For the Moon, and the light in my window at night.
***
I
“Emma!?”
Flakes of sleep in her eyes made it hard to open them.
“Emma!?”
With a groan, she turned around in bed. Sunlight was shining through their windows, illuminating the room in a soft yellow glow. The clock read 8:19 AM.
“Emma!?”
Reality echoed between her ears.
“Jay!?”
Emma flung the blanket and comforter away, getting up in such a hurry she got lightheaded. Not even bothering to put on her slippers, she ran out of their bedroom and into the kitchen. Her eyes widened when she saw that Jay was facing her, still in his underwear. He was turning his head back and forth with slow, repetitious movements. Wide eyes betrayed fear and confusion. His mouth opened and closed, as if he was trying to find the right words to say. Emma couldn’t help the hand that went up to her mouth.
“Emma!? EMMA!?”
Jay’s voice was growing more panicked with every new utterance of her name. He turned, facing away from her. One pace forward, and he was pressing his upper legs against the edge of the kitchen table. It was like he was trying to walk through it, the way he forced himself to soldier onward against it. The table squeaked under him as his body pushed it forward a few inches. He looked down, stepped back a pace.
“…Jay?”
Emma hoped that maybe he’d snapped out of it. But it seemed she wasn’t going to be so lucky just yet.
Jay lowered himself to the floor. He crossed his legs and put his hands on his knees. It would have reminded Emma of meditation if she hadn’t seen him do this dozens of times before. Whatever thoughts were racing through Jay’s head, she knew they were unsurmountable and uncontrollable. Loud enough that his voice lowered to a whisper just so he could try and process all of it.
“I saw it,” he muttered, shock in every syllable. “For a second I saw it…”
He bowed his head, letting his arms drop down to his sides. Emma watched him for a few more seconds. Then she took one careful pace forward. One after the other, her steps fell silent against the kitchen floor. When she was standing above him, his shoulders began to move up and down. A hand reached up. It was Jay’s turn to cover his mouth. Emma felt her heart shatter in her chest. She wanted to reach down and hold him. But, just like every time that feeling of empathy washed over her, she remembered what the doctors said it could do to him.
She had no choice but to watch her husband cry.
“Where did you go?”
The hopeless whisper that escaped his lips made Emma’s own watering eyes overflow. She bowed her head, letting the tears track her cheeks. It was useless to wipe them away, try to unblur her vision. Every single time, they pooled from her eyes with such force that her fingers wouldn’t help her see better anyway.
Jay’s body continued to rock with his silent weeping. As the minutes passed, though, the sadness began to dissipate from his body. Emma noticed it through her grief. His shoulders began to relax again. Their movement began to slow and his sobs grew quiet. Soon he was a statue, head still bowed, arms hanging by his sides. Emma’s heart began to race so fast she thought she was going to faint. The last time Jay had gotten this catatonic, he’d…
But it wasn’t anything for her to worry about today. The danger had passed.
Jay glanced around, slow at first. Then he leapt to his feet, panic in every little motion of his body. “Emma!?” he asked. The horrible belief that he was still stuck elsewhere almost made her heart burst out of her chest. Then he turned around. His worried, confused eyes met hers. Then, he let out a heavy sigh of relief. “Emma.”
Tears in their eyes, they embraced one another. It was Emma’s turn to weep, now, wetting Jay’s shoulder with her tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. His voice was cracking with every syllable. “I’m so sorry. But it’s over now. It’s over now.”
His attempt at reassurance wasn’t helping Emma’s racing mind. This was the sixth time in two months. Before that, Jay hadn’t experienced any Terrors in almost a year. Now it was a near-weekly occurrence, just like it was when he first came home from the hospital all those years ago. Even his primary care, Doctor Russo, wasn’t sure what had triggered their return. They were just beyond the five-year anniversary of that God-awful test Jay had volunteered for. The settlement was already a distant memory, reflected only in their not needing to work ever again. Yet somehow, despite how much time had passed, something had triggered their resurgence. And now it was like they were back at square one.
She didn’t have the strength to ask him what he saw again. It was always the same. Darkness. A feeling of weightless floating, like his body had been turned into a feather. The ground shaking, a constant earthquake. Craters dotting every inch of the terrain he was striding across. The faint light of faraway stars partially illuminating the eternal night.
Jay hadn’t coined the term “Moon Terrors” out of nowhere.
All Emma saw was the darkness as they held one another for a few more minutes, her face buried in his shoulder. As the last of her weeping subsided, she pulled away from her husband. They still had their arms wrapped around one another as they stared into each other’s eyes. He was there. The Jay she’d loved for the last ten years was still inside, still looking at her the same way he had their freshman year of college. At least, he looked like himself when his eyes weren’t glazed over and he was lost, shouting her name.
He broke away from her. Taking in a shaky, deep breath, he looked down at himself. “Christ,” he muttered, as if this were the first time and not the twenty-sixth time he’d had a Moon Terror half-naked. His face reddening, he walked past Emma. She knew he was making a beeline for their bedroom. Every time this happened, he couldn’t help but feel ashamed. Something about having it happen when he was so vulnerable. So naked. She couldn’t blame him for it. But she wished he would stop blaming himself.
Emma followed him into their bedroom. Jay was already pulling his blue sweatpants on. He threw open a drawer with a shaky hand, glancing around at the shirts inside. He picked up a gray tank top, looked it over, then tossed it back in, unfolded. He settled for a dark blue V-neck which, accompanied by his sweatpants, made him look like he was wearing a prison jumpsuit the color of the ocean’s depths. She didn’t say anything about it, though. It wasn’t going to help him.
He glanced over at her, glaring. “What?” he asked.
“Are you…” She trailed off. Of course he wasn’t okay. He just hallucinated that he was on the dark side of the Moon and that his wife was missing. Jay was the farthest from “okay” a thirty-year-old man could get.
With one more sigh, Jay shook his head. “I think maybe I need to see a shrink again. I really don’t want to. But this can’t keep happening.” His gaze grew pained. “It’s not fair to you.”
“Jay, you don’t have to go out of your way and—”
“But I do!” He shook his head, the glare returning. “I have to! Because if I don’t, then this is the rest of our lives! The next sixty, seventy years. If I even make it that long!”
“Honey, don’t say—”
“We’ve both thought about it! Don’t pretend like you didn’t!”
The venom in his voice made it feel like a shard of glass was piercing her heart. But she had to endure the arguing. It was like this every time a Terror happened. It took her a few heated fights to realize he wasn’t mad at her, or their half of the settlement being in her name only, or that she was pushing him to go see specialists. He was afraid. But Jay Donahue didn’t get afraid. He’d never felt terror once in his life. Not until after he came out of that demented RubiTech contraption convinced part of him didn’t make it out the other end. By then he was so much older, and the feeling was so new, he didn’t know how to process it.
So he lashed out. It never got physical, but he never apologized. Despite everything they’d been through in the last five years, there was still a flickering flame of pride in Jay’s heart he refused to let die. Sometimes it faltered, and he’d let out a worried phrase or two. But usually, it stayed strong and infernal. Emma wished it shined brighter when they were together, instead of when the Moon Terrors pulled them apart. The best thing she could do was ignore it. Hope that it would dissipate quick, and he wouldn’t stay in a state of perplexed anger for the rest of the day.
“Do you still have the number for that guy Natasha goes to?”
“Yeah, one sec.” Ordering her mind into its own glazed state, Emma went over to her nightstand and unplugged her phone. She tapped away at it, feeling robotic as she found the name. “Doctor Ralph Stanton.”
“Can you send me his number?”
“Coming right up.”
With static dancing in her brain, Emma texted the psychiatrist’s number over to her husband. With a weak “Thanks,” Jay began to tap and hold on his phone, saving Doctor Stanton’s number as a contact.
There was silence as he shoved his phone in his pocket. Emma turned her eyes to the floor. It didn’t feel like there was anything left to say. That it would be a better use of her time to just wait for Jay to change the subject.
“…Hey. Emma?”
His voice was softer than it had been these last two months. Glancing up, she gasped. There was…no, it wasn’t possible. He would never expose himself so blatantly, not even to her. Yet it was there, plastered on his face.
Terror.
Jay’s eyes were trained on the bed, growing red as he tried to hold back tears. “You know I’ve never meant it. Right?” His pupils moved back and forth, as if he was trying to stop himself from looking at her.
Emma didn’t know what to say. Her voice came out hollow. “Of course not. You don’t need to feel bad about it.”
“No, Emma, no, this time was…”
His voice dropped to a whisper:
“This time was different.”
He raised his arm, slow. Uncurled a finger and pointed it at the bed. “It was like I could hear it, Emma. Every other time, I felt what was happening up there. But this time…this time I could hear it. Something like a heavy sigh. Or like someone breathing in my ears. Deep. And I just don’t think it’s gonna go right next time, honey. I really, really don’t.”
She’d hated when he got mad after a Moon Terror. Part of her wished he’d vocalize his fears more openly with her. And now, out of nowhere, for the first time in five years, he was. His eyes were red, his voice was shaky, and his words were honest.
It sent a chill up Emma’s spine.
Slow, she walked around to his side of the bed, where he stood. He never let his eyes drift away from the pulled-back covers he was pointing toward. “Like a mountain,” he whispered. “Ahead in the dark. A fucking mountain.”
Emma placed her hand on her husband’s shoulder. He tensed for a moment, as if he’d gone back to the Moon again. Then she began massaging him. He relaxed, his shoulders sinking, his hand falling away from the bed. Taking a few steps forward, she ran her hand down Jay’s back. She wrapped her arms around his torso from behind, pulling him into a hug, burying her face in his back. He whispered something, but it was too quiet for her to make out. And he was too distressed for her to ask.
“You’re gonna be okay,” she said. She wasn’t sure if she believed it. She knew he didn’t. But somehow, whenever she told him that, in the darkest of moments like this one, it was enough to melt him.
Jay grabbed Emma’s right hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. For him or for her, Emma wasn’t sure. “I love you.” The words came out like they were supposed to. As confident as he could muster, yet shaking just enough to betray his fear.
“I love you too.” She took in a deep breath, exhaling into his shirt, warming her mouth and cheeks. He stayed in her arms for a few minutes, rubbing his thumb against the back of her hand. When he’d calmed enough, he softly grabbed her by her hands and lowered them to his sides. She stepped back, letting him collect his bearings. Jay stared at the bed for a moment more. Then he turned to Emma, doing his best to get a smile to stretch across his face.
Taking her by the hand, he said, “Let’s go somewhere. Take our minds off things.”
“Nat says the new cook at Briar’s is good.”
“Jesus,” Jay chuckled. “Not as good as Knowles, I’m sure.”
“You wanna go find out?”
Jay’s smile softened. It had become real. “Sure.”
He leaned in, pecking her on the lips. “You planning to go in your PJs?”
Emma smirked. “What are they gonna do, kick me out?”
“Pft!” Jay shook his head. With genuine satisfaction on his face, he walked out of the bedroom. As Emma began getting changed, she heard the bathroom door close. It was momentary, but she was glad to see him in good spirits. Even if, next week, his fortitude would dissolve into a Terror again. At least they could be happy together right now. At least he was going to go see that psych whose name Emma had already forgotten.
But he was right. There was something different about this Terror. Jay never tried to make amends for getting mad at her. It would take a few hours, but soon he would forget about it, treating her as if nothing cross had come between them. Yet, this morning, he’d come as close to apologizing to her as he ever had. He was talking about hearing something. There had been no auditory hallucinations in any of his prior bouts of moonwalking. The idea hadn’t even been broached by the doctors he’d seen over the years. Every time he went into that state, he couldn’t hear anything but his own voice.
And yet, today…
Emma tried to push it out of her head for the rest of the day. But even an hour later, when she was cutting into a plate of syrupy chicken and waffles at Briar’s almost as good as the ones Chef Knowles used to make, the thought wouldn’t leave her head. Jay was right. Something about this Moon Terror had been different from all the rest.
Her heart wouldn’t stop racing for the rest of the day.
II
RubiTech valued Jay’s life at $18 million.
Emma had initially sued the global tech company for $30 million, citing damages to Jay and her, alongside Jay’s parents and his kid brother. She had been determined from the outset to fight it out in court, for however long it took the multi-billion-dollar company to cave. But RubiTech refused to go that high, their lawyer citing the amount of money as “exorbitant beyond any reasonable measure.” In their excusing, they pulled a document from their archives. A contract Jay had signed before participating in the experiment, stating that RubiTech would not be responsible for any physical damage sustained during the trial. For a billion-dollar tech company, their legal department hadn’t been thinking with billion-dollar mindsets. Even Emma could see her own lawyer’s angle from a mile away: Jay signed a waiver for physical damage. There was nothing about mental damage included in any documentation RubiTech could drum up.
The company tried to argue that whatever mental damage Jay had sustained on March 7th, 2023, was, in fact, physical. They did this by presenting, step-by-step, the experiment he had volunteered to participate in:
RubiTech’s Molecular Transporter. A two-system contraption designed to teleport a subject from one rectangular pod to the other.
The diagram Emma saw in court reminded her of The Fly. Two rectangles meant to represent the two halves of the Transporter. Jay had been placed into one, where his cells were broken down as small as the company’s technology could muster. They were then pushed from one machine to another through something they called “the Connective Pipeline.” On the diagram, it looked like a straw sticking out of the “in” Transporter, jutting ever so slightly into the “out” Transporter. What pushed Jay’s broken-down cells though the pipeline?
Fucking air.
The idea of her husband breaking into a billion little fragments terrified her. She supposed that was why she never found out about it until he started raving about the Moon.
When he stepped out of the other side of the machine, he’d begun to attack the scientists. Emma heard details she knew were only there to paint Jay in as bad a light as RubiTech could. Scratching at the face of one woman, supposedly almost ripping her right eyeball out. Stabbing a man with a sedation needle meant for him. Even their CEO, multi-billionaire Carwyn Anwir, testified to being there and having his hand broken when Jay squeezed it too hard. It was difficult to mask the smirk on her face, knowing the company’s founder had directly suffered from all this madness. But his temporary pain would never equate to the permanent damage Jay now had to live with.
Following the experiment going awry, Jay began to have what he called, “Moon Terrors.” For minutes at a time, Jay became convinced he was walking across the dark side of the Moon. That he was somehow connected to another version of himself, one whose consciousness broke into his own and made him perceive what that other version of himself was seeing. Long darkness. Craters. Earthquakes too, for some reason. A temporary psychotic break that caused Jay to lose touch with reality and instead hallucinate that he was walking the backside of Earth’s natural satellite. His mind had been damaged beyond known measure.
Emma wanted justice. Emma knew she could get justice if she fought hard enough for it.
And they knew it too. RubiTech seemed to realize two weeks into the hearing that they’d stuck their paddle so deep into Shit Creek the feces had reached up and pulled it in. Which was why they decided they wanted to settle out of court. Emma tried to fight it. But her lawyer believed it was the best deal they were going to get. After consulting Jay’s parents, Emma was outvoted. The case was settled out of court. $9 million for Jay’s parents, $9 million for Emma, who would be entrusted with using the money to care for Jay.
It was like winning the lottery, at the cost of every good dream of a normal life.
Jay had been under the care of multiple medical doctors over the years. Neurologists and psychiatrists, mostly. Each one ascribed the same phrase to Jay’s condition: Medical anomaly. Emma heard it so often that by the fifth doctor, she was able to say it aloud right along with them. Medical anomaly. Jay’s brain activity was normal. Every CT scan or MRI or whatever other acronym they put him through over and over again turned up no discernable issues with his cranial functions. Even when he was in the worst of it, having Terrors every few hours, frequent enough that they could monitor his brain as he was experiencing one, nothing changed. His brain was normal.
And, soon enough, he almost always was.
He was never his old self again. He’d still laugh, joke, love her. They would still discuss theories about their favorite TV shows, go on morning runs, eat at restaurants they could never afford before. Jay would introduce her to more sports teams to root for while she’d have him read serialized fantasy epics online. But there was something different about everything they did together. Jay’s energy was skewed. His smile would linger on his face for a few minutes more than usual. Every night, he would hold her closer and tighter than he’d done even when they were younger. She didn’t bring it up with him because she knew it would upset him more than she could comprehend. But she understood. Every happy moment had to last a little bit longer, just in case a Moon Terror came that made it so new, joyous memories could never be made again.
Even when they began to slow down. Even when they seemed to stop entirely, it was like he knew. In those Terror-free months when they finished making love late at night, his body pressed against hers, he held her just like when he was in the throes of fighting his own mind.
She truly wondered, then—laying on her back, staring at the ceiling, Jay pressed against her left arm in the dark—if he’d known all along that they would come back. Maybe he didn’t know the way she knew the quality of Briar’s breakfast dishes would suffer without Knowles there. Maybe it was something more intangible than food quality or the dark of their bedroom. Like the chill of being alone in a graveyard in the middle of the night. Or getting a coin toss right because you just know it’s going to land tails. Maybe that same feeling of knowing applied to his Moon Terrors. He just knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, the good memories would start fading away again.
“Hmmm.”
Jay groaned, flipping onto his stomach. His face was half-buried in his pillow, but Emma could see his eyes open ever so slightly. She smiled, hoping he wouldn’t notice how fast her mind had been racing about the past. But even ten seconds after waking up, Jay was perceptive enough to know when something was bothering her.
He placed a warm hand on her cheek, caressing it. She blinked a few times, fighting to keep the tears in. The tears she wanted to spill for him, his sweetness. Everything he was going through. All the Moon Terrors she could never experience with him. For him. It was too much, to look at the reassurance on his face, to know she should be the one comforting him. For every one time he got unreasonably mad at her, there were ten times he pulled stunts like this. It wasn’t fair.
“We’re gonna be okay,” he whispered. Slow, he wrapped his arm around her, bringing his face up to hers. He kissed her. Slow. Long. Breaking away, he repeated himself. “We’re gonna be okay.”
Her heart didn’t agree. But maybe, just for tonight, Emma could believe it. Yes. Even if they didn’t know what was going on. Even if they didn’t know what was wrong. Somehow, in some way, they would be okay.
She wrapped her arms around him, as tight as her muscles could muster. Her fingers interlocked behind his back. With the last tired strength of her fears, she pulled his body against hers. There was no price tag RubiTech could put on this moment. All the money in the world couldn’t replicate this. None of it could ever make up for what had transpired, or act as an apology to the sanctuary they had lost.
But RubiTech didn’t care. Because to them, Jay was nothing but an $18 million mistake.
III
Emma’s phone was ringing.
She didn’t recognize the number, but did a double-take when she saw the digits. “1234567890,” it read. No dashes, no indication of a location on the scrolling text at the bottom. Just the options to Answer, Hang Up, or Answer with Fulcrum.
That last option made Emma raise her eyebrows. “Fulcrum” was a term that started getting flung around in early 2025, mostly in tech magazines. It wasn’t until the following year that beta testing began. And now, with 2028 reaching its halfway point, those with enough money to spare could call one another on Maxus phones using the new, holographic software. It was standard video calls, with a Star Wars coat of novelty.
She placed the phone back down on the kitchen countertop, screen side down, shutting off the ringer as she did so. Little buzzing sounds emanated from it as it vibrated against the granite. Emma went back to what she’d been doing, turning the mixer back on. She pressed it into the big wad of dough in the glass bowl. Soon, the sound of the electric appliance drowned out the vibration of her phone.
She didn’t want to think about some random phone call now anyway. Today was Jay’s first appointment with the fuzzy-mustached Doctor Stanton. Jay had been so nervous about going, wringing his hands and asking her if she was sure the directions on the GPS were right—even though it was only a five-minute drive away—that he hadn’t eaten anything yet all day. Talking over the phone, Jay and Stanton had decided on a two-hour session to start with, giving Emma plenty of time to get home. She hoped she could get this batch of chocolate chip cookies done before it was time to pick him up, so she could surprise him with them once he was done.
The mixer spun to a slow halt. Emma reached to the right of the bowl, grabbing up the bag of chocolate chips. Sprinkling them into the beaten batter, she heard something vibrate. For a moment she wondered if she’d bumped her arm against the mixer, causing it to turn back on. It didn’t take long for her to realize that wasn’t the case. That, in reality, her phone was vibrating.
Still vibrating.
Odd. Phone calls weren’t supposed to last this long. She wondered if maybe it was a glitch, since both phones had access to Fulcrum. Wait times for Fulcrum calls were sometimes lengthier than regular phone conversations. But if she was receiving a call through Fulcrum in particular, then the incoming call would have indicated it. Whoever was calling was using the normal method. Yet, for whatever reason, their wait time was growing increasingly generous.
Emma decided to put the annoying vibration out of her mind. What mattered now was mixing the chocolate chips in with the dough. Using a big spoon, she stirred, doing her best to equalize the chocolate chips within the big glob of cookie dough. She pressed a few here and there into the little cracks and crevices of the wad, making sure to get them in as many places as she could. All the while, her ears grew accustomed to the sound of the phone vibrating on the table.
BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ!
Pause.
BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ!
Pause.
Then that same pattern of buzzing, over and over again. Buzzing. Something about it was wrong. Something about it didn’t sit right with her. She was hearing something else. Something deeper than the vibration. But she couldn’t be sure what that “something” was, other than an unknown familiarity with the little sounds the phone was making.
BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ!
That wasn’t normal. Ever since they’d picked up the latest models for their phones, the vibration had been a steady hum, like listening to a long, electronic “om.” It had to have been years since putting their phones on vibrate yielded a varied type of sound like the one emanating from hers right now. She wasn’t supposed to be hearing whatever it was she was hearing. Same went for the pauses. They seemed to grow just a little bit longer with every repetition of the pattern.
BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ!
This time, the pause lasted four seconds. Emma counted on her fingers. Then it started back up again. Same pattern, same vibrations. Same…
Message.
As the buzzing began again, Emma tapped her fingers on the table. As she did, she vocalized them in a breathy hush:
“Tap tap tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap tap tap.”
Easy enough once she knew what to look for, but chilling all the same: SOS. The vibration was asking for help. And, given how long it was going on for, it wasn’t keen on taking “no” for an answer.
The situation was strange enough that Emma couldn’t help but pick up the phone. She hit the Answer button and raised the phone to her ear. All she heard was static.
“Hello?”
The voice didn’t waste any time. It resonated with relief, laced with low feedback, producing a singular word:
“Emma!”
Her heart almost leapt out of her chest. The phone nearly clattered from her loosening fingers to the kitchen tiles. She wanted to say something, but she wasn’t sure what. It shouldn’t have made her feel so panicked, so removed from everything she’d been through for the last five years. The way he said her name was like the trigger for an out-of-body experience.
“Emma!? Please, tell me it’s you!”
“…Jay?”
Rustling on the other end, like he’d placed the phone against his shirt. Something that sounded like a long sniff emanated from the other side. Then his voice was back, ripping in and out of the grainy echo of the background. She could tell from the way he spoke it was hard to hold back his tears.
“Oh, thank Christ! I didn’t know…I didn’t think this was gonna work. Are you…is everything okay?”
“…Jay. What’s going on?”
“God, I’m so sorry, sweetheart. There’s so much, and you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Just, so much. I’ve been seeing you. In dreams. Well, they aren’t dreams, not really. These flashes. Glimpses of you. I keep trying to get your attention in them, but it’s like…like my mouth isn’t mine.”
A tear traced its way down Emma’s right cheek. “Jay,” she whispered. “You’re scaring me.”
“I know. I know, but listen, okay? Where I am…fuck, you’re never gonna believe me if I tell you. I found a facility. It’s all old tech, nothing past maybe the 80’s, I’d say. This hallway was pretty busy an hour ago. So I don’t know how much time I have left to tell you everything. But I’ve never…” He sounded like he was starting to get choked up. “I never stopped trying to get home. And I never stopped loving you.”
Emma felt her heart shatter. “Jay,” she moaned. “What did you do!?”
“Emma. Do you remember when I volunteered for that RubiTech thing? To get us a little extra cash?”
She could barely keep her focus on his words. Panic rose in her throat. “Jay!” she screamed. “No! No! Jay! What happened!? What happened!?”
She dropped to the floor. Her knees were weak and her heart was a machine gun against her chest. Hyperventilation dimmed her vision. It was taking all her effort just to try and calm herself down, but trying to take deep breaths was near impossible. The Moon Terrors had won. Whatever had happened at his therapy session, all it had done was speed up the process. The inevitable conclusion had arrived.
Her husband was no more.
He was speaking, but she didn’t hear him. The phone had slipped to the floor, clattering against the tile. She didn’t know what had happened. How he’d gotten hold of a new phone number. How he’d made her phone vibrate the way it did. She didn’t understand how any of this could be happening. But she didn’t have the strength to face it. To face whatever he’d succumbed to. Whichever Moon Terror his mind was now living in. The last thing in the world she wanted was for any of this to be happening. For any of this to be real.
…She had to make sure he didn’t get hurt.
Emma stood, picking up the phone. Jay was in the middle of a sentence when she spoke. “Jay? Are you still there?” She hoped she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt.
“Yeah. Still here. You okay?”
“Fine,” she said, fishing her car keys out of her purse. “I dropped my phone for a second. Can you…can you tell me where you are, Jay?”
“Well like I said, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Just go ahead and tell me.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and made her way to the front door.
“Emma? Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“Just tell me where you think you are.” She said it as stern as she could while opening the front door and stepping out into the too-bright light of the dwindling afternoon.
“Where I think I am?” He paused just long enough for Emma to get to the driver’s side door of her SUV. Then:
“Emma. Did…did they tell you about this?”
She couldn’t let the mistrust lacing his words get to her. With a push of a button on her keyring, the driver’s side door popped open. She grabbed the ajar door by its handle, pulling it open, and climbing inside. She could remember how to get to Stanton’s office, helped by how close it was to their house. Now all she could do was pray she’d get there on time. Before Jay succumbed to any more madness. Or before she succumbed to the million and one questions ringing in her ears.
As she was getting into the car and starting the engine, Jay remained voiceless. But sound still penetrated Emma’s ears. Shallow breathing. That of a man whose own heart was pumping with quick, stressed beats. It wasn’t until Emma put the phone down and turned the Bluetooth on inside the car that Jay began to speak again.
“Emma.” His grave voice wavered. “What did they tell you?”
She put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. Her first resolve was to remain silent. To not play into his madness. Wait out the long, arduous minutes it would take for her to get to Stanton’s office and figure out what had gone so wrong. But he wasn’t going to make it easy.
“Emma. Please. Please. Tell me what they told you. Please.”
He sounded on the verge of tears. Like his world had shattered in the silence between them. Just hearing the intonation of his words was enough to make Emma’s eyes start to blur. She opened her mouth, a slight, “Mmm,” escaping, before she closed it once again. He must have heard it come from her, otherwise he wouldn’t have launched into a pit deeper than any he’d ever dug for himself before.
“Emma. Emma, please, listen to me, okay? I know it sounds insane but…I’m on the Moon. Fuck. It’s never not gonna sound crazy. But I’m serious. That’s where I’ve been this whole time. Since that day at RubiTech. Something must’ve gone wrong with the Transporter. My cells or whatever they were experimenting on, they were supposed to go to this machine on the other side of the room. But instead, I woke up on the fuckin’ Moon. I know you don’t believe me. But it’s true.”
She couldn’t help but respond. Jay was her husband for God’s sake. If she let him fester in his delusion, all it would do was bring him more pain. Maybe, in the few minutes it would take for her to get to Stanton’s, she could somehow calm him from his delusion. There was no guarantee it would work, but she didn’t want him to suffer from this anymore.
“Jay,” she began, “I need you to tell me how you’re doing it. How are you calling me from the Moon?”
A pause. Grasping for the right words.
“It’s like I said before. There’s this facility,” he explained. “Just…big fuckin’ building. ‘Big’ doesn’t even begin to describe it. I thought it was a mountain range at first. What little I could make out from the light of the stars. But no. It’s this massive place. It’s got tech all from like, the 80s, or maybe the 90s. Older than us, that’s for sure. There’s some people here too. Milling around. I had to sneak past a few to get in. Managed to find a phone, figured I’d try your number and see if it worked. Didn’t think we got phone service in space!”
A light chuckle. He almost sounded like himself. His old self, from before the Terrors.
“You said people?” Emma gulped back whatever pain in her voice was making it want to shake.
“Yeah. People. They look normal, really. Mostly in shirts and shorts. Some in these weird-looking SWAT outfits. I don’t know how many of them there are, though. I can only see them when they pass under the spotlights.”
“Spotlights?” Emma cut off a red pickup truck to speed through the light. The driver honked twice and gave her the bird.
“I’m not…” Jay trailed off. Searching for the right way to explain it to her. “Honey. When you look up at the Moon, you can only ever see one side. The side the sun illuminates. The side facing Earth. But I’m not there, sweetheart. You can’t look up at the Moon and see me. I’m…I’m at the front.”
The words barely registered in her mind, then. If they had, she would have asked him what he meant by that. All she could manage was a single “okay,” blurted out as she pressed hard on the breaks at a sudden red light.
Jay continued, a faucet of information spilling into her lap. “They’ve been lying to us, honey. I don’t know what RubiTech was telling you, but they were lying. Hell, the whole world is lying. Scientists. NASA. Space Force. The President. Maybe other countries too. The Moon. It’s not what you think it is.”
The office building was in sight. Just two more lights to inevitably get caught at, and she would turn right, then park in the first empty spot she could find in the small lot.
“So what is it?” She spoke with as much interest as she could muster. But all it sounded like was the voice of a distant, hollow ghost. He was passing through her grip like sand.
“There’s…” A pause. One red light’s worth of pausing. Then Jay began speaking again, his voice quieter. So quiet, Emma had to turn the dial beside the touchscreen so she could hear him.
“You can breathe here,” he explained. “There’s nobody here in astronaut suits or anything like that. Gravity’s a little bit weaker, makes you feel a little bit lighter. But no one’s gonna jump too high and wind up in the vacuum of space. That’s one thing. The other is the earthquakes.”
“Oh. The earthquakes.” She meant for it to come out like a question, but her mind was too occupied on passing the second light, mere moments away from turning into the parking lot.
“I thought that’s what they were, anyway.” His voice was starting to shake harder than it had their entire conversation. He drew in a deep, precarious bout of air and sighed it out fast. “But they’re so loud, Emma. Earthquakes aren’t supposed to be loud. It’s like…it’s like a rumbling in my ears. Every time there’s a quake, there’s a rumbling. But it’s not a rumbling, Emma. Not just…fuck.”
“It’s okay,” she said, pulling into the nearest parking spot. She took her phone off Bluetooth and held it firm against her ear. “I’m here. Take your time, honey.”
“Right. Right. Sorry.” There was one more momentary pause, giving Emma enough time to kill the engine and leave the car, slamming the door behind her. With as brisk a pace as she could, she began walking up to the entrance of the building.
“Emma. It moves. The ground. It sucks itself in. Gets higher. Then it lowers. It blows itself out.”
Stanton was on the first floor. His office was easy to find. She burst through the door, blurring past the desk secretary before she could stop her.
“I thought it wasn’t possible, honey. That I was just losing my shit more than I already have. But then…then I found something. I saw something. Jesus Christ. If I tell you, you’re gonna have fuckin’ nightmares, but I swear to God it’s true.”
“Tell me!” She screamed it into the phone just as her hand gripped the handle of the door to Stanton’s private office room.
“It’s not earthquakes. It’s breathing.”
Emma opened the door.
Jay’s voice dropped to a low whisper:
“THE MOON IS ASLEEP.”
Jay was sitting on a couch on the left side of the room. When she entered, he glanced over at her. An amused, wry smile stretched across his lips, like he wanted to say something snarky about her missing him so much she had to rush in halfway through his session to make sure he was okay.
Stanton looked less forgiving. “Mrs. Donahue? Pardon my language, but what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Who’s that?” Jay’s voice, paranoid, coming through the phone. “Emma!? Are you okay!?”
“Needed to check in on me, huh?” Jay on Stanton’s couch, wearing a toothy grin, sitting right in front of her.
Emma’s legs felt like they were going to collapse under her again. She took a deep breath. Jay was still spouting words of worry from the phone. No. Not Jay. Whoever it was, it wasn’t him. It sounded like him. Talked like him. Said things only Jay and a handful of medical professionals could know about the Moon Terrors. But it couldn’t be him. He couldn’t have been talking to her through the phone this whole time.
He was sitting right in front of her.
“…Jay?” She didn’t know who she was trying to address. Just that his name had been on the tip of her tongue and she needed it to leap off.
His eyebrows furrowed. His mouth opened, emitting the same sound in the same tone from his body and the phone:
“Are you okay?”
As if the words had triggered something through her phone, an unfamiliar noise entered the fray. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but she could hear voices. Loud, echoing shouts from wherever her husband—her Moon husband—was.
“Shit.” Panic dominated Moon Jay’s voice. He spoke so fast she could barely register his words. “Honey. Please. Remember what I said, okay? I have to go. I love—”
CRASH!
“Jesus, fuck!” The sound from the phone startled Emma, causing her to lose her grip. The phone clattered to the floor, crashing sounds playing over and over through the speaker. It was violent enough that Stanton stood up from his chair, worry glazed on his face.
“What is that?” he asked.
“I-I don’t—”
“Guh.”
The sound from Jay—her Jay—made her stop. “Oh my God. Honey!?”
She flew to his side as he stared up at the ceiling. Blood was starting to trickle from his nostrils. His eyes rolled back in his head so far they looked like pearls in his sockets. And the sound that came out of his mouth wouldn’t stop. It was a horrifying, repetitious request for help that she couldn’t answer:
“Guh. Guh. Guh.”
“C-Call the police!” she begged. Stanton wasted no time. He plucked his cell phone from his pocket and dialed. Emma kept her focus on Jay. She wrapped one arm around his shoulders and stroked his cheek. “Please, baby. Please, stay with me.”
“Don’t touch him!” Stanton’s hiss made her jump. “We don’t know what’s wrong with him!”
“Okay. Okay.” With as much care as she could, she pulled her arm away from him. He fell back on the couch, the “Guh. Guh. Guh,” noise still rising out of his mouth. His nose was bleeding even more profusely than before, blood pouring over his lips and tracking down the sides of his face. She could do nothing for his suffering. Unable to comfort him. Unable to hold him. No choice but to watch as he agonized with barely a sound to account for it.
Stanton had gotten hold of a dispatcher. “Seizure. My patient. Hess Clinic off Skidmore Road in Rochester. My name is Doctor Ralph Stanton. Please get them to hurry. He’s bleeding from the nose too.”
“A seizure?” Emma threw the question over her shoulder.
“I don’t fucking know!” Stanton’s voice was shrill and panicked. “I’ve never seen something like this before!”
Emma pressed her palms together, bringing her fingers up to her lips. He wasn’t seizing. He was just staring upward, making a noise, blood pouring out of his nose. Were they supposed to lay him down just in case? Stanton told her not to touch him. And laying him down might make it worse. Choking on his own blood. NO NO NO! She didn’t want him to die! Not like this! Not when he was going to get better! Not when he was so close to maybe, just maybe, having a future no longer plagued by—
Moon Terrors.
Emma’s eyes widened. The thought process was instant, happening in less than five seconds as Jay bled and Stanton said something to the dispatcher. Something had happened to Moon Jay. To the Jay that had been talking to her on the phone as she drove here. The crashing sounds that wouldn’t stop getting louder. Had…no, that was fucking ridiculous. It didn’t make any sense. Because if that was real, then everything else had been, too. But this couldn’t be a coincidence. She felt it in every bone of her body, in every little memory of Jay’s Moon Terrors and the way he felt when he had them:
“This time I could hear it. Something like a heavy sigh. Or like someone breathing in my ears.”
“Like a mountain. Ahead in the dark. A fucking mountain.”
Emma wanted to faint. The person on the other end, the one claiming to be Jay, knew about their conversations. About the mountain. But it wasn’t a mountain, was it? It was a facility. A massive building, housing God knew how many people. People who could breathe on the Moon, just like he could.
People who found him using a phone in their restricted facility. A stranger on the Moon, making a phone call to Earth. Someone unknown that had to be silenced.
Those crashes weren’t crashes at all. They were gunshots.
IV
“Emma?”
She bolted out of her sleep. Shooting upwards, she almost stood, thinking she was going to have to rush into the kitchen and watch as Jay frantically searched for her on the Moon in his mind. But she wasn’t in bed. She was sitting in an uncomfortable cushioned chair, her purse held tight in her lap. Before her was a hospital bed sporting white sheets. Sheets that draped her comatose husband.
Except he wasn’t comatose anymore. He was rubbing one of his eyes and yawning, as if he’d just woken up from a quick nap.
“Oh…Oh my God,” she stood to call a doctor, but stopped when Jay grabbed her arm.
“Wait,” he said, his voice weak. “Wait. What happened?”
Emma couldn’t help the smile that stretched across her face. She leaned down and grabbed her husband by the cheeks. Before he could protest, she planted a kiss on his forehead. Pulling back, she looked into his eyes. There wasn’t a single word in the world to describe the relief that washed over her in that moment.
“Did something happen at therapy?” He looked confused, as if he’d lost something and wasn’t quite sure where he could find it again.
“Sweetheart, you…” She trailed off, not knowing if it was wise to dump everything that happened to him on his lap right after waking up. But she knew he would be persistent if she paused any longer. There wasn’t a choice, then. Besides, it was better for him to hear it from her instead of a doctor he didn’t know.
“You started seizing,” she explained. “The doctors still don’t really know why. You were bleeding. From the nose. Oh, God, there was so much blood. It was on your lips. Your cheeks. And your eyes, they were rolled back in your head. I thought they were going to snap off. And you kept making this sound like—”
“Hey, hey.”
He squeezed her by the hand. She’d been so lost in the memory of what happened to him at Stanton’s office, she hadn’t even realized he’d grabbed hold of her. She blinked a few times, fighting the tears that were threatening to spill over. The worst part wasn’t the memory anymore, though. It was the look on Jay’s face. The apologetic look that kept coming to the surface and making her want to cry. It still wasn’t fair of him to do that to her. To make her want to melt into his arms when it should have been his turn to melt into hers.
Her heart brimmed with love for everything he was.
With a deep breath in and a whistle of air out, she continued. “You’ve been in a coma.”
This made Jay sit up in bed, his eyes wide. “What? How long?”
“Just three days. Four, maybe. I lost track of the time.”
Jay shook his head and put a hand on his heart. “Whew. For a second I thought I was in The Dead Zone.”
Emma shook her head, letting a smile creep back onto her face. “No. No psychic powers today.”
Her words made her remember the phone call.
“…Jay. Do you remember the crashing on the phone?”
His face took on a quizzical look. “I, uh, don’t know what that means.”
“Oh.” Emma put her other hand over top of Jay’s grip. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Jay looked up at the ceiling. “I was talking with Stanton about that last Terror. About how there was sound in it, not like the others. And I think…” He looked down at himself. “I think I told him about the mountains I saw. But I can’t be sure. Because then it all just…ended, I guess. I woke up. Here.”
“So you don’t remember—”
“Wait.”
Emma watched at his face contorted. His mind must have been racing, trying to solve whatever puzzle he’d come across. Then, whatever he was trying to uncover dawned on him. His mouth went slack and his eyes widened. A paranoid icicle of fear pierced Emma’s heart. But Jay wasn’t going to succumb to more bleeding today. The only thing that stained his face were tears.
“I. Saw. Something.”
He turned and looked at Emma. His face was growing red with how upset he was getting. Emma listened as the words flowed from him, a river threatening to drown her in its tumultuous rapids.
“It was like I was in a dream. These flashes of memories of the Moon. Me shouting for you while I was having a Terror. My feet kicking up little rocks that glided back down to the surface. The stars. So many stars in the sky. None of them bright enough to illuminate anything but shadowy outlines. And the ground. Moving up and down, up and down, all the time. Expanding and contacting. Like a lung, Emma. Like a lung. Because that’s what it was.”
He turned away from her. She squeezed his hand tight as he used his other one to wipe away his tears. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I want to tell you, but I don’t think I can. I don’t think it’s safe. And I don’t know why.”
She knew why. Even from the outside looking in, she knew exactly why. Because those weren’t reminiscences of Moon Terrors he was experiencing as he bled on Stanton’s couch. Those weren’t locked memories of dreams he’d had in the throes of his illness. They were the memories of a dying man over 230,000 miles away.
“I won’t tell anyone.”
The sternness of her voice made Jay do a surprised double-take. She looked at him as serious as she could, fighting back her own need to let out the awful emotions trampling her heart. All she could do was nod in affirmation. The only way she could tell him the truth: He could trust her not to say anything because she would believe him.
Jay sucked in a deep breath before he spoke again. “At one point, I was wandering around in the dark. And I tripped on something. I fell, reached my arms out to try and catch myself. That’s when the ground in front of me split open. Miles in both directions. Just glancing in either direction, I thought the Moon was getting cut in half. I thought I was going to fall into it. Almost did. But then I looked down. And I saw…it was against the dim light of stars. So I can’t be sure. But I think…”
A shadowy look passed over Jay’s face as his eyes met Emma’s. A chill ran up her spine.
“I think I saw teeth.”
She squeezed his hand tighter at the words, remembering those of Moon Jay:
The Moon is asleep.
Final puzzle pieces clicked together, the terror of the whole image making her want to scream. But she had to keep calm. If not for herself, then for her husband, who had finally reached the apex of what was happening. She looked into his eyes and gripped his hand tight. His face took on a look of confusion as Emma sucked in a breath.
“Jay,” she said. “Something else happened too. Something no one else knows about. And if I tell you, we can’t tell anyone about it. Promise?”
Jay nodded without hesitation.
“After I dropped you off at Stanton’s, I got a phone call.”
V
INCIDENT REPORT
DATE OF INCIDENT
June 6, 2028 (Earth time)
LOCATION
Anwir Outpost, Hall H Telecom Booth
RESPONDENTS
Dominik Fedorov (#3378, Rank 8); Mabel Shea (#4506, Rank 4); Neil Horworth (#7004, Rank 2)
REPORT
Agents Federov, Shea, and Horworth were on a duty break. Agent Federov had been stationed at the Eyelid Monitor. Agent Shea and Agent Horworth had been attending to general guard duties of the Anwir Outpost. Federov, Shea, and Horworth met one another for lunch at the intersection between Hall G and Hall H. The three Agents walked from the G/H intersection down Hall H in the direction of Cafeteria D, conversing about mundane, day-to-day subjects.
Federov, Shea, and Horworth’s conversation was interrupted when Shea noticed an unfamiliar person using the Telecom Booth in Hall H. The unfamiliar person was a man in his late twenties and appeared gaunt and unkempt. Federov noted his clothing seemed “Earthly,” while Horworth compared him to “a hobo.” Shea shouted for him to step away from the Telecom Booth. Federov and Horworth followed suit. Each of them yelled at the man to step back from the Telecom Booth and identify himself. It is unclear if the man understood what Agents Federov, Shea, and Horworth were saying, as he continued to speak into the Telecom Booth despite their instructions not to.
As Federov, Shea, and Horworth gained ground, Shea noticed Fulcrum growths on the unknown man’s hands and face. In her testimony, she explained that, because of the growths, she thought one of the Subjects from Charlotte Outpost had escaped and somehow found his way to Anwir Outpost. This prompted her to make a quick decision, drawing her gun and shooting the man three times in the abdomen and once in the temple to avoid an outbreak. Shea immediately notified her superiors, after which the scene was assessed.
The man Agent Shea shot and killed in Hall H was later identified as Subject #1.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
What we believed to have been a mental issue in Subject #1’s original that developed because of seemingly insufficient cloning capabilities with Molecular Transporter Version 1.4 was instead a side effect of its earlier design. The machine worked, but it didn’t separate the psychic connection between the original and the clone. Subject #1 had been walking across the Moon for 5 years of Earth time before he discovered Anwir Outpost. In that time, his psychic connection with the original was not severed until after Subject #1 was killed.
Per your report regarding Subject #1’s original (Jay Donahue) and his condition following Subject #1’s death, it is recommended that Subject #1’s original be monitored for a minimum of 24 months to ensure he does not speak about his experience. Additionally, Subject #1’s phone call was to the original’s wife (Emma Donahue), who should also be monitored for a minimum of 24 months to ensure she does not speak about her experience.
Beyond Subject #1’s discovery of Anwir Outpost, I have received word that all else is normal. The Fulcrum Subjects at Charlotte Outpost continue to produce growths at a steady pace.
Please send Anwir Outpost any concerns you may have regarding this incident and any recommendations for further action here.
SIGNATURE (Please type)
Carwyn Anwir (#2626, Rank Null)
SIGNER’S TITLE
Anwir Outpost Operator
DATE OF REPORT
6/14/28
VI
“Aw, what?”
Emma looked up from the story she was reading on her laptop. It was the thirty-third chapter in the twilight arc of Cup of Desire, a serialized fantasy story she’d been reading online since her time in college. How it had lasted so long was beyond her. Then again, so was the idea that four years had passed since her lively, healthy husband had last stepped foot in a medical building. Outside yearly checkups and twice-yearly dentist appointments, of course.
And therapy. There was still therapy.
“What is it?” she hollered to him from the kitchen table.
“They’re closing Briar’s next month!” he shouted.
“Seriously!?”
Emma stood up from the kitchen table and walked into the living room. Jay was lounging on the couch. His phone was on the table, and he was scrolling through an article that was being projected above it. Since a few months ago, Fulcrum was no longer just being used as a fancy version of standard video calls. The technology had advanced enough to where they could put their phones on the table and project web pages above them. Zooming them in and out at their convenience, ending their days of craning their necks downward to look at social media or the news.
“Yeah. I guess the new chef wasn’t up to snuff.” He glanced up at Emma as she stood near him. “Well, the new new chef. Esteban was okay.”
“Bullshit, ‘okay’! Esteban made the best chicken and waffles I’ve ever had!”
Jay shuddered. “I still don’t know how you eat that…blegh.”
“Well, not anymore, it looks like.”
“I mean, I could always make you some. Just pop some tenders in the air fryer, batter in the waffle maker.”
Emma laughed. “What, frozen from a bag?”
Jay shrugged. “A tendie’s a tendie.”
He chuckled lightly. Then, the slight humor in his mood began to fade. Emma’s own smile faltered a little. It had been a long time since Jay had looked this serious. Probably three years ago, when his mother died and he had to help make arrangements for the funeral. His eyes had taken on an unfamiliar darkness, then. Unsurety, like a little boy lost in the woods. He was starting to look like that again right now.
“Hey. Emma. I think…” He trailed off, taking in a deep stream of air through his nostrils. “I think it’s time to stop seeing Stanton.”
Emma blinked, not sure if she’d heard her husband correctly. “R…Really?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I noticed you stopped asking me if I was ready a few months ago. Or, that it keeps being a few months every time you bring it up. But it’s been four years since the last one.” Jay’s body shook, an involuntary response to remembering his final Moon Terror. “I just think it’s time to try living like normal again.”
“You don’t look sure about it.” Emma plopped herself down on the couch beside him, rubbing his shoulder.
“Thing is I’m not,” he admitted. “I wish I knew what really happened. I wish I had answers. Why I had that seizure, why the scans said nothing was wrong with me. And I know, I know. The phone call you got. But that only raises more questions that I can’t even ask. Otherwise…”
He paused. She finished his thought for him:
“Otherwise, who knows what’ll happen to us?”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “And being at Stanton’s these last few years. Not even being able to talk about what happened to you. If I was still going more than once a month, I’d probably have spilled my guts by now. But I don’t care what the client confidentiality stuff says. The last thing we need is RubiTech’s nose in our business. Or ours in theirs.”
Jay leaned back on the couch. Emma took the opportunity to lay down, resting her head in his lap. He played with her hair a little, listless as he considered what to do. Emma stared down at his phone, which was still projecting the news story about Briar’s above itself. A thought entered her mind. One that she’d considered time and again for the last few years, but one she’d never spoken aloud. She didn’t know if now was the right time. But if he was thinking of putting it behind him, maybe she could say it without him getting too paranoid.
“What if they already know we know?”
His hand paused with a few strands of her hair between his fingers. She could tell he was staring at the phone now, too. The Maxus 16, with parts developed by RubiTech. Projecting with Fulcrum, a technology curated for commercial use by the same company that had sent half of Jay to the Moon. The same company that was doing something with its dark side.
No, that wasn’t right. The front. They were doing something with the front of the Moon.
“Well,” Jay replied. “If they know we know, and they haven’t done anything about it yet, then they know we won’t say anything.”
Emma turned her head in Jay’s lap. He glanced down at her, a small smile on his face. If RubiTech somehow knew, then they were already safe. It was a secret the pair of them would have to take to their graves, or else they would risk the company doing something nefarious to the Jay who lived. Enough pain had been wrought. Exposing the truth wasn’t worth risking their lives over. Not when—after Jay stepped out of Stanton’s office one final time—they were going to get their lives back.
After nine long, arduous years, they were going to be able to live again.
Emma reached up and stroked Jay’s cheek. “I love you so much,” she whispered.
Jay took her hand in his, pressing it against his face. “I love you too,” he said.
He paused for a second, considering something. Then his smile grew big and wry. “Let’s just do that, then.”
Emma replied with her own smile, her heart racing. “Do what?” she asked.
Jay bowed his head. She brought herself up, pressed her back against his chest as he whispered one last sentence before kissing her:
“Let’s love each other til the Moon wakes up.”
***
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