
Silence.
“If you are hurt, you tell doctor your name. Full name. Do not say you are fine. Do not help everyone else first.”
His eyes burned.
“You are always doing this. You think because you can stand, you are fine.”
Peter’s grip tightened on the wheel. Ilya looked out at the sky.
“I know you are scared.”
That word broke something. A tear slid down his face. He wiped it away violently.
“I am scared too.”
Another tear followed.
“I am very fucking scared, Shane.”
He lowered his head.
“But I am coming.”
The words were barely audible.
“I am coming to get you.”
He ended the message before he began sobbing. For several minutes, neither man spoke. Peter pretended not to notice Ilya wiping his face with the sleeves of Shane’s sweater. The border appeared ahead of them just after noon. Then traffic. Then a line of cars stretching farther than Ilya could see. Red brake lights. Stopped vehicles. People standing outside, arguing with one another and looking toward the checkpoint. Police vehicles blocked two lanes. Uniformed officers moved between cars. Peter slowed. Ilya leaned forward.
“What is this?”
“The crossing.”
“Why stopped?”
“Security.”
“We go around.”
“There is no around.”
“There is always around.”
“Not unless you want to drive through a field.”
Ilya looked toward the grass. Peter saw it.
“No.”
“I did not say.”
“You thought it.”
“Drive.”
“We can’t drive through these cars.”
“Use shoulder.”
“We’ll be stopped.”
“We are already stopped.”
Peter stared at the line, then moved onto the shoulder.
Horns erupted. A man leaned from his window and shouted. Ilya raised one finger without looking at him. They passed twenty cars before an officer stepped into their path. Peter braked. The officer approached the driver’s window, face hard.
“You need to rejoin the line.”
“We have an emergency,” Peter said.
“Everyone has an emergency.”
“I need to cross,” Ilya said.
The officer glanced at him. Recognition flickered.
“The border is restricted.”
“I have valid passport.”
“Travel into the United States is currently limited.”
“My family is in New York.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but…”
“No.”
The officer blinked. Ilya leaned across Peter.
“You check passport. You let us through.”
“That isn’t how this works.”
“It is exactly how border works.”
“Not today.”
“I do not care what day.”
The officer’s expression hardened.
“Return to the line or turn around.”
Ilya opened the door. Peter grabbed his arm.
“What are you doing?”
Ilya pulled free and stepped onto the road. The officer moved back.
“Sir, get in the vehicle.”
“My family is in World Trade Center.”
The words ripped through the air. Several people nearby turned. The officer’s expression changed slightly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry.”
“I can’t authorize…”
“Then find person who can.”
“Sir.”
“Find your boss.”
The officer placed one hand near his belt. Warning. Peter came around the car.
“Ilya, get back inside.”
“No.”
“We can handle this without…”
“No one handles anything!”
His voice broke across the stopped traffic.
“Building is gone. He is gone, no one answers, and you tell me line?”
The officer stared at him. Ilya was shaking openly now in his whole body.
“He was inside,” he said. “He may be in hospital. He may be on street. He may not know his own name. I need to go.”
“You still can’t cross without clearance.”
“Then clear me.”
“I don’t have that authority.”
“Get authority.”
Behind them, another officer approached. Peter lowered his voice.
“Ilya, we are going to get detained.”
“I will buy station.”
“That is not helping.”
“I will buy fucking border.”
The second officer said,
“What’s the problem?”
The first explained quietly. Ilya caught only pieces. Russian. New York. World Trade Center. No authorization. The second officer looked at him for several seconds.
“Pull the car aside.”
Peter exhaled.
“Thank you.”
“That isn’t permission to cross.”
Ilya’s face hardened again. They were directed into a small inspection area away from the main line. Minutes passed. Twenty. Forty. Time became another official standing between Ilya and Shane. Forms. Questions. Names. Destination. Reason for travel.
Where would they stay?
Who were they meeting?
Did they understand parts of New York were inaccessible?
Did they understand the situation remained dangerous?
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Every answer came sharper. The official behind the desk finally set down Ilya’s passport.
“We can’t approve this.”
Ilya stared at him.
“Why?”
“Nonessential travel is suspended.”
“This is essential.”
“Not under the current criteria.”
“He is my…”
The truth rose. Ilya’s teeth clenched.
“My teammate.”
The word tasted like ash. The official looked almost apologetic.
“I understand he’s important to you.”
“No, you do not.”
“Ilya,” Peter warned softly.
Ilya reached into his jacket. Peter caught his wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Let go.”
“No.”
“Let go.”
Peter saw the wallet. His face changed.
“Absolutely not.”
Ilya tore free. He took out everything. Cash. Canadian dollars. American dollars. The emergency money Peter had withdrawn before they left. He put it on the desk. The official stared.
“Sir.”
“Take.”
“No.”
“Take it.”
“Put that away.”
Ilya pulled off his watch. Expensive. A gift from a sponsor. He placed it beside the money. Peter looked sick.
“Ilya, stop.”
“I have more.”
The official pushed back from the desk.
“This conversation is over.”
“No.”
“You are attempting to bribe a federal officer.”
“Yes.”
The bluntness silenced the room. Ilya leaned forward.
“I do not care.”
His eyes were bright with tears and completely wild.
“You arrest me tomorrow.”
“Sir…”
“You tell newspaper. You end career. You take everything.”
His breath hitched.
“But you let me through now.”
No one spoke. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Somewhere beyond the room, engines idled and horns sounded. The official looked at the money. At Ilya.
“This can’t happen.”
“It is happening.”
“I could have you detained.”
“Then detain me after.”
“Ilya,” Peter said, voice raw. “Please.”
Ilya turned on him.
“No.”
Peter flinched.
“No more please for me. All please goes to Shane.”
That ended Peter’s resistance. The official rubbed one hand over his face. He looked tired. Older suddenly.
“You think money changes what’s on the other side?”
“No.”
“New York is locked down.”
“I know.”
“You may not get anywhere near Manhattan.”
“I know.”
“You could drive all the way there and find nothing.”
Ilya’s mouth shook.
“I know.”
“You could make this worse for yourself.”
“I do not care.”
The official looked at him for a long time then gathered the money into one pile. He pushed it back across the desk.
“Put it away.”
Ilya’s face went blank.
“No.”
“Put it away.”
“You said…”
“I didn’t say no.”
Peter stopped breathing. The official stood. He walked to the door, looked down the corridor, then back at them. His voice dropped.
“I’m going to leave this room for five minutes.”
Ilya stared.
“When I come back, this vehicle should not still be in inspection.”
Peter understood first. He seized the money and watch, shoved them back toward Ilya, then grabbed the car keys. Ilya did not move. The official held his gaze.
“I never saw you.”
Something passed across Ilya’s face. Not gratitude, no. He had no room left for it. Only fierce, shaking comprehension. He nodded once. They ran. The barrier was already lifting when they reached the car. Peter drove through. For several seconds, Ilya stared backward through the rear window. The border receded. Canada behind him. The United States ahead. Shane somewhere beyond every road he could see. His phone rang. Ilya turned so violently the seatbelt cut into his neck. Unknown number. He answered.
“Shane?”
A man’s voice said,
“Is this Ilya Rozanov?”
His heart dropped.
“Yes.”
“This is Bellevue Hospital. Your number was listed…”
Everything inside him stopped.
“Is Shane there?”
A pause. Paper moving. Voices behind the caller.
“I’m trying to locate information regarding a patient who may have…”
“Is Shane there?”
“I don’t have confirmation.”
“Then why call?”
“We received an inquiry from his family and…”
“Do you have body?”
Peter nearly drove off the road. The man went silent. Ilya shut his eyes. His face twisted with horror at his own words.
“No. Forget. Do not answer this.”
“Sir…”
“Do you have living patient named Shane Hollander?”
“Not currently confirmed.”
“Then call only when confirmed.”
He hung up. His hands shook so violently the phone struck his knee. Peter said,
“Jesus Christ.”
“Drive.”
“You need to calm down.”
“Drive.”
“You’re going to make yourself sick.”
“Then I am sick in car.”
“Ilya.”
“Drive faster.”
The American roads stretched ahead. They passed exits. Towns. Gas stations crowded with people around radios. Flags hanging motionless in the clear air. Every hour, the traffic thickened. Every hour, the official vehicles multiplied. Every hour, New York remained impossibly far away. Ilya called every hospital number Peter had collected. He gave Shane’s full name. Age. Height. Hair. Eyes. A scar near his chin from a skate. A small mark beneath one shoulder. His blood type, because David had once mentioned it and Ilya had remembered. His clothing. Dark suit. White shirt. Stupid navy tie.
“No,” one nurse said gently. “We don’t have him.”
Another hospital transferred him four times before the line died. Another took his number. Another said dozens of unidentified patients had arrived.
“What do you mean unidentified?”
“Some people don’t have identification. Some are unable to…”
“Check them.”
“We are.”
“I describe him.”
“Sir, we’re overwhelmed.”
“I describe him now.”
He did. Every detail he could say without telling a stranger how many times he had kissed each part of Shane’s face. The nurse listened. Said she would call. No one called. They drove. Afternoon light shifted slowly across the dashboard.
Ilya had not eaten. He drank water only when Peter shoved the bottle into his hand and refused to accelerate until he swallowed. At one point Peter pulled into a gas station. Ilya looked at him as if he had committed murder.
“We need fuel.”
“You should have filled before.”
“I did.”
“Then why stop?”
“Because we have been driving for hours.”
“Get fuel.”
“I am.”
“Hurry.”
Peter got out. Ilya immediately tried Shane again. Voicemail. This time he left no words. He simply listened to the beep. Breathed. Hung up.
When Peter returned, Ilya was crying silently. Tears rolled continuously down his face while he stared through the windshield. Peter put the car into gear. He did not mention it. The sun began lowering. New York drew closer. Signs appeared bearing the name. Each one made Ilya’s heart jump and then crash when the city itself failed to materialize. The radio warned people to stay away. Roads into Manhattan closed. Bridges restricted. Emergency vehicles only. Do not travel to lower Manhattan. Do not attempt to reach the disaster site. Do not interfere with rescue operations. Ilya listened with his jaw clenched.
“Fuck you,” he said to the radio.
Peter did not ask which part. They drove farther. The sky ahead began to change. At first, Ilya thought it was cloud. Then he understood. Smoke. A dark smear across the horizon where the city waited.
His phone lay silent in his hand. Shane’s sweater no longer smelled like Shane. It smelled like airport, car, sweat, fear. Ilya lifted the collar to his face anyway. For one second, buried his nose in it and llowered it before Peter could see.
“Faster,” he whispered.
Peter’s eyes remained fixed on the road.
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
“No.”
Ilya stared at the smoke ahead.
“Faster.”
The car accelerated into the deepening afternoon.
***
The boy’s name was Daniel. Shane found that out only after the ash began to settle. The roar faded into a distant thunder of alarms, sirens, and voices calling names through the grey. The darkness thinned enough for Shane to see the outline of the doorway around them, the broken glass scattered over the pavement, the strange new landscape beyond.
Cars stood abandoned at angles. Paper covered everything. The air itself seemed solid. Daniel was still beneath Shane’s arm, curled against the wall with both hands over his head.
“You okay?” Shane asked.
His voice sounded wrong. Daniel did not respond. Shane touched his shoulder. The boy flinched so violently he hit the wall.
“Hey.” Shane pulled his hand away immediately. “Sorry. It’s okay. I’m not…”
He stopped. Nothing was okay.
“You’re alive,” Shane said again instead.
Daniel looked at him. His face was so heavily covered in dust that only the wet tracks beneath his eyes showed skin.
“My mom,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“I need to call her.”
“I know.”
“My phone’s gone.”
“Mine’s dead.”
Daniel’s mouth crumpled. He looked impossibly young. Old enough to wear a tie and commute into Manhattan, young enough to cry for his mother without trying to hide it.
Shane understood that feeling more than he wanted to. He wanted Yuna. He wanted David. He wanted to hear his mother say his name in that particular sharp, frightened way she used when he was hurt. But more than anything, he wanted Ilya. The name moved through him like pain. Ilya would have seen the news by now. He would know Shane had been inside the tower. He would call. Again and again. He would swear at the phone as if the network could be bullied into submission. He would pace. He would refuse to sit. He would pretend he wasn’t crying, even if tears were pouring down his face. Shane pressed the side button on his phone again. Nothing. Black screen. Dead. His stomach twisted.
“I promised,” he said under his breath.
Daniel looked at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Shane pushed himself upright. The movement sent a sharp pain across his forehead. He touched above his eye. His fingers came away wet. Red showed brightly against the grey coating his skin.
For several seconds, he stared at it without understanding. His left sleeve was dark from the elbow to the cuff. Blood had soaked through the white fabric beneath the dust.
He rolled the sleeve up with clumsy fingers. A shallow gash crossed the outside of his forearm, probably from glass or falling debris. He had not felt it happen.
“Jesus,” Daniel whispered.
“It’s not bad.”
The lie was automatic. The cut was not deep, but it had bled heavily. Dust had collected in the blood, turning it thick and dark. Shane’s eyebrow was worse only because he could not see it. Warm blood kept slipping down toward his eye, making him blink.
Daniel was staring. Shane tugged the torn edge of his shirt cuff free and pressed it against his brow.
“Can you stand?”
Daniel nodded. He tried.
His knees folded immediately. Shane caught him under the arms. The sudden weight pulled painfully at Shane’s injured arm, and for one second his vision flashed white. He nearly dropped them both.
“Sorry,” Daniel gasped.
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
Daniel began crying again. Shane knew that kind of crying. The body continuing after the person had run out of room for it.
“Put your weight on me,” Shane said.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m a hockey player. I’m fine.”
Daniel looked at the blood covering Shane’s sleeve. Shane closed his eyes briefly.
“I can walk,” he corrected. “That’s enough.”
They stepped out of the doorway. The city was gone. Shane knew, rationally, that the buildings around them still existed. The street remained beneath his shoes. The sky was somewhere overhead. Everything was grey. Windows. Cars. People. A woman wandered barefoot through the street with a handbag still looped carefully over one arm, calling someone’s name in a perfectly calm voice. A man sat beside a fire hydrant, staring at his hands. A police officer emerged from the dust like a ghost and shouted at them to keep moving north.
“Where?” Shane called.
The officer pointed.
“There’s a church taking people in. A few blocks. Keep moving.”
“How far?”
“Just keep going.”
The officer was already turning toward someone else. Shane tightened his arm around Daniel.
“Come on.”
Daniel stumbled beside him. They joined the stream of people moving through the dust. Some limped. Some were carried. Some walked with their hands locked around strangers because nobody wanted to lose another person. Shane tried not to look at faces. Every face became Ilya for one second. Wrong height. Wrong hair. Wrong mouth. Then another stranger. He kept searching anyway. It made no sense. Ilya was in Montreal. Safe. Far away, but panic did not care about distance. Some part of Shane believed that if he kept looking, Ilya might appear from the smoke. Furious, beautiful, swearing at everyone, coming to drag Shane home. The thought nearly made him collapse.
“You okay?” Daniel asked.
Shane realized they had stopped. He was standing in the middle of the street, breathing too fast, blood dripping from his eyebrow onto his cheek.
“I’m okay.”
Daniel’s expression did not change. Shane almost laughed. They were both terrible liars. He started walking again. The church appeared gradually through the haze. First the dark shape of the doors, then stone steps crowded with people, then volunteers standing outside with bottles of water and torn cloths over their mouths, waving survivors inside.
“Here,” one of them called. “Come inside. We have water. Medical help is coming.”
Medical help. Shane’s body reacted to the words before he did. His knees weakened. He could not fall yet. He got Daniel up the steps. Inside, the church had become another kind of disaster. People filled every pew, sat along the walls, lay across the stone floor with coats beneath their heads. Some prayed, some stared, some sobbed into borrowed phones that did not work. Volunteers moved between them with water, towels, and damp cloths. Someone had set up a folding table near the altar with basic first-aid supplies. A priest stood near the centre aisle, not preaching, only moving from person to person and touching shoulders when people allowed it.
The noise was immense and strangely hushed at the same time. Hundreds of voices kept low by shock. Coughing. Crying. Names repeated over and over.
“Daniel!”
The boy beside Shane jerked upright. A woman was pushing through the aisle toward them. Older than Daniel, maybe late twenties, hair covered in ash, one shoe missing.
“Daniel!”
His sister, Shane realized a second before Daniel broke free. The boy fell into her arms so hard they both nearly went down. She made a sound that tore through the church.
“Oh my God. Oh my God, Danny.”
Daniel buried his face against her neck and sobbed. Shane stepped back. The absence of the boy’s weight made him sway. His shoulder hit the end of a pew. He caught himself with his injured arm and nearly cried out. Daniel’s sister was kissing his hair, his face, his dusty hands.
“I thought you were…” she kept saying. “I thought you were…”
She could not finish. Daniel turned suddenly, still locked against her.
“He saved me.”
His sister looked at Shane. For one terrible second, gratitude flooded her face. Shane could not bear it.
“No,” he said.
His voice came out too sharply. They both stared at him.
“I just helped him up.”
Daniel shook his head.
“He came back.”
Shane looked away. People were thanking firefighters. Police officers. Strangers. People were trying to make meaning faster than the day could destroy it. Shane did not want Daniel’s gratitude. He wanted his phone to turn on. He wanted Ilya. A volunteer touched his elbow.
“Sir, you’re bleeding.”
Shane flinched hard enough to frighten her.
“Sorry,” she said quickly.
“No. Sorry. I’m…”
His body tried to supply the word fine. He stopped it.
“My phone died.”
The volunteer blinked. Shane looked down at the black screen still clutched in his hand.
“I need a charger.”
“We don’t have power in all the outlets, but we’re trying to…”
“Any charger.”
“What kind?”
He stared at her. He didn’t know. He had used the same kind for months, carried one in his bag, plugged it in every night. Now the question sounded impossible.
“I don’t know.”
The woman’s face softened.
“I’ll find someone.”
He caught her sleeve as she turned.
“Please.”
The word came out broken. She covered his hand with hers for one second.
“I will.”
Shane let go. He watched her disappear into the crowd. Then he stood alone. Daniel had his sister now. Elise… Where was Elise? The thought hit him hard enough to bring everything back. Sarah. Elise. He had left them in the shop. He had promised Sarah he would come back.
“Oh God.”
He turned toward the doors. The church tilted. He caught the pew again. Someone called his name
“Shane!”
Sarah pushed through the crowd. She was sobbing before she reached him. Behind her came Elise.
And beside Elise was a man. His shirt was torn at the shoulder. Blood streaked one side of his neck. His glasses were gone. But he was upright, one arm around Elise’s waist as if he would never release her again.
“Mark,” Elise said.
She was crying and smiling and shaking so violently her teeth clicked.
“I found him.”
Shane stared at them. Mark reached out. His hand landed on Shane’s shoulder.
“Elise said you got her out.”
Shane looked at Elise. Her face was swollen from crying, dust caked into the lines around her eyes.
“He was in another stairwell,” she said. “He got out before… he was looking for me.”
Mark pulled her closer.
“We were both looking.”
They laughed then. A horrible, fragile laugh that turned immediately into sobbing. Elise pressed her face against her husband’s chest. Mark kissed the top of her dusty hair again and again. Shane’s vision blurred. They had found each other. In all of this, somehow, they had found each other.
Relief came first, then envy so ugly and immediate that Shane hated himself for it.
Elise had Mark. Daniel had his sister. People throughout the church were collapsing into the arms of whoever had managed to reach them. Shane had a dead phone. Ilya did not know he was alive. Maybe Yuna and David did not know either. Maybe no one knew.
Sarah reached him and grabbed both his arms.
Her grip landed directly over the cut. Pain shot through him. He hissed. She released him instantly.
“Jesus, Shane.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
She stared at his face.
“At least sit down.”
“I need a phone.”
“You need a doctor.”
“I need to call someone.”
“Who?”
The question stopped him. Sarah knew he was close to his parents. She knew his team. His agent. But she did not know the name Shane needed to say. No one here did.
“Ilya,” he said.
It was too quiet.
“What?”
He swallowed.
“I need to call Ilya.”
Sarah stared at him. Recognition, but not understanding.
“Rozanov?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because he was waiting. Because Shane had promised. Because Shane had almost said I love you that morning and had decided there would be more time. Because Ilya would be somewhere coming apart in secret, unable even to tell people why. Shane’s mouth trembled.
“He knows I was there.”
Sarah’s face changed.
“Oh.”
Not full understanding, clearly enough to hear the desperation.
“I’m sure he knows the lines are down.”
“That won’t matter.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’ll think…”
Shane stopped. His breathing broke. The church suddenly felt too small. Too many people. Too much dust. Too many cries of relief and grief tangled together. He could see Ilya in his apartment. Calling. Calling. Calling. Watching the North Tower collapse. Shane pressed the dead phone against his chest as if he could force a message through bone and fabric and hundreds of miles.
“I have to tell him,” he whispered.
Sarah took one look at his face and stopped asking questions.
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I don’t care.”
“You’re going to fall.”
“I’m not.”
He took one step. His knees buckled. Sarah caught him poorly, barely slowing the fall. Shane landed against the end of a pew, then slid onto the floor. For a second, he could not move. His entire body began shaking.nViolent, full-body tremors. His teeth knocked together. The dead phone slipped from his fingers and struck the stone floor.
“No.”
He grabbed for it immediately. Sarah crouched in front of him.
“Shane.”
“I need it.”
“It’s right here.”
“I need it.”
She put the phone back into his hands. He clutched it. Blood ran from his eyebrow again, tracing a clean red line through the dust on his face. A volunteer arrived with a first-aid kit.
“Can I look at that cut?”
“No.”
“Shane,” Sarah said.
“No.”
He hunched over the phone. The volunteer glanced at Sarah. Sarah shook her head slightly, then sat on the floor beside him. For a while, no one touched him. That was the only kindness he could tolerate. Across the aisle, Elise sat pressed against Mark, her hand spread over his chest like she needed to feel every heartbeat. Daniel and his sister remained tangled together on a pew. A woman near the altar screamed when a borrowed phone finally connected. Shane stared at his own blank screen. He pressed the power button. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again.
“Please,” he whispered.
Sarah looked away. Shane’s thumb kept pushing. Once. Twice. Ten times. He knew it was dead. He could not stop.
“I told him I would call.”
His voice was barely audible. Sarah leaned closer.
“What?”
“I promised.”
A sob rose into his throat. He forced it down.
“I said after breakfast.”
Sarah’s eyes filled.
“You couldn’t know.”
“I should have called from the stairs.”
“You were helping people.”
“I should have called.”
“You couldn’t get service.”
“I should have tried more.”
“You did try.”
“He doesn’t know.”
Sarah put one hand on the stone floor between them, close but not touching.
“He knows you would call if you could.”
“No.”
Shane shook his head. Dust fell from his hair.
“You don’t understand.”
His voice cracked wide open.
“He’ll come here.”
Sarah stared.
“He can’t. The planes are grounded.”
“He’ll drive.”
“From Montreal?”
“He’ll drive.”
“That’s hours.”
“He won’t care.”
Shane looked toward the church doors as if Ilya might already be there.
“He’ll try to get into the city. He’ll fight someone. He’ll do something insane.”
Despite everything, Sarah gave a small, startled breath that might have been a laugh. Shane did not. His face crumpled.
“I need to tell him not to.”
Because the city was dangerous. Because roads were closed. Because the air was full of ash and sirens and collapsing things. Because Shane had gotten out, and the idea of Ilya running toward the danger for him was unbearable. But underneath that…
Come. Please come. Find me.
Shane pressed the phone against his mouth.
“Ilya,” he whispered into the dead glass.
The name vanished into the chaos. No signal. No battery. No answer.
The volunteer knelt in front of him again.
“Please let me clean your face.”
This time Shane did not refuse. He could not find the strength. She dampened a cloth and carefully wiped the blood and dust from around his eyebrow. The first touch made him flinch. The second made his eyes close. The third broke him. Shane lowered his head over the phone and began to cry. His shoulders shook beneath the ruined suit jacket. Blood darkened his sleeve. Dust covered his hair, his eyelashes, the creases of his hands. Around him, the church overflowed with survivors, the missing, the injured, and the people waiting for names.
Elise had found her husband. Daniel had found his sister.
Shane sat on the stone floor with a dead phone pressed between both palms and no way to tell the person he loved that he had survived.
No way to know whether Ilya had watched the tower fall. No way to take back the silence from that morning. He had thought they had time. That was the cruelty of it. That less than an hour before it changed, Shane had held the truth behind his teeth and let the moment pass.
You love menace.
Maybe I do.
Coward. He pressed the phone harder to his mouth.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Too late for the call. Too far for Ilya to hear.
“I love you.”
Sarah sat beside him while he cried. She did not ask him to explain.
***
They got as far as the bridge. Police vehicles blocked every lane ahead. Emergency lights strobed red and blue across windshields, road signs, frightened faces. Beyond the barricade, Manhattan rose beneath a sky stained wrong, too dark in one direction, too bright in another, smoke spreading over the buildings like weather.
Cars were being turned around. Some people argued through open windows. Some cried. Some sat motionless behind steering wheels, hands resting uselessly in their laps. Peter slowed. Ilya leaned forward.
“What is this?”
“You know what this is.”
“No.”
The car rolled to a stop behind a line of emergency vehicles. An officer approached, palm raised. Peter lowered the window.
“No civilian traffic past this point.”
“We need to get through,” Peter said.
“No.”
“My family is in there,” Ilya said.
The officer glanced toward him. His face was exhausted beneath the dust.
“Everyone’s family is in there.”
“I know where I go.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“Lower Manhattan is restricted. Turn around.”
“I am not going lower Manhattan.”
The lie came instantly. Peter looked at him. The officer did too. Ilya’s hands were already on the door handle.
“Ilya,” Peter warned.
“There are shelters.”
“They’re redirecting people.”
“Which shelter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then find out.”
“Sir…”
“Which fucking shelter?”
The officer’s expression hardened.
“Get back in your vehicle.”
Ilya opened the door. Peter grabbed his sleeve.
“Don’t.”
Ilya tore free and stepped into the road. The officer moved closer.
“You need to get back in the car.”
“No.”
“You cannot walk into Manhattan.”
“Watch me.”
“Ilya.”
Peter was out now too, circling the car. The officer’s hand went toward his radio.
“I’m going to tell you one more time.”
“I do not care how many times you tell me.”
Ilya pointed toward the skyline.
“He is there.”
His voice cracked across the road.
“He was in North Tower. He got out or he is hurt or he is somewhere with no phone and nobody knows his name. I am finding him.”
The officer’s face changed slightly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying this.”
“I cannot let you through.”
“Then arrest me after.”
“Ilya,” Peter said again.
“No.”
The word came out ragged. He was beyond fury now, beyond anything clean. His body had been running on fear for hours, and fear had burned through every layer of politeness, reason, restraint. His eyes were red. His face was grey with exhaustion. Shane’s sweater hung wrinkled and damp against him.
The officer looked at him for a long moment, then said,
“Pedestrian access is blocked farther south anyway.”
“I walk until it is blocked.”
“You’ll be turned back.”
“Then I go another way.”
“There is no another way.”
“There is always another way.”
The officer exhaled through his nose.
“Not today.”
Ilya looked at him. For one terrible second, his mouth trembled. He reached into the car, grabbed his phone and wallet, and slammed the door. Peter caught his arm.
“What are you doing?”
“Running.”
“You don’t know where.”
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I know where he is not.”
Peter’s grip tightened.
“Ilya.”
“He is not here.”
The words were barely audible. Peter let go. Ilya started walking. Then faster. Then running. The officer shouted after him. Another moved to stop him, but Ilya cut between two parked vehicles, vaulted a low barrier, and kept going.
Peter swore behind him.
“Ilya!”
He did not look back. He ran. The first kilometre was easy. His body knew how to do this. Years of training. Legs built for speed, lungs built for endurance, heart built to survive punishment. The second was harder. The air changed. Smoke crept into it, faint at first, then stronger. Sirens multiplied. Traffic thinned. People appeared walking in the opposite direction, many covered in dust, some wrapped in blankets despite the heat. Every face made Ilya slow. Dark hair. Wrong. Broad shoulders. Wrong. A man in a torn suit. Wrong. A tall figure stumbling beside a medic. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. He scanned every face so violently it became pain.
“Shane!”
No one turned. He ran farther.
“Shane!”
A woman looked at him. A police officer stepped into his path.
“You can’t go this way.”
“Where are survivors?”
“Keep moving north.”
“I am going south.”
“No.”
“I look for someone.”
“So is everyone.”
“Shane Hollander.”
The officer did not react. Ilya grabbed his wallet, pulled up Shane’s picture, shoved it toward him.
“This man.”
The officer barely looked.
“I haven’t seen him.”
“You look again.”
“Sir.”
“Look.”
The officer glanced at the photo for half a second longer.
“No.”
“Where are churches?”
“What?”
“Shelters. Churches. Schools. Where people go?”
“There are several.”
“Names.”
“I don’t have a list.”
“You are police.”
“I am trying to keep this street clear.”
“My partner is missing.”
The word came out before Ilya could stop it. The officer looked at him properly then. Ilya did not care. Let him know. Let everyone know. Let the whole fucking city know.
“My partner,” Ilya repeated. “He was in tower.”
The officer’s expression softened with the same useless pity Ilya had been fighting all day.
“There are triage centres and shelters farther north. Try the churches around Canal and beyond. Hospitals too.”
“Which hospital?”
“All of them.”
Ilya stared. The answer was too large.
“All?”
“People are being moved everywhere.”
“Names.”
The officer began listing them. Ilya typed with shaking fingers. Misspelled half of them. Did not care. His shoes were wrong for it. Too stiff. Every step jarred through his knees. By the time he reached the first church, his lungs burned and sweat had soaked the back of Shane’s sweater.
People crowded the steps. Volunteers moved between them carrying water and damp cloths. Ilya pushed through.
“Shane Hollander.”
A volunteer blinked.
“What?”
“Shane Hollander. Tall. Dark hair. Hurt maybe. Hockey player.”
“I don’t know.”
“You have list?”
“We’re trying to make one.”
“Show me.”
“Sir.”
“Show me list.”
She led him toward a folding table. Names written on paper. Some complete. Some only first names. Some descriptions. Male, thirties, brown hair. Unknown woman, red jacket. Teenage boy, Daniel. Elise and Mark. Ilya’s eyes moved so quickly the words blurred. No Shane. He checked again.
“Where are people without names?”
The volunteer pointed toward the pews.
Ilya turned. His heart reacted to every dark head. Every man near Shane’s height. Every ruined suit. He crouched beside one unconscious man and touched his shoulder before seeing the face. Not Shane.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
The man’s wife stared at him. Ilya moved on.
“Shane?”
No response.
“Shane Hollander?”
A few people looked up. At the back of the church, a young man sat beside his sister, crying silently.
Dust covered his hair and face.
Blood streaked one cuff. For one fraction of a second, Ilya thought…
No.
Too young. Wrong mouth. Wrong hands. He turned away so hard his vision spun. A woman grabbed his sleeve.
“Are you looking for someone?”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
Her eyes were huge and empty. For one second, they stood together in that truth.
“Did you see a man named Thomas?”
“No.”
She released him. Ilya kept going. No Shane. At the next shelter, there was no list. At the next, the list was incomplete. At the next, someone said they remembered a tall man with blood on his face. Ilya’s heart stopped.
“Where?”
“He was sitting near the front.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Earlier.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he wear?”
“A suit.”
“What color hair?”
“Dark, I think.”
“Eyes?”
“I didn’t see.”
“Accent?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he Canadian?”
The woman stared at him.
“How would I know?”
Ilya grabbed Shane’s photo again.
“This man?”
She looked.
Maybe. Her face said maybe. Her mouth said,
“I’m sorry. I’m not sure.”
Ilya nearly screamed. He ran outside. Peter found him three blocks later. He was bent over a public phone, punching numbers with bloody fingers where the skin had split around his nails. The phone did not work.
“Ilya.”
He spun. Peter had abandoned the car somewhere. His dress shirt was soaked through. His face was red from running.
“Nothing,” Ilya said.
“I know.”
“No.”
He pointed back toward the street.
“No Shane.”
“We keep looking.”
“I looked.”
“There are more shelters.”
“I looked.”
“Not all.”
“How many?”
Peter did not answer.
“How many?”
“Dozens.”
“Dozens.”
“We’ll split up.”
“No.”
“Ilya…”
“No. You will miss him.”
“I know what he looks like.”
“You do not know him.”
Peter went quiet. Ilya pressed both hands over his face for one second then lowered them. His eyes were bright with panic.
“He may not answer to name.”
“What?”
“If hurt. If confused.”
“We’ll use the picture.”
“He may be unconscious.”
“Then hospitals.”
“They say no lists.”
“Then we go in person.”
“All?”
“Yes.”
Ilya stared at him. Peter’s own voice shook now.
“All.”
They started moving again. The first hospital was chaos. People crowded every entrance. Nurses shouted instructions. Police tried to hold back families. Names were being taped to walls. Ilya pushed forward until someone blocked him.
“You need to wait.”
“No.”
“Everyone needs to wait.”
“Shane Hollander.”
“Write the name down.”
“I already call.”
“Then wait for information.”
“No.”
“Sir…”
“He may be inside.”
“So may hundreds of others.”
“I need look.”
“You can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because this is a hospital, not a search party.”
Ilya’s face twisted.
“My partner is missing.”
The nurse’s expression softened.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
He slammed his palm against the counter. People jumped.
“No more sorry.”
Security moved toward him. Peter stepped between them.
“He’s exhausted.”
“I am not exhausted.”
“You are.”
“I need list.”
“The list isn’t complete.”
“Then let me see patients.”
“We cannot do that.”
“I identify him.”
“You cannot walk through treatment areas.”
“I pay.”
“That isn’t how this works.”
“I pay hospital.”
Peter grabbed his shoulders.
“Ilya.”
“Let go.”
“You’re going to get removed.”
“Let go.”
“You need to stop for ten seconds.”
“I stop when I find him.”
Peter tightened his grip. Ilya shoved him away.
“I do not stop.”
His voice shook violently.
“He may be alone.”
That was the centre of it. Alone. Shane somewhere in this city, frightened and bleeding and unable to reach anyone. Maybe asking for Ilya. Maybe thinking Ilya had not come. Ilya pressed his fist to his mouth. His eyes filled. He turned away before the tears could fall. The nurse behind the desk said gently,
“There’s a church shelter four blocks east. Some of the walking wounded were sent there.”
“We were there,” Peter said.
“Another one. St. Paul’s.”
Ilya looked up.
“Where?”
She gave directions. He was gone before she finished. He ran again. His body began to fail. His calves cramped. His throat felt flayed by smoke. He kept running. The city had become streets without orientation, barricades without logic, people without names. Everywhere, handmade posters were already beginning to appear. Handwritten descriptions. Photographs taped to walls.
Have you seen…?
Missing.
Please call.
People stood on corners holding pictures of husbands, daughters, brothers, mothers. Ilya hated the photographs. He hated the future they suggested. He was not putting Shane’s face on paper. Shane was not missing like that. Shane was somewhere. Somewhere had edges. Somewhere could be searched.
At St. Paul’s, the doors were crowded. Ilya forced his way inside. The air smelled like blood, dust, wet cloth, candle wax. He shouted before anyone could stop him.
“Shane Hollander!”
Heads turned. No Shane.
“Shane!”
A volunteer hurried toward him.
“You need to keep your voice down.”
“No.”
“People are resting.”
“I look for person.”
“So is everyone.”
He shoved the photo forward.
“Have you seen him?”
The volunteer looked. Recognition. Ilya saw it. His heart slammed against his ribs.
“You saw.”
“I might have.”
“When?”
“There was a man earlier. He looked similar.”
“Where?”
“He was sitting near the side aisle.”
“Where now?”
“I don’t know.”
Ilya grabbed the volunteer’s arm.
“Think.”
“Sir.”
“Think.”
“He was injured. Blood on his face. He had a dead phone.”
The entire church disappeared. Dead phone. Blood on his face. Tall man. Suit.
“Shane,” Ilya whispered.
The volunteer nodded uncertainly.
“He was with a woman.”
Ilya’s breath stopped.
“What woman?”
“I don’t know. Dark hair. She stayed beside him.”
Sarah. Maybe.
“Where did they go?”
“I think medical transport came maybe.”
“Which hospital?”
“I don’t know.”
Ilya’s grip tightened. The volunteer winced. Peter pulled Ilya’s hand away.
“Let him go.”
Ilya did.
“Which ambulance?”
“There were several.”
“Where did they take him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Name?”
“They may have registered him.”
“Under Shane?”
“I don’t know.”
Every answer was a wall. Ilya backed away. For one second, hope had become a physical thing. A person had seen him, then the uncertainty swallowed it.
“What if not him?” Ilya said.
Peter shook his head.
“It sounds like him.”
“Many men are tall.”
“It sounds like him.”
“Many have blood.”
“Ilya.”
“Many have dead phone.”
Peter gripped the back of his neck, firm and grounding.
“Listen to me.”
Ilya stared at him.
“We have a direction now.”
“No hospital.”
“We go back. We ask which ambulances were here. We trace them.”
“How?”
“We make people answer.”
Ilya’s eyes filled again.
“What if we are late?”
Peter’s face broke for one second.
“We are not.”
“You do not know.”
“No.”
Peter swallowed.
“But neither do you.”
Ilya looked toward the crowded church. Everywhere, people were being held. Shane was not there. The hope collapsed as quickly as it had arrived. Ilya stepped away from Peter and went outside. People streamed around him. Sirens moved in every direction. Someone ran past shouting a name. Someone else fell to their knees against a wall. Ilya looked south.
Called Shane. Voicemail. For once, he let the recording finish. The beep sounded. Ilya breathed. His voice came out shredded.
“I am here.”
Peter stood several feet behind him and looked away.
“I am in New York.”
Ilya’s mouth trembled.
“I looked everywhere.”
A pause.
“That is not true. I did not look everywhere yet.”
He wiped his face.
“I am going to.”
His breathing broke.
“You need to stay where people are. You need to tell them your name. You need to stop helping everyone for one fucking second.”
A tear slid into the dust on his cheek.
“I cannot find you.”
The admission destroyed the last of his control. His shoulders folded. He pressed his fist against his mouth, fighting the sob that still escaped.
“I cannot find you, baby.”
No one nearby knew who he was talking to. For the first time, he did not care.
“Please.”
His voice disappeared. He lowered the phone, then forced it back up.
“I am not leaving.”
He ended the message. For several seconds, he stood completely still, then he turned towards Peter.
“Next hospital.”
Peter nodded.
***
Shane lasted another four minutes inside the church. He sat where the volunteer had left him, shoulder pressed against the end of the pew, a square of gauze taped badly over his eyebrow. Blood had already begun seeping through one corner. His forearm had been cleaned and wrapped, but red stained the bandage beneath his torn sleeve.
Someone had brought him water. He held it without drinking. Around him, people shifted and coughed and cried. Names continued to travel through the church, called by volunteers, shouted by frightened relatives, whispered into borrowed phones. Every sound made him look up. None of them were Ilya. Of course none of them were Ilya. Ilya was hundreds of miles away. Shane stared at his dead phone. He had stopped pressing the power button. His thumb no longer had the strength.
Sarah had gone to help Elise and Mark find somewhere to sit. Daniel remained with his sister across the aisle, her arms wrapped around him so tightly he almost disappeared against her.
Everyone had someone. That thought came again, ugly and uninvited. Everyone had found someone. Shane shut his eyes. Ilya would be coming. He knew it with the same certainty he knew his own name. Planes grounded, roads blocked, borders closing, it would not matter. Ilya would hear that Shane had been inside the North Tower and immediately begin trying to tear apart geography with his bare hands.
Shane should stay here. That was the sensible thing. This was a known shelter. Sarah knew where he was. Volunteers were recording names. Eventually a working phone or charger would appear. His parents would find him. Ilya would find him. Shane tried to make his body obey. His knee bounced uncontrollably. His fingers tightened around the bottle.
Something felt wrong. Not the building. Not another impact. Nothing he could point to. Just a pressure beneath his sternum, a pull.
He looked toward the church doors. People moved in and out beneath the stone archway, volunteers, police officers, survivors arriving in twos and threes. Outside, daylight had turned dim and yellow behind the smoke.
Stay here. His mother would tell him to stay. David would tell him he was injured and disoriented. Ilya would swear at him for even considering moving.
Shane stood. The church rolled beneath him. He caught the pew and waited until the dark spots cleared from his vision. A volunteer noticed.
“Sir, you need to sit down.”
“I’m okay.”
The words came automatically. He shook his head.
“No. Sorry. I just need some air.”
“The air is worse outside.”
“I need to look.”
“For what?”
Shane had no answer that would make sense. He looked down at the dead phone.
“For someone.”
The volunteer reached for him, but Shane had already stepped into the aisle. His legs felt unreliable. Every muscle ached now that the panic was no longer forcing him forward. His shoulder throbbed where something had struck it during the collapse. The cut on his arm pulsed beneath the bandage.
He kept walking. Sarah saw him before he reached the doors.
“Where are you going?”
“Outside.”
“No.”
“I’ll stay on the steps.”
“Shane, you nearly passed out.”
“I need to…”
He stopped. Sarah stared at him.
“You need to what?”
“I don’t know.”
Her expression softened with fear. That was what everyone looked like now when Shane spoke. As if he had become another person they might lose if they blinked. He touched her arm.
“I’ll be right outside.”
“You said you would come back before.”
The words landed between them. Shane’s face tightened.
“I did come back.”
“Eventually.”
“I came back.”
Sarah looked toward the blood seeping through the gauze over his eye.
“Two minutes.”
“Okay.”
“If you feel dizzy…”
“I come inside.”
“If anything happens…”
“I come inside.”
“If someone asks you to help…”
Shane hesitated. Sarah’s eyes narrowed.
“Shane.”
“I come inside.”
She knew he was lying. They were both too exhausted to argue about it. Shane stepped through the doors. The air caught in his throat immediately. Smoke, dust, something chemical and scorched. He coughed into the crook of his arm and descended one step, then another. People filled the street. He scanned them. A man wrapped in a silver emergency blanket. A woman holding a photograph above her head. Two firefighters walking side by side, both grey with ash. A family pressed together near a police barricade. No Ilya. Shane felt stupid. He was standing outside an overcrowded church in a city Ilya could not possibly have reached yet because of a feeling. A feeling. He had survived two collapsing buildings and now apparently believed love had given him supernatural instincts. His eyebrow stung where sweat reached the cut. He turned back toward the doors. Then stopped dead in his tracks.
Across the street, beyond a group of police officers and people holding handwritten signs, a tall man was walking away from him. Curly hair. Broad shoulders. A familiar furious stride. The man wore a grey sweater. Shane’s grey sweater. For a second, Shane’s mind refused the evidence. It could not be him. Ilya was in Montreal. Ilya could not fly. The border was restricted. The roads were blocked. There were millions of grey sweaters in the world. Then the man turned his head slightly toward the person beside him. Not enough for Shane to see his face, enough to see the line of his jaw. The curl near the back of his neck. The profile Shane had traced with his fingers in darkness. The dead phone fell from Shane’s hand. It struck the church step.
“Ilya.”
The name came out as air. The man kept walking. Shane’s heart slammed once, brutally.
“Ilya!”
His voice cracked over the street. Too many sirens. Too many people. The man did not turn. Shane started down the steps. His knee buckled on the last one. He caught himself against the railing, pain flashing through his arm.
“Ilya!”
Louder. This time the man stopped. His whole body locked. The person beside him, Peter, Shane realized distantly, kept moving for another step before noticing.
Ilya turned. Across the street, through drifting ash and moving bodies, they saw each other. Neither moved. Shane watched Ilya’s face empty. All the rage and purpose vanished from it at once. His mouth opened. Nothing came out. Shane knew what Ilya saw. Blood dried down one side of Shane’s face. White dust coating his hair, eyebrows, eyelashes. Ruined suit. Bandage darkening beneath his sleeve. Standing unsteadily on the church steps like something half dug from wreckage. Shane lifted one hand.
Ilya broke. He ran. Straight into the street. A police officer shouted. A car horn blared somewhere behind him. Peter reached for Ilya and missed. Shane was already moving too. He did not feel the pain in his legs. Did not feel his shoulder. Did not feel the cut tear open again when he shoved past someone. They reached each other in the middle of the street. There was no slowing down. They collided. Ilya hit him hard enough to drive the breath from Shane’s body, both arms locking around him with such force the world tilted. Shane stumbled backward, shoes sliding in the dust, and grabbed at Ilya blindly.
His hands found sweater. Hair. The back of Ilya’s neck. Real. Warm. Here.
“Oh God,” Shane gasped.
Ilya made a sound Shane had never heard from him before. He buried his face against Shane’s neck and held him tighter. The pressure crushed Shane’s injured shoulder and cut off half his breath. He did not care. He wanted more. He wrapped both arms around Ilya and clung. His knees gave. Ilya’s gave with them. They went down together onto the filthy street, Ilya twisting at the last second so Shane did not hit the ground first.
People moved around them. Someone shouted that they needed to clear the road. Neither of them heard. Ilya was touching him everywhere. His hands shook over Shane’s back, shoulders, ribs. One moved to Shane’s neck, checking, gripping, confirming. Then his face.
He pulled back. Saw the blood. His expression shattered.
“What happened?”
“I’m okay.”
“Do not.”
Ilya’s voice was almost unrecognizable. Raw from hours of shouting and crying.
“Do not fucking say this.”
Shane stared at him. Ilya’s face was wet. His cheeks were streaked with grime from the city, eyes swollen red, lips bloodless. He looked exhausted beyond anything Shane had ever seen. Wild. Terrified. Beautiful. Shane touched his cheek.
“Ilya.”
Ilya caught his wrist. Blood stained Shane’s cuff. Ilya saw it. His breath stopped.
“This is your blood.”
“It’s just my arm.”
“Just?”
“Glass, maybe. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I couldn’t…”
“What about head?”
“Small cut.”
“Why are you covered in blood?”
“It looks worse because of the dust.”
“Shut up.”
Ilya’s hands returned to his face, unbearably gentle now despite how violently they trembled. His thumbs moved around the bandage, along Shane’s temples, beneath his jaw.
“Look at me.”
“I am.”
“Eyes.”
“What?”
“Let me see eyes.”
Shane tried to hold them open while Ilya examined him as if he knew what he was doing. He did not. He was only desperate.
“Did you lose consciousness?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Are you confused?”
“I thought I was seeing you when you were actually here.”
Ilya’s face crumpled.
“That is not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
A sob punched out of Ilya. He pulled Shane forward again, pressing their foreheads together too carefully to disturb the cut. For several seconds, neither could breathe properly.
“I saw it fall,” Ilya whispered.
Shane went still.
“I saw your tower fall.”
The words were barely sound.
“I called you. I called and called. ”
“I got out.”
“I know.”
“I was out before it fell.”
“I know now.”
Ilya’s fingers tightened at the back of his neck.
“I did not know then.”
Shane closed his eyes. The image came immediately. Ilya alone in the apartment.n The North Tower folding into smoke. Shane’s phone silent.
“Illy.”
Ilya made another broken sound and struck Shane once in the chest, just a weak fist against his sternum.
“You promised.”
“I know.”
“You promised you call.”
“I tried.”
“I waited.”
“My phone died.”
“I thought you died.”
Each word landed like a blow.
“I know.”
“No, you do not know.”
Ilya hit his chest again. Shane let him.
“I thought you were in there when it came down. I thought… I thought there was nothing left to find.”
His voice disappeared. He folded over Shane, forehead pressing against his shoulder.
“Ilya.”
“I crossed border.”
“What?”
“I paid, tried to pay. I do not know. We drove. Roads closed. I ran.”
“You drove here?”
“Of course I drove here!”
The shout made nearby people turn. Ilya did not care. He grabbed Shane by the front of his ruined shirt.
“What else I do? Sit at home?”
“You could’ve been hurt.”
“I do not care.”
“I care.”
“Well, I did not.”
“Ilya…”
“I watched building fall!”
His voice broke completely. The fury went out of him all at once. He bent forward, shaking.
“I watched it fall with you inside.”
Shane caught him. Held him against his chest while Ilya finally sobbed. Full, wrenching sobs that shook both of them. Shane buried his face in Ilya’s hair. The curls smelled like sweat, smoke, road, and the faint remains of Shane’s own detergent from the sweater. Home. Some impossible version of home sitting on asphalt in the middle of a ruined city.
“I’m sorry,” Shane whispered.
Ilya shook his head violently.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“I should have called sooner.”
“No.”
“I should’ve found a phone.”
“No.”
“I knew you’d come. I knew you would do something insane and I couldn’t tell you not to.”
“Shut up.”
“Ilya…”
“Shut up and be alive.”
Shane’s breath caught. Ilya pulled back enough to look at him. His hands bracketed Shane’s face.
“You be alive.”
“I am.”
“You stay alive.”
“I’m trying.”
“No. Promise.”
The word passed through Shane like a blade. Promises. Call after breakfast. Come home tonight. I’ll be right back. Every ordinary certainty the morning had made cruel. Shane covered one of Ilya’s hands with his own.
“I promise.”
Ilya’s expression twisted.
“Do not say if you cannot.”
“I can.”
“You do not know.”
“No.”
Shane swallowed. His voice shook.
“But I’m here.”
Ilya stared at him. His mouth crashed against Shane’s, wet with tears, trembling so hard their teeth struck. Shane tasted salt, dust, blood from his own split skin. He kissed Ilya back with both hands in his hair, holding him as close as their bodies could fit.
Someone nearby gasped. Someone else looked away. Peter stood at the curb with one hand over his mouth. None of it mattered. Ilya kissed him like he was breathing life back into him. Like Shane had been dead for hours and only this could reverse it. When they separated, neither went far. Their noses touched. Their breaths broke against each other’s mouths.
“I love you,” Shane said.
The words came without permission. Ilya froze. Shane’s hands tightened around his face.
“I love you.”
Ilya’s eyes closed. A fresh tear slid down his cheek.
“You say now.”
“I almost said it this morning.”
“But you did not.”
“I was scared.”
Ilya laughed once through the tears.
“Stupid.”
“I know.”
“So stupid.”
“I know.”
“I love you too.”
Shane’s whole body folded toward him. The relief was almost pain. He pressed his forehead carefully against Ilya’s.
“Say it again.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you.”
Shane began crying harder. Ilya gathered him in immediately, one hand cupping the back of his head, the other wrapping around his waist.
“Okay,” Ilya whispered. The word shook.
“Okay, baby. I have you.”
Shane gripped the sweater. His own sweater. Ilya had crossed a border and driven for hours and run through Manhattan wearing it.
“I thought you were in Montreal.”
“I was.”
“How did you…”
“I came.”
Simple. As if that explained every impossible thing. Shane laughed and sobbed at once.
“Of course you did.”
“Of course.”
A police officer approached.
“You two need to move out of the roadway.”
Ilya turned his head slowly. The look on his face made the officer pause. Peter stepped in quickly.
“We’re moving. Sorry.”
Ilya ignored him. His attention returned immediately to Shane.
“Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
“Do not lie.”
“I think so.”
“Think?”
“I can.”
Ilya rose first, then brought Shane up with him. The second Shane put weight on his legs, they shook. Ilya’s arm snapped around his waist.
“I knew.”
“I’m tired.”
“You are injured.”
“I’m okay.”
Ilya glared. Shane pressed his face into Ilya’s shoulder.
“Sorry.”
“No more this word.”
“You told me not to say fine.”
“Also no sorry.”
“What am I allowed to say?”
“I love you.”
Despite everything, Shane smiled.
“I love you.”
Ilya’s face broke all over again. He kissed Shane’s temple, missing the bandage by barely an inch. Then his hair. Then his cheek. Fast, frantic kisses, as if each one confirmed another part of Shane remained. Peter reached them carefully.
“Shane.”
Shane looked at him. Peter’s eyes filled immediately.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
Peter laughed helplessly and rubbed one hand over his face.
“You are an unbelievable pain in the ass.”
“That’s what Ilya says.”
“I did not say unbelievable.”
“You implied it.”
Ilya tightened his arm around Shane.
“Where doctor?”
“The church has volunteers.”
“Not volunteer. Hospital.”
“No,” Shane said immediately.
Ilya looked at him.
“I’m not leaving yet.”
“You need hospital.”
“I need to make sure Sarah knows I’m going.”
“Fine. Then hospital.”
“And Daniel…”
“Who?”
“The kid I helped.”
Ilya closed his eyes. For a second, his whole body visibly fought itself. Fear against love. Rage against the knowledge of who Shane was.
“Of course there is kid.”
“He found his sister.”
“Good.”
“And Elise found her husband.”
“Good.”
“I need to tell them.”
“We tell. Then hospital.”
Shane nodded.
He allowed Ilya to guide him toward the church. Every few steps, Ilya looked at him again. At the bottom of the steps, Shane stopped.
“What?”
Shane took Ilya’s hand. Their fingers locked. Ilya stared down at their joined hands.
“I’m done,” Shane said.
“With what?”
“Pretending.”
Ilya’s mouth trembled.
“Shane.”
“I almost died without telling you.”
“You did not die.”
“I know.”
Shane squeezed his hand.
“But I’m not wasting it.”
Ilya raised their joined hands and pressed Shane’s dusty knuckles to his mouth. His eyes never left Shane’s.
“Good,” he whispered.
***
Ilya did not let go of Shane’s hand when they went back inside the church. He did not loosen his grip to move around people. He did not release him when a volunteer stopped them at the doors and asked whether Shane needed medical attention. He did not even let go when Shane stumbled on the last step and nearly took them both down. Ilya simply caught him harder. His body fitted close along Shane’s side as if distance itself had become dangerous.
“I’m okay,” Shane began.
Ilya looked at him.
Shane stopped.
“Right,” he murmured. “Not allowed.”
“Correct.”
His voice was rough, scraped nearly empty by hours of shouting Shane’s name. Shane leaned into him. He had not meant to. Had not decided to. His body simply recognized that Ilya was there and gave up whatever argument had been keeping him upright.
Ilya adjusted instantly.
“Easy.”
“I’m fine.”
Ilya stared at him.
“Sorry.”
Another stare.
“I love you?”
Ilya’s face collapsed for half a second. He pressed his mouth fiercely to Shane’s temple.
“That one,” he whispered. “You say this one.”
Shane closed his eyes.
“I love you.”
Ilya’s arm tightened around him until it hurt. Shane welcomed the pain. The church looked different with Ilya inside it. Not safer. Nothing could make the day safe again, but narrower somehow. The noise moved farther away. The coughing, the prayers, the phones ringing and not ringing, the names called across the aisle, everything became something happening beyond the circle of Ilya’s arm.
Sarah saw them first. She was standing near Elise and Mark with a cup of water in one hand. Her eyes landed on Shane, then travelled to Ilya’s arm around his waist, their interlocked hands, the way Ilya kept his body pressed close as if Shane might fall through the floor. Understanding arrived quietly. Her mouth opened. She began crying again.
“Oh,” she said.
Ilya’s whole body went rigid. His grip shifted from protective to defensive in an instant. Shane felt it. He squeezed Ilya’s hand.
“It’s okay.”
Ilya looked at him. Shane knew what he was asking.
Are you sure? Here? Now? With her? With anyone?
Shane tightened their joined fingers.
“Yes.”
Sarah crossed the distance between them and wrapped both arms around Shane. Ilya did not release him. The result was awkward, Sarah hugging Shane from the front while Ilya remained fused to his side, but none of them cared.
“I thought you left,” Sarah cried.
“I went outside.”
“I told you two minutes.”
“I know.”
“You were gone longer than two minutes.”
“I found him.”
Sarah pulled back. She looked at Ilya. Up close, the recognition was immediate. Everyone in hockey knew Ilya Rozanov. The photographs, the interviews, the sneer that seemed permanently built into one corner of his mouth. There was no sneer now. There was only terror that had not yet realized it was allowed to become relief.
“Ilya,” Sarah said.
He nodded once.
“Thank you for staying with him.”
Ilya’s gaze sharpened.
“He was staying with everyone else.”
It was not gratitude exactly. Sarah seemed to understand.
“He saved people.”
Ilya closed his eyes briefly.
“Of course.”
Shane looked at him. Ilya opened his eyes again and immediately checked Shane’s face, as if the second without visual confirmation had been unbearable.
“Your parents,” Ilya said.
Shane’s stomach dropped.
“Oh God.”
He had been so consumed by reaching Ilya that for one terrible moment he had forgotten Yuna and David were still waiting.
“They know?” he asked.
“They know nothing.”
Ilya pulled his phone from his pocket without releasing Shane’s hand. He struggled with it one-handed, swore viciously, then thrust it at Shane.
“Call.”
Shane looked at the screen. His throat closed.
“You called me all day.”
Ilya’s expression turned furious.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“Ilya…”
“Call your mother.”
Shane did. He held Ilya’s phone in one shaking hand while Ilya kept the other trapped against his chest. It rang once. Yuna answered before the second.
“Ilya?”
Shane opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He heard his mother breathing. Then she said, very softly,
“Ilya?”
“Mom.”
Silence. Absolute silence. Then a sound unlike anything Shane had ever heard from her. The phone shifted. Something struck the floor on her end. David said,
“Yuna?”
Shane heard his mother begin to sob. Great, broken gasps that seemed to tear through her whole body.
“Mom,” Shane said again.
“Oh my God.”
She could barely form the words.
“Oh my God, Shane.”
“I’m here.”
“David!”
“I’m here,” Shane repeated. “I’m okay.”
Ilya’s arm tightened immediately at the forbidden word, but he did not interrupt. The phone rustled. David was there.
“Shane.”
His father’s voice was controlled for one syllable.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Where are you?”
“A church. I don’t know exactly. Near…”
He looked at Ilya. Ilya named the street. Shane repeated it. David was already asking questions.
“Are you injured?”
“A little.”
“What does a little mean?”
Shane looked at his bloodied sleeve.
“A cut on my arm. My eyebrow. Something hit my shoulder.”
“Did you lose consciousness?”
“No.”
“Vomiting?”
“No.”
“Confusion?”
“No.”
“Trouble breathing?”
Shane hesitated. Ilya’s head snapped toward him.
“Shane.”
“I breathed in a lot of dust.”
“How much coughing?”
“A lot earlier. Less now.”
“You need emergency assessment.”
“I know.”
Ilya mouthed, Now.
“We’re going.”
“Good.”
Shane looked at Ilya. Ilya was staring at him as if the answer mattered more than anything.
“Ilya found me.”
On the other end, Yuna made another broken sound. David breathed out. A long, shaking exhale.
“Of course he did.”
Ilya’s face folded. Shane brought their joined hands to his mouth and kissed Ilya’s knuckles.
“He drove from Montreal.”
“I know,” David said.
“You knew?”
“He called from the road. Your mother spoke to him. He was…”
David stopped. Ilya shook his head quickly. Do not tell him. Shane understood anyway. Terrified. Ilya had been terrified.
“He was coming,” David finished.
Yuna took the phone back.
“Put me on speaker.”
Shane did. His mother’s crying filled the small space between them.
“Ilya?”
“Yes.”
The word came out guarded.
“Thank you.”
Ilya stared at the floor.
“I did not do anything.”
“You found my son.”
“He found me.”
“No,” Shane said.
Ilya looked up. Shane’s eyes filled again.
“You came.”
Ilya’s mouth trembled. Yuna heard the silence.
“You brought him back to us,” she said.
Ilya shook his head as if she could see him.
“No. He got himself out.”
“Both things can be true.”
Ilya pressed his lips together. Shane watched him fight the words, fight the love in them, fight the unbearable possibility of being included in a family’s relief. Then Yuna said,
“Take care of him until we get there.”
Ilya’s response was immediate.
“I will.”
No hesitation. No joke. No careful distance.
“I will not let him go.”
Shane bowed his head. His forehead nearly touched Ilya’s shoulder. Yuna cried harder. David’s voice returned, softer now.
“We’re trying to reach New York. It may take time.”
“Don’t rush,” Shane said.
Three people reacted at once.
“Shane,” David warned.
“No,” Yuna said.
Ilya simply tightened his grip until Shane winced.
“All right,” Shane amended. “Rush safely.”
“That’s not better.”
“I’m trying.”
Ilya took the phone from him.
“David.”
“Yes?”
“I take him hospital now.”
“Good.”
“I call you from there.”
“Good.”
“He will not be alone.”
David’s breath caught.
“I know.”
Ilya ended the call before any of them had to say goodbye. Shane stared at the dark screen.
“My mom was crying.”
“Yes.”
“My dad too.”
“Yes.”
“I scared them.”
Ilya turned on him so quickly Shane flinched.
“You did not do this.”
“I know, but…”
“No.”
Ilya took Shane’s face between both hands, finally releasing his hand only to hold him more completely.
“You do not take this too.”
Shane looked at him.
“You do not take blame for plane, building, fire, phone, all of it. No.”
“Ilya…”
“You survived. This is your only job now.”
Shane’s eyes burned.
“Survive?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it?”
“That is everything.”
Ilya’s thumbs moved beneath Shane’s eyes, wiping away tears before they fell through the dust.
“You breathe. You let doctors look at you. You drink water. You stay with me.”
Shane covered Ilya’s wrists with his hands.
“I can do that.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
Ilya flinched at the word. Shane felt it. He leaned forward until their foreheads met carefully, avoiding the cut.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I know.”
“No more promises today.”
“Okay.”
“Just stay.”
“I’ll stay.”
Ilya kissed him. A trembling press of lips that lasted only a second and contained more fear than any scream. When he pulled back, his eyes travelled over Shane again. The ruined shirt. The torn sleeve. The dust caked into every crease. He frowned.
“You are cold.”
“I’m not.”
“You are shaking.”
“So are you.”
“I am angry.”
“You’re terrified.”
Ilya’s jaw tightened.
“Both.”
Shane reached for him. Ilya stepped closer immediately. Shane slid his arms around his waist and rested his head against Ilya’s chest. The grey sweater was warm. His sweater. It no longer smelled like home, but he knew the texture against his cheek. Ilya’s hands settled into his hair and at the back of his neck.
“Take it,” Ilya said.
Shane lifted his head.
“What?”
“The sweater.”
“No.”
“You are freezing.”
“So are you.”
“I am Russian.”
“That’s not medical protection.”
“I have shirt.”
“You’ve been driving all day.”
“Shane.”
“Ilya.”
Ilya pulled the sweater over his head before Shane could argue again. For one awful second, they were not touching. Shane’s hand shot out and caught Ilya’s wrist. Ilya froze halfway through freeing one arm.
“I’m here,” he said immediately.
Shane’s face flushed beneath the dust.
“I know.”
“No, keep holding.”
Shane did. He held Ilya’s wrist until the sweater was off. Ilya stood in a thin black T-shirt, hair mussed wildly from the collar, chest rising and falling too fast. He shook the sweater out once. Dust drifted from it. He guided it over Shane’s head. Shane’s injured arm caught in the sleeve.
He hissed. Ilya stopped instantly.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Do not say…”
“No, that one really is okay.”
Ilya eased the fabric over the bandage with agonizing care. He pulled the hem down over Shane’s ruined shirt, adjusted the collar around his neck, then pushed Shane’s hands through the sleeves.
The sweater was warm from Ilya’s body. Shane closed his eyes. It felt like being wrapped in him. Ilya stroked both palms down Shane’s arms, checking that the fabric had not disturbed the bandage.
“Better?”
Shane nodded. His throat was too tight. Ilya caught his chin.
“Words.”
“Better.”
“Good.”
Shane raised the collar to his nose. Beneath smoke and sweat and hours of road, there was still something unmistakably Ilya. His eyes filled.
“You wore this all the way here.”
“Yes.”
“My sweater.”
“You left it.”
“So you stole it.”
“I borrowed.”
“To cross an international border.”
“Yes.”
“To find me.”
Ilya’s face twisted. He dragged Shane into him again.
“You were inside.”
The words came against Shane’s hair.
“I know.”
“I saw tower fall.”
“I know.”
“I kept thinking…”
His voice stopped. Shane tightened both arms around him.
“You don’t have to say it.”
“I do.”
Ilya’s entire body shook.
“I kept thinking maybe I was driving to find body.”
Shane’s breath caught.
“Ilya.”
“I thought maybe there would be nothing.”
“Don’t.”
“I thought maybe last thing I ever hear from you is you making joke about tie.”
Shane began crying again. Ilya held him harder.
“I was so angry,” Ilya whispered. “At you. At myself. Because you almost said something this morning.”
“I did.”
“And I knew.”
“You knew?”
“I always know.”
Shane laughed weakly through the tears.
“Of course you do.”
“But you did not say.”
“I was going to tonight.”
“Tonight.”
Ilya spat the word as if it had betrayed them personally.
“We always think tonight. Tomorrow. After season. After next game. After someone retires. After world becomes safe.”
His fingers dug into Shane’s back.
“It does not become safe.”
“No.”
“So no more after.”
Shane pulled back enough to see his face.
“No more after.”
Ilya kissed him again. A long, shaking kiss in the middle of the church, surrounded by people who had learned the same terrible lesson in a thousand different ways. When it ended, Shane stayed close. His forehead rested against Ilya’s cheek.
“I need to tell Sarah I’m leaving.”
“We tell.”
“And Daniel.”
“We tell.”
“Elise and Mark.”
“We tell everyone.”
“You’re not going to let me walk alone, are you?”
Ilya looked almost offended.
“You will not pee alone for next month.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped Shane. Real. Small and wrecked, but real. Ilya’s eyes closed at the sound. He pressed his face into Shane’s hair. Again and again, he kissed him there, as if laughter were another pulse to count.
They found Sarah first. She took one look at the sweater now wrapped around Shane and the way Ilya held him and did not ask any questions.
“Hospital?” she said.
“Yes,” Ilya answered.
Shane nodded. Sarah hugged him one more time. This time Ilya allowed one of his arms to loosen enough for it. Daniel and his sister were still in the pew. Daniel stood when Shane approached and immediately began crying again.
“You found him,” he said.
Shane followed his gaze to Ilya.
“Yeah.”
Daniel smiled through tears.
“So did you.”
Shane looked at the boy’s sister, at the way she held him as if she could make up for every minute they had been apart. Then he looked at Ilya.
“I did.”
Elise kissed Shane’s dusty cheek. Mark shook his hand, then ignored the handshake and pulled him briefly into an embrace. Each goodbye took something out of Shane. Each person was proof of what had happened. Proof that it was real. Proof that they had walked out while others had not. By the time they reached the church doors, Shane was leaning heavily into Ilya again. Peter waited outside, speaking to a paramedic beside an ambulance.
He turned when he saw them.
“I found transport.”
Ilya nodded.
“Good.”
The paramedic approached Shane.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
Ilya said, “Barely,” at the same time.
Shane sighed. The paramedic almost smiled.
“Any loss of consciousness?”
“No.”
“Chest pain?”
“No.”
“Difficulty breathing?”
“Some.”
Ilya’s arm tightened. The paramedic noticed.
“You can ride with him.”
“I was going to.”
“I assumed.”
They reached the ambulance. Shane stopped before climbing in. The city stretched around them under a sky turning toward full night.
Smoke still hung to the south. Sirens continued. People still moved through the streets carrying photographs and bottles of water and pieces of one another. The towers were gone.The absence dominated the skyline more completely than the buildings ever could. Shane stared. Ilya stepped in front of him and bocked the view.
“Not now.”
Shane looked at him.
“I should…”
“Not now.”
His voice softened.
“Later, if you need. Not now.”
Shane nodded. Ilya helped him into the ambulance and climbed in directly after him and sat so close their thighs pressed together. The paramedic reached for Shane’s wrist.
Ilya kept one hand at the back of Shane’s neck. When the blood-pressure cuff tightened, Shane flinched. Ilya kissed his temple. When the paramedic peeled back the bandage on his arm, Shane hissed. Ilya whispered,
“I know.”
When the ambulance doors closed and the outside world disappeared, Shane’s breathing changed. Ilya noticed immediately.
“Eyes on me.”
Shane looked at him.
“There.”
Ilya cupped his cheek.
“I have you.”
Shane’s mouth trembled.
“You crossed the border.”
“Yes.”
“You ran through New York.”
“Yes.”
“You found me.”
Ilya’s eyes filled again.
“Yes.”
Shane leaned into his palm.
“I knew you would.”
“Then why you look so surprised?”
“Because knowing you love me and seeing what that means are different things.”
Ilya’s face crumpled. He bent forward and pressed his forehead to Shane’s.
“I love you terribly,” he whispered.
Shane smiled through the tears.
“Terribly?”
“Yes, baby. Terribly.”
“Really?.”
“Really, Shane.”
“You tried to bribe border security.”
“I did.”
“Ilya.”
“I would buy whole country.”
Shane’s eyes glassed over. Ilya kissed his forehead again. The ambulance began to move. Shane’s hand closed around the front of Ilya’s shirt. Ilya wrapped both arms around him as far as the paramedic would allow. Neither of them looked away, not when sirens began overhead, not when the city passed beyond the small rear windows, not when Shane’s eyes finally grew heavy. Each time they started to close, Ilya touched his face.
“I’m here.”
Each time Shane answered,
“I know.”
When Shane finally allowed his head to settle against Ilya’s shoulder, Ilya held him as if he had been given the entire world back, bloodied, shaking, and alive. He did not let go now and he would never let go again.