Here, Aodh’s desk filled a lot of space.The base of the desk was marble, and the top was glass, over three inches thick.No human would be able to lift or move the desk around.Two short chairs, upholstered with fabric, were on one side of his desk.However, animal skin covered his big chair.She figured it was goat skin.The only meat they ate in the territory was goat.She’d seen many things that day, but not where they raised the livestock.Aodh had even toured her through the empty learning center.He’d been stoic during their brief period there.She caught a glimpse of a small dove-white flame in the depths of his gaze before he blinked it away, even though his markings remained muted.This reminded her how deeply Aodh was affected by the lack of children in his thunder.
This place was different.It had life and activity.It was evident to her by the various charts and designs on the wall and included the stacks of reports and folders on his desk.None of it made sense to her, mainly because someone wrote it in their language.
Aodh allowed her to move around the room freely as he sat at his desk and sifted through the different items.Here and there, he made notes either directly on the report or on a tablet.
She liked seeing him work.He was in his element here.The furrowing of his brow revealed his deep concentration.Turning around, she moved from the charts and stood before the most extensive drawing.Something about it seemed familiar, but she didn’t know why.She tried to think about things in the archive cellar.The large room had all the books, history, and maps of various parts of the world.However, nothing came to mind.
“Things have changed a lot.”Aodh’s voice drew her attention.
Kai glanced over her shoulder and met his gaze.He was leaning back in his chair.Instead of studying his reports, he studied her.His stare raised goosebumps on her arms and spread warmth along her spine.She exhaled to keep her mind and body from slipping into arousal.Aodh’s aide was only in the other office.She didn’t need things to start up.
Refocusing on his statement, she lifted a brow.“What do you mean?”
He frowned.“The world.”He tipped his head.“The North American Continent.”
It was her turn to frown.She understood Aodh’s words but had no clue what it had to do with the design on his wall.Turning, she glanced back at the large drawing.She tilted her head to the side to see if she could better decipher it.Maybe it was the area they were in.That would make sense.“Is it a blow-up of your territory?”
“No.It’s North America.”Aodh was standing next to her now.As usual, the man moved with mind-boggling speed.
“I got you were saying that.”She glanced at him.“But what part?”
“All of it.”
Flabbergasted, Kai turned and stared at it.“That’s not possible.I’ve seen our country.We even colored a large version of it in school.All fifty states and territories.”She gestured toward the image on the wall, “This isn’t it.By the lines drawn there could only be thirty states...if that.”
Aodh grabbed her shoulders and made her face him.He met her gaze.“Everything else is gone.”
“Gone?”She shook her head and licked her dry lips.“We heard bomb blasts destroyed many places.But that couldn’t get rid of whole states.”She let out a humorless laugh.
Her mind couldn’t wrap around the idea or formulate a reality where something wiped out most of the country.It wasn’t possible.The only hope in the district was that the government would expand beyond the wall and rebuild.
“Between all the natural disasters and the global nuclear wars, they both caused chain reactions that reverberated for more than ten years.Years where the planet changed permanently.”
“No.The government would have—”
Aodh let out a growl.He forced her to face the map again.“Your government,” he bit out, “and all the other superpower countries on the Earth buried themselves in the ground while devastation happened.The Great Catastrophe.”He jabbed a finger into the map.He called out the states now that were coastal borders, but less than half of each remained.“Everything below this east corner of Arizona, the upper north half of Texas, Mississippi, and the northwest corner of Tennessee down to Brazil is under water.Anything outside or above Alberta to western Ontario no longer exists above water.”
“The oceans spread?”Stunned, she looked at all the blue areas covering what he called North America.
“A vast amount came inland from earthquakes and large-scale tsunamis.The seas parted, and the heavy nuclear fallout smothering the atmosphere for so long caused the Earth to lose the lunar pull, controlling the tides and water distribution.Once that was gone, nothing stopped the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans from division.”He pointed to the map area, which went from blue to brown.“There were ten years of intense heat where thirty percent of the Earth’s seas evaporated, creating deep salt bed chasms separating the remaining continents.In the last seven years, those cavernous spaces have transformed, and host a new type of vegetation, and are called The Great Heaths.”
Something else dawned on her.“Wait.What happened to all the people in states and countries submerged?There had to be some still underground cities, right?”A bit of hope flashed.“If it is underwater, unlike our area behind the wall.They can’t come out yet.”If things didn’t work out for her and Aodh, there might be other places they could go.
Aodh released her and dragged a hand through his short hair.“They’re gone.”
“That can’t be.”She shook her head.“There has to be more.”Her voice sounded high-pitched to her ears.
“It became apparent to the preternatural community the Group of Seven realized a long time ago a global natural disaster was coming sooner than man ever predicted, and during all those meetings, they built and planned.They funded it through luxury doomsday space auctions to the rich and by buying cheap underground land in economically weakened countries.So many of the human confrontations had little to do with what they reported.It was easier to get humans in an uproar on social media over surface-level issues and pushed to champion causes to detract from what was really going on.They never anticipated that global warming issues would set off underground missiles and start a war.”He exhaled.“What the shifters discovered too late, like everyone else when the announcement went out, was there were only three underground locations.We assumed there would be more.One or two built on every continent.The shifters helped as many people get to them as we could.”
“Where are they?”Kai moved along the wall and stared at what she assumed was a current world map.“Where?”she yelled.
“G7 members agreed to place the underground cities within the heart of the continents of Africa, Russia, North America, and a small one in Greenland.Greenland only housed the leaders from Canada, Italy, and France and their families, no other survivors were admitted.Germany and Japan controlled Russia’s underground, while the UK and some of the leaders of the European Union ruled Africa.North America refused to share with any other leader.”
Her body shook with anger.She could not fathom all Aodh told her.There wasn’t space in her mind to process the information.Her head was beginning to ache.She realized she needed to focus on what was relevant for her now.
“What are the new lines cutting through the area of the remaining states?”Her voice sounded weak to her ears.
He glided the back of his hand over her cheek and into her hair.He fingered a thick coil before he tugged it out of her face then tucked it behind her ear.
