***ALEX***

"What?" I'm not sure I heard Elliot right. "No, but...you wouldn't...you're gonna burn it down? Not in AK's body, you better not."

"Believe me," Elliot growls, "I don't like it either."

I resist the urge to seize my cousin's body by the shoulders and shake the Lord out of him. "So don't bloody do it, then!"

"You don't like having to be here, and yet here you are-"

"That's different! You're talking about sacrificing an innocent man!"

"Shut up! Shut up, you little shit!" Elliot's eyes blaze through AK's.

I avert my eyes from theirs, though I feel like I'm losing the battle by doing so. "I see now how you could be all buddy-buddy with Scoville."

Elliot scoffs. "Everyone learns something a little different from me."

"You try and burn this down and I'm gonna fucking freeze you!" I throw out one hand, twisting my wrist in hopes of creating another ice blade that comes dangerously close to his neck. A rash idea, but I'm too pissed to care.

At least until I realize that I'm not making any ice. Hell, now that I'm able to get a good look, my skin's back to its normal color. Well, its normal winter shade, anyway. Not as deep a tan as I get in the summer, but still dark enough to show that no, my toast ain't naturally tartare. And for sure not as deathly pale and blue as it was after Josh had died and my icy side had really taken over.

"The fuck are you doing?" I yell at Elliot.

"Glad to see we understand each other," he says. "I can't suppress your powers forever, but even a Breaker like you can't repel this particular power of mine. Not right away." Am I wrong, or does he look regretful? No, he's just putting that on. Or that's just AK making his own expression show through the control Elliot has over him.

"You fucking-"

"Stop resisting!" Elliot may sound like a bloody cop, but he's not screaming at me the way Scoville probably would in this situation. "It'll just make your powers return more explosively. Trust me, I'm trying to avoid that." He clenches his fists, and bursts of light spill out from them both. "There's gonna be only one explosion here today, and that'll be mine."

"There doesn't have to be an explosion," I say as strongly as I can. "We've done our damage. We've done our fight. Let's just get the bloody hell out of here, huh?" I turn towards the door and walk up to it, but pause with my hand on the knob. "It's Christmastime. Do we have to keep fighting?" Now I sound like my mom, and I'm okay with that. Because for once, I'm the one making sense. This despite me being young and stupid.

"You know how I said we understand each other?" Elliot growls. "Well, clearly we don't. Look!" He holds up his hands, which are spilling more and more light, enough that the light actually falls on my shoes and leaves little burn marks. "My control is slipping on these two boys. I'm not gonna be able to hold on to them much longer, and if I do-"

"You'll blow up my cousin? Is that it?"

"If I stick in his body too long, then I will. But if I get back to my own form, then I can give Allen a fighting chance-"

"Then why are you chatting with me?" I let go of the door, gesturing out across the factory floor beyond the broken window. "Where the hell are you?"

"Out there, if you'll let me go find him!"

"Why do you have to go find yourself first? Just beam out of AK's body and go!"

"Because if we're closer together, I can pull off the switch mor-"

Then AK's mouth stops moving in mid-word.

"What the fuck!" Now I'm actually shaking my cousin. "Elliot! ELLIOT! Did you just give him a fucking aneurysm?"

"No!" AK's voice is back. "No, he's...oh God..." He clings to me, his weight threatening to drag me down to my knees too. "Am I here? Is he...God, why can't I stand up?"

My voice sounds so raw from my screams that I don't even recognize it. "Here, here..." I lift him up as slowly as I can, holding him tightly as I help set him back on his feet. He stands, sort of, but not without tears pooling in his eyes. Eyes that are no longer the same blinding white as when Elliot had possessed him and gotten particularly pissed, but with those tears, there's still a strong shine blocking out their usual brown color. "Are you hurt?" I pat him down gently, trying to locate some kind of injury, but there aren't any. Why would there be? Elliot didn't get him hurt. Not externally. Internally, though? It could be a far different story, and I'm not equipped with X-ray eyes or else I'd be able to diagnose him right away.

"Not like that," AK whispers. "Not like...not like how you're thinking." His floodgates open, and he cries all over me. "There's something really wrong," he says in a squeaky voice. "I can't explain it, Alex. Something's missing and I don't..." Pause so he can breathe, not that he can really draw much breath in this state. "Where is he?"

"Where's who? Elliot? I have no idea, but we gotta get the bloody hell out of here before he nukes us all-"

"Not him!" AK sobs. "My brother! Where's my brother?"

His brother. I'd spoken to him for a second just now. Where'd he go? Back to the Second 'Verse?

"But he's not there anymore," AK says. "When Elliot had us both...I-I was...we were kind of in tune with each other. All three of us." He wobbles on his feet, and I redouble my grip to keep him upright. "But then TJ vanished and...and then Elliot left us...I don't know what happened, I don't know what to do..."

My own tears slide down my nose. Bad enough he had to go through his brother's death once already, but now...what if TJ died again? I don't even want to know.

"Come on." I pull him with me as I move back to the door. "AK, we can't stay here."

"I know, but..." AK points down to the floor, where Josh lies. How fucking undignified that nobody's moved him yet. "Can you lift both me and him?"

"Can you help me lift him?" I ask.

AK lets go of me, shifting his weight from foot to foot. After a second, he accepts that he can stand on his own again. Either that, or there's some kind of mental adrenaline blocking the distress signals sent out by his absence of twin telepathy. Which begs the question for me - did he know, somehow, that his brother's soul lived on in the Second 'Verse? Would TJ visit him in his dreams the way Gabe and I have so often done with each other?

I wish I could just ask Gabe right now what TJ's status was. Now, more than ever, I feel his missing presence around me, missing as long as I'm awake. Because our brains only tune in when we're asleep. Believe me, I've tried. Not for the first time, as I help lift Josh by his shoulders - and spare a second to brush some stray hair out of his closed eyes, feeling oddly like I'm grooming my own self just because of our strong resemblance - I mentally reach out. Gabe? Bro, I need you to talk to me. Where the hell are you? No answer, not now, and not even as AK and I set off, carrying Josh as quickly as we can. Thank God I've taken up working out in the last few months, otherwise I'd be hopeless at this task. As it is, AK, despite his current distress, has a better grip on Josh's legs than I do on his upper half. What can I say? Pizza boy's jacked. If we survive this, I'm going to press him for workout secrets.

"Guys!" Gideon and Firdaus both call out to us when they see us coming out the door.

"Guys, what's going on?" Firdaus gazes down at the sight of Josh's body and covers her mouth, as if it'll stop any of us from seeing she's about to cry.

"We need to get out of here, that's what's going on!" I say. "We got a mad as hell God about to nuke the place!"

"Nuke? What?" Gideon scratches his head.

"Not for real," AK's quick to add, "but still, he's gonna burn the whole house down with us inside it if we don't run, like, right friggin' now!"

"Can we help?" Firdaus races over to AK's side so she can take hold of one of Josh's legs.

"We could use it, yeah..." My voice trails off as Gideon follows Firdaus' lead and joins me at Josh's head. "Thanks."

Nobody talks as we move down the hall, approaching the break room where Ahmad and Michael are still holed up. At least, so I thought. By the time we get there and pass by the now-open door, that break room is all empty.

"Where are they?" Gideon sounds just as mystified as the rest of us.

"Wait a second..." Firdaus lets go of Josh's leg, and AK fumbles for a bit trying to get hold of both of them at once again. Meanwhile, she gets out her phone and dials up a number. As she waits, she mutters Ahmad's name and some Arabic words, probably swears. When he answers, she switches back to English. "Where the hell are you?"

"Over here!" Ahmad races down the hall in the same direction whence we came.

"Is there any time to convince my dad to lay off this shit?" Michael asks as he runs up behind Ahmad, himself with my mom in tow.

"No!" I say. "And you know what he's doing?"

"Of course!" Ahmad waves his tablet. "He disabled the alarms, but he didn't do the same to the cameras."

"He what?" AK and I cry out.

"Disabled the alarms?" Mom's eyes bug out.

"Why so surprised?" Michael asks. "He's the very original vengeful Old Testament God, and he's having one of the worst days of his immortal life."

"Can you turn the alarms on?" I ask Ahmad. "Sure, a bunch of people work for Scoville, but they can't deserve to die in this."

"You say that like you want the place to blow up," Mom says. "They'll live, but they'll lose their livelihood-"

"Starting from Scoville on down?" Gideon suggests. "The subordinates'll find other jobs. Scoville needs to suffer first and foremost."

"He does, but..." I pause, then shake my head. "God, what are we doing here? We gotta run!"

"Can't run when we're carrying him!" AK uses his one free hand to gesture to Josh's body. Yes, he's holding only one of Josh's legs now that Firdaus has put her phone away and can give him a hand again.

"Then let's go as fast as we can!" Mom pushes me and Gideon, the ones closest to her. No shit.

No more words until we're out of here, other than Ahmad announcing, with less than two seconds to spare, that he's successfully reactivated the alarms. I almost drop Josh from the shrill noise piercing my eardrums, but I tighten my grip on him and press on. I'll soon be able to rest. Put some real good noise therapy on, whenever I get home and grab my iPod.

And I'm going to get out of here.

So will everyone else.

The ground starts to tremble as we get to the parking garage. At first, I think it's because everyone's busy evacuating all around us - we're blending into a pretty big crowd. Whatever Elliot's doing, I hope he's really holding off on the destruction until everyone's out of here.

I get into one of rides with AK, my mom, and Josh laid out in the back. As Mom starts the engine, I wonder how long it takes people's corpses to start smelling like decomp. Will Josh ever smell like that? He may have a physical shell here, but remember, he's a little bit low-key supernatural. I could decomp when one day I die, but I hope he never does. That, probably, would shatter my faith more than any of the other shit I've witnessed.

Ahmad, Firdaus, Gideon and Michael follow us out of the parking garage in the second car, and that's when the trembling really intensifies. We're not supposed to drive during an earthquake, and Mom's fighting her instinct to stay safe. But nobody else is. Nobody ahead of us, and nobody behind. It's like they didn't grow up in earthquake country...oh wait, they didn't. Michael for sure - he's the one driving our second car. And Scoville's majority-Australian crew as well. If they'd been New Zealanders, though, different story.

"I wish I could have done more to help," AK says.

"It's okay, man." Neither of us has our seatbelts on, for some reason. Neither does Mom, for that matter. We were getting out too quickly for it. But I'm glad we didn't, if only because I get to embrace him as closely as I can.

Mom looks at us in the rearview mirror with a small, sad smile on her face until we drive off the island and onto the Bay Bridge. It's an easy transition - the evacuees from the island are among the very few cars going west right now. People must either have already returned to the city after the initial fake nuclear scare, or they managed to get far enough out that they still haven't really gotten back to this point yet.

But speaking of fake nuclear scares, the second our second car drives onto the bridge behind us, the island explodes. Not so much the natural Yerba Buena Island, but more Treasure Island, that flat landfill. The light reaches us first, then the sound a couple of seconds later. AK crawls over me like a little kid so he and I can look out the window, side by side, and watch what's become of Solyndra's graveyard. It's Scoville's graveyard now, though. Probably literally, with that huge crater separating the remains of Treasure Island from Yerba Buena, right where they'd been connected up till now. Except within seconds of the crater's formation, what at first looked like black smoke turns instead to black mist, swirling around the island for a full minute until the crater seals itself up.

Time meteorites. It has to be.

Mom drives on, forcing me and AK to really turn our necks in order to keep looking at the time-meteorite mist. Black, with a little bit of white swirl in there as well. Black meteorites to go back to the past, and white to see the future, right? There must've been more of the black ones stored up, though.

In the back, I swear I see Josh stir on the spot like he's just waking up. But he's not. He's as immobile as he's been for the last...shit, how long has he been dead? Half an hour? A whole hour? Sometime in between? I've lost track, and I already feel like he's been dead forever. But I'm no less devastated for that. Still, I keep praying he'll wake up, as futile as it is.