She glanced out the window while Andie and Henry talked about taking naps. The day was gray, pale, and disgusting. Leaves shedded off of the trees like pieces of dead skin and frost clung to the brown grass and frozen dirt. Everything was so cold. Cold to the point of cracking.
Henry stood and turned on the TV on the kitchen counter, just a small-screen Panasonic their mother liked to listen to while she cooked. It was tuned to CNN and they were broadcasting more coverage of the attack in Chicago. This time it was footage taken from someone’s camera phone. The video was shaky, shot while running backwards. The collapsed building went in and out of frame, only one half of it visible through the clouds of dust.
“Can you change that? It’s pretty much the last thing I want to see.” She still didn’t know why Hermes and his sister had blown up the warehouse. Not for sure. But he sure as hell hadn’t seemed very sorry about it when she’d seen him.
Henry turned the whole thing off and leaned over the sink to look out the window.
“Hey, it’s Aidan.”
Cassandra stood just in time to see his head pass by the glass, a few seconds before he knocked and came through the front door. His eyes found hers and he smiled. There wasn’t a scratch on him. He was safe. She hadn’t realized how scared she’d been. Her heart thumped like she’d run a mile.
“Aidan!” Cassandra’s dad walked down the hall and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re just in time to rake.” He sipped his coffee and raised his brows at the rest of them in the kitchen. “With so many bright-eyed helpers it should only take a few hours.”
“Sure thing, Tom.” Aidan smiled. “Do you have leaf bags?”
“In the garage. I’ll go get the rakes. You guys meet me out there in five minutes.”
After ten pulls on her rake, Cassandra felt ready to fall over. They were spread out in the backyard, dragging damp brown and yellow leaves into sad-looking piles. Wetness made the piles heavy and flat, and far too cold to jump in.
“Here, let’s get this one.” Aidan handed her a leaf bag and she held it open while he used their two rakes to gather leaves and stuff them inside. Cassandra looked over her shoulder at her dad, who saw and flashed a smile.
“It feels like lying now,” she said.
“What does?”
“Not telling my parents. It didn’t before, because it didn’t feel real. But Hermes was real last night. They’re really here. So now it feels like lying.”
“The less they know, the safer they’ll be.” He didn’t look at her when he said it.
Will they really be? Or will the gods blast through them whether they know or not, if they get in the way?
“Cassandra?”
“Yeah?” She let go of the bag and took her rake back to start the next pile.
“We should think about leaving soon.”
Her rake stopped. There was no pretending that she hadn’t heard, and really no pretending that she hadn’t known, deep down. Not in the dark space in her mind but someplace lower: in her heart, or the pit of her stomach. She looked again at her dad, and at Andie and Henry. They were throwing leaves at the dog, who barked and raced around them in circles. Her mom watched through the kitchen window while she put a casserole together for lunch.
She and Aidan would have to leave. To run. She didn’t know why she felt so shocked; it wasn’t like they’d be able to hide in Kincade. It wasn’t like they could make a stand there. Not against what was coming.
“When can we come back?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Will they be safe here? Will they go after them anyway, even if we’re gone?”
“I don’t know. But it’s their best chance.”
“When?” she asked, and held her breath. Whatever he said would be too soon. Too abrupt and cold.
“I thought after this, we could go to my house and figure it out.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “Why is this happening?”
Aidan lowered his eyes. “I wish I had answers, or better things to tell you. If it was anything else, I could stop it.” He clenched his teeth. “But I can’t. Believe me when I tell you, running away isn’t my style.”
The breeze whistled through Cassandra’s hair. It smelled like winter. Like change and dying things. She searched the gray sky for the sun and couldn’t find it.
“What am I going to say to them? They’re not going to understand, Aidan.”
He put his arms around her and tears slid down her cheeks.