"Hi," I croaked.
"Thank Aetheros," Theo murmured, running a hand down my arm and back up again. "Where does it hurt most?" he asked, voice strained.
"Someone hit me in the head with a two-by-four and someone else must have driven a cement mixer over my body to make sure the job was done right."
Oh, too many words. I gagged on the bile that surged up my throat.
"Easy," Theo whispered.
It took a minute for easy to register.
"Where are we?" I asked, noticing for the first time that the floor was hard and the walls had cobwebs and the roof looked like tin.
"The garden shed," Aktor replied. "Somehow it survived the earthquake when nothing else did."
Earthquake. Oh, it all came back to me. I sat up, holding my freaking agony-filled head and moaning.
"Cassandra," Theo pleaded, reaching for me and pulling me back against his body, so I was semi-reclined.
It did feel better.
"Earthquake," I managed to get out on a hiss of pain as my body resettled. But at least I was facing everyone else. Who on closer inspection didn't look nearly as bad I felt. "Why do you guys look unharmed? Did something fall on me?"
"No," Theo whispered, kissing the side of my head softly, while his hand kept up a soothing rhythm up and down my arm.
It helped.
"We all got out," he explained, "but you fell unconscious not long after and had what looked like a seizure. Do you remember anything?"
I closed my eyes and although I just knew it was going to hurt like a bitch I called out to Earth.
Are you there?
Aether, came the whispered reply. And thank you, God, it was not the chilling one of before but my favourite, sometimes riddle-loving Stoicheio. Although, it sounded wounded.
Not good.
My eyes opened again to the strange dimness in the shed. It held a sort of orange glow, but no one was calling forth their Fire.
"Earth is injured," I stated simply.
"Fire is not much better," Nico replied.
I hadn't even tried to reach for Pyrkagia, it took it out of me to search for my Gi. I wondered how Air and Water had fared.
"Mark?" I asked, before forcing myself to check on Aeras.
"Nero is harmed as well," my brother announced.
OK. I had to do this, but the ringing in my head had intensified and it was all I could do not to pant.
Closing my eyes again, I sucked in a breath of air and...
"Don't you dare," Theo growled low, hand on my chin, tilting my face up to his.
My eyes opened.
"It's obvious all Stoicheio have been compromised, we don't need you to confirm Air has been as well."
The breath I'd sucked in left me in a relieved rush.
"So, what happened?" I asked, once my pulse had settled somewhat.
"Genesis happened," Mark advised.
"How bad?" I pushed.
"From what we can tell," Theo answered, "the city has been practically levelled."
Silence followed those words. Deep, tragic, heavy, frightening silence.
Oh, freaking hell. End Of Days was perhaps an apt description.
"Just us?"
"All communications are down," Aktor advised. "Even the Civil Defence radio channel hasn't activated, but we are sure it will do so in due course."
"Humans will need time to scramble their defences," Isadora added. "It is Pyrkagia that I am worried about."
You can exile the Pyrkagia from Pyrkagia, but you can't stop them loving the place to death.
"So, what do we do?" I asked, the all important question.
"Night is upon us," Aktor said. "Tomorrow we head out and see what state the world is in."
"For now," Theo announced. "We take watches in shifts."
"Watches?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"Great times of tragedy bring out the worst in some," Aktor replied. "How often have we seen looters on TV screens when tornadoes hit cities, or atrocities performed when the authorities are dealing with life and death elsewhere? We must be prepared."
This wasn't happening.
Earth? A whimper was all I got in reply.
How the hell did we fight this? An unseen enemy that compromised us.
"Shhh," Theo murmured against my skin. "We are alive. We are together. Tomorrow we take stock of our surroundings and provisions, and only then do we confront the battle ahead."
Because it was going to be a battle. Somehow I knew that already, despite having never had to face a challenge like this before.
And suddenly it put everything into perspective.
Theo was holding me. Kissing me, soothing me with a soft stroke of his hand. My brother was here. Sonya, my best friend was safe. Even Aktor and Nico were still breathing. And, I told myself, that there would be ample opportunity in the days ahead for Dora to get whacked on the head by a stray looter. So, all in all, we were OK.
But more than that. The struggles of the past few months seemed insignificant. The Rigas' pursuit of dissecting me; figuring out what made me tick. My ill treatment at psychotic, butchering hands. The unfairness of losing what Theo and I had once had. And the realisation of what had taken its place was harder to accept than it should have been. It was insignificant in the scheme of things now.
I could love this Theo. I could let him love the me he knew. As long as we were both alive.
"Nico, would you take first watch?" Theo asked, his lips brushing against the skin of my forehead as he spoke, as though he couldn't pull himself away further to speak. "I need to take care of Cassandra."
"Of course," Nico murmured, shifting to stand.
"I'll keep you company," Sonya offered. "I can't very well protect everyone like you guys can, but I can help you stay awake."
No one had the heart to tell her they were well capable of avoiding sleep if they so chose. Nico nodded with a smile and headed towards the lopsided door on the shed. Sonya followed behind him with a kind of avid focus on the way his butt moved in his jeans. I couldn't help smiling.
"I'll take second shift," Isadora offered, and my smile vanished at hearing her voice. "Wake me in four hours," she ordered Nico, who offered a salute and slipped into the night.
"I can..." my brother started.
"No," Theo broke in. "Aktor after Isadora, and by then we should all be awake anyway."
Nobody argued, he'd been using that voice. Not that it was unusual seeing Theo take command of a room. He was a natural born leader and even if he wasn't a prince of Pyrkagia I was sure everyone would want to follow him.
I knew I did and it had absolutely nothing to do with a crown.
With two people out of the shed it seemed that much bigger. Isadora got up and moved closer to the door, being the next on duty it made sense. It also added another layer of security, not that it wouldn't take much to blow the walls over on this thing. It was leaning precariously, but somehow still remaining upright. Managing to keep the drizzle out that still fell and the wind that buffeted the sides from seeping in.
"I placed a blanket in the corner," Aktor whispered and when Theo lifted his head to look at the man, I realised he was whispering to him. "Why don't you settle Miss Eden in back there. She needs rest more than any of us right now."
"Good idea," Theo murmured, shifting so he could scoop me up and carry me to the back of the space.
Whatever had been in here before had been cleaned out. Well most of it had, there was a stack of cardboard boxes flattened on the floor, where the blanket sat waiting. And a few shelves still held miscellaneous gardening equipment, but mainly they'd cleared it out so everyone could fit inside.
Theo gently lay me down and began to tuck the blanket in around me. Before I could think better of it, my hand came out to still him. Bright hazel eyes lifted to mine.
"Join me," I whispered. I needed to be held. "There's room enough for two."
He hesitated, then nodded. "Of course," he offered, and slid under the blanket, warm
ing the length of my side.
I rolled over immediately and forced him to lift his arm and wrap it around me, while I rested my sore head on his chest. I was so damn tired.
And scared. I don't think I had ever been as scared as I was right now.
This was big. Huge. World altering. And not just my world.
"It will be OK," Theo murmured, his chest rising and falling rhythmically with his steady breaths. It felt so right. "It won't look nearly as bad in the morning."
Soft murmurs sounded out from the other end of the shed as everyone settled down for some much needed sleep. Aktor had said I was the one in most need of rest, but I argued that point silently. We all looked shattered. A type of fatigue that was borne of devastating knowledge. If Genesis was as bad as its aliases made it out to be, then things were pretty freaking grim. And we all knew it.
"I think I spoke to Aetheros," I whispered so quietly only Theo would hear.
"Casey," he sighed, understanding of my unconscious state registering in his pained tone.
"I think he's as lost as we are," I added. I'm not sure why I felt that, but his booming calls of Oh, my Aether in my head had something to do with it.
"Oraia, we'll find an answer. We have to."
"How did he let it get this bad?" I asked. Why hadn't Aetheros stepped in before the imbalance was so drastically tipped in one favour?
Theo was quiet for a long time, but I knew he hadn't fallen asleep. Too much tension resounded throughout his body. Too much awareness thrummed through mine not to be sure.
"We are to blame," he said softly, but I didn't miss the guilt and shame he carried at those words. "For centuries we turned our backs on him. Alienated ourselves. Became too set in our individual branch ways."
Oh, my Aether. The power of his voice in my mind had hidden the true agony of his words.
The cry for help.
"I don't know if I can do this," I admitted, feeling utterly sick to my stomach.
Theo didn't ask what, he just kissed the top of my head. He also didn't offer an answer.
This was too much. Way too much. A world teetering on the brink of extinction. And one small woman with not enough strength to steady it.
I didn't know what I was meant to do. I didn't know how to stop this. I felt so impotent in my inability to see a positive outcome to all of this.
I felt so damn lost.
"I'm so scared," I whispered, my lips trembling, my body shaking and tears starting to sting my eyes.
"Shhh," Theo whispered, slipping down further in our makeshift bed. "Shhh, Oraia. Shhh."
Then his lips brushed my cheek, my jaw, the corner of my mouth.
"You are not alone," he whispered, hot breath mingling with my own.
A statement, a promise, that meant more than it should have. Not an answer as such, although it felt like one to me.
"Theo," I breathed, asking for something I couldn't even put into words.
"Kiss me, Casey," he urged, pulling my body gently beneath his larger frame. "Make me remember."
A tear slid out as I opened my lips to his searching tongue and let him kiss the fears and worries and doubts and aches away.
I let him kiss me until I was flying and heat warmed our little corner of the shed.
I let him kiss me until it didn't register that this kiss was with a man who couldn't remember the me from the past year.
I let him kiss me until nothing existed but us, right then, his lips on mine, his warmth invading my body, my heart, my soul.
I let him kiss me until I was sure I couldn't survive without this Theo as much as I didn't want to survive without my Theo.
I just let him kiss me. My Theo... this Theo.
Theo.
And only then did I truly kiss him back.
Chapter Twelve
Can You Hear Me?
It wasn't quite as bad as we'd feared.
But it was bad enough.
Some buildings had survived, most hadn't. Water mains had broken, sewage was seeping up from beneath the ground, liquefaction was making other areas impassable.
But unlike any earthquake I had ever heard of before there were no aftershocks. No ongoing tremors to set your teeth on edge. Just a heavy pall of expectancy; when would the next big shake occur?
Of course we knew it wasn't your average earthquake, but something deeply rooted in the imbalance of the Elements. Something inherent in the survival of this world. I hesitate to use the word magical, but what are Stoicheio if not a type of magic?
The crux of the problem, though, was how to right it.
The immediacy of our situation, however, made that question fade to the back of our minds.
"There are a lot of dead," Nico commented quietly to my side. "We should help them."
Theo, Nico, Isadora, Mark and myself stood on top of Oriental Bay cliffs and looked out over downtown Wellington. The CBD was a skeleton of jagged concrete, twisted metal, shattered glass, and rib-like rebar covered in the blood of those who were lost.
God, was the rest of the country like this? The world? We'd still not been able to tune into the Civil Defence station, but Aktor was attempting to establish communications via Fire back at home right now. But if Pyrkagia were in as much of a mess as we were, answering a knock in the flames of your hearth - if it still stood - was not a top priority.
We'd find out soon. But I wasn't sure if the answer would be helpful.
"Order needs to be established," Mark added.
"The humans will have their own system to handle a disaster like this," Isadora commented.
"So, we shouldn't concern ourselves, is that right?" I snapped.
"Do you not think we have enough on our plate already?" she asked archly.
The fact that she was right was irrelevant. The look of devastation and heartache and loss and fear on the faces of those who walked in tattered clothes with dust covered faces and hollow eyes was all I could see.
I ached. And it was so much worse than any ache I'd felt before.
These were my people, even if I wasn't human anymore.
Aether, sounded out inside my head. Oh, my Aether.
I couldn't tell if that was an agreement from Aetheros or a fabrication of my mind. Or just one of my missing Stoicheio trying to remind me I was not who I used to be and that I should focus on what mattered right now.
And what mattered, aside from trying to re-establish contact with our Elements somehow, was making sure we had enough provisions to survive.
"Come on," I encouraged. "Let's do this."
Mark came with Theo and me in the only SUV that had been on our property and survived. Isadora and Nico had to settle for the town-car that had collected them all from the airport. The state of the first rubble strewn hurdle to block our path on the wet, mucky street led me to believe they'd be ditching that car and moving on foot before they got too much further from our base.
There was some organisation here, though. Large bulldozers shifting debris to the side of the road. The odd reflective jerkin clad policeman directing the public to shelters throughout the neighbourhoods. Schools, apparently, were your best shot at finding any help. Human nature recovering as best it could. But the closer we came to the centre of town the more obvious it was that some were just out for themselves.
Survival of the fittest saw a group of young men manhandle an elderly gentleman and steal away the grocery bag he'd managed to claim for himself. Another corner showed hard looking miscreants, leaning back against broken store fronts, smoking cigarettes and scaring off anyone who walked too close to their new abode. When the shop was stripped bare, they'd move on.
Filth and disorder everywhere. Tempers flared. A gun being fired sounded out. And then the wail of the sirens of overtaxed authorities as they rushed to another crime scene.
"We do this quickly," Theo announced into the stunned and mortified silence in the car. "In and out, no delays."
Both Mark and I nodded, unable to make a sound.
It broke my heart. Not just the destruction of a once proud city. But the cruelty that grew up from the wasteland left from such brutal trauma. There was some hope, in the efforts those with earth moving equipment were attempting. In the consoling words of a policeman to a bedraggled couple standing next to a crushed car. But we should have all risen above our baser desires at a time like this. Where was our collective humanity when a child stood unobserved on the corner of the street wailing for its mother and no one heeded its cry?
It broke my heart.
"Casey," Theo said, capturing my attention again. "You'll slip into the driver's side and keep the car running, doors locked. Mark and I will enter the stores. If we don't come out within ten minutes you move on. If someone hassles you, blast the horn and don't stop until we arrive. If we don't arrive within one minute after you activate the horn you move on. Understood?"
No. I did not understand this. I did not comprehend how this could happen. No.
"Cassandra," he pushed, more gently. "Say you understand.
I sucked in a shaking breath of air and nodded.
"It will be fine," he lied.
Baseball bats. There was a group of men carrying baseball bats. Why were they carrying baseball bats?
"This one will do," Theo announced, pulling the car to a stop next to a pile of rubble, but within sight of a supermarket.
"Ready?" he asked.
Mark grunted and exited the car, Theo reached over and gripped my hand.
"Hey," he encouraged. "Ten minutes, that's all."
I nodded. Lips numb. Heart thundering inside my chest.
"Lock the doors," he said, brushing his lips against mine.
I followed his command, knowing my eyes were too big in my head when they met his on the other side of the windshield.
Of all the things to level me incompetent, to steal my courage so completely I could barely function at all, it was human behaviour at a time of crisis that did it.
I kept telling myself there was hope in amongst the horror. Someone picking up a dropped tin of spaghetti and handing it back to a mother of four. The child had been found, on the street corner, but not by a family member by the looks the twenty-something chap was throwing up and down the street frantically searching for someone else to take over care of what was probably an orphan now.
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