Storm

Chapter Twelve

Kyan, January, and I spent the next couple of days raiding everything in the motel. Really, we didn't need all that hand lotion and conditioner – we were looking for things to scavenge. Lost granola bars. Forgotten cans of tuna (which, by the way, was disgusting raw – hey, sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do). Literally anything we could eat. See, because what we didn't think through, was how none of us had any food. And we had no clue where we were.

And we were in the middle of a desert.

Essentially, hopeless.

It was a little surprising to find Kyan at our door, I'll admit. I had expected him to be with the rest of the group, heading back into their nice, cozy encampment, with only the twinge of guilt from ditching two people to a life of servitude. I was still trying to avoid thinking too hard about what had happened. It was just so frustrating. To consistently try trusting people, just to constantly have your back stabbed.

The only upside was that through it all, there were still those few loyal people. January. Kyan. Asten, if he'd known about this. Kyan had told us that he'd found out about what Sean had did after the fact and had run off before he could leave with the rest of them. That made me feel a little better about the betrayal.

Maybe Kyan wasn't the only one. Maybe there were others, too, in the encampment who would have done the same as Kyan and run off.

But I couldn't take the risk of going back there and re-joining them. Not if they would sell us off again in a heartbeat.

That was the deal the three of us had decided upon. Yet, that just lead to another question: Where did we go from here?

We hadn't answered that one yet. We'd left it hanging in the dark, stale air of our shared motel room. Then, we'd started scavenging.

I was starving.

I could feel the rumble making its way through my stomach one more time as I leaped over the front desk of the motel. I already knew we'd checked here so often. But I was so hungry, I would check here a million times. Anyway, the front of the motel was just a small tan-walled room with this massive counter where there should've been hostesses smiling and welcoming me in. There weren't any. But behind the counter were the racks upon racks of nonexistent food. That was where the food had been before the place was ransacked.

Honestly, this was my favorite room. Not just because of the whole I-had-way-too-much-hope-for-food thing, but also because it had the most windows. It let light streaming in from the ceiling and from three of its four sides.

I was now on the dirty, dusty floor, reaching my hand underneath the counter when it happened.

For a second, I was positive it was stomach. I mean, my stomach had been rumbling so loudly that it had become all that I was aware of. But then it happened again.

It couldn't be my stomach.

I stood up, letting my empty hands drop to my sides as I looked towards the windows to my right. It was hard to see clearly, so I quickly jumped over the counter and returned to the entrance.

No.

I felt like I couldn't breathe.

Just outside the window, was a looming, horrific mass of dark gray clouds. I could see the exact line where the brighter clouds existed, but were immediately overtaken by the dark, roiling mess.

It reminded me of tsunami waves about to pull the entire motel out to sea.

I ran outside without thinking. I mean I had to go outside. That was the only way to get to the hotel room where I knew that January and Kyan would hopefully still be, unless they'd gone out to scavenge like I had. Being outside was even scarier. The sand from the desert underneath the storm was irritated – it flew up in waves in swirls before re-coating the Earth. The motel looked so insignificant in comparison to the monster that was bearing down on us.

Humidity pressed into my skin as wind began whipping my hair back from my face. I ran towards the doors of the motel's rooms. 20....30.....40......57. I slammed the door open without hesitation and then slammed it shut behind me, just as another gust of wind passed by. Thankfully, I'd been right. Both Kyan and January were there, looking starving and disheveled, but alive. They were playing cards. Or, at least, had been until I'd barged in.

January didn't need an explanation from me. She dropped her 3 Ace's and 2 Queen's before running to the window to look.

Kyan didn't move. He seemed frozen.

None of us spoke for a minute.

"It doesn't seem like snow," I finally choke out. I was still breathing heavily as I brushed brown hair from my mouth and out of my eyes.

Fear gripped my heart. I couldn't release it. Because that storm had not been a snow storm. Snow storms weren't that humid...they weren't that hot...and the clouds never looked that dark.

This was a real, legitimate storm. And by the looks of it...it would ravage everything in its path.

It reminded me so much of the very beginning. The rain. Back then, the storms would be dark and ominous, and they'd pour out so much rain onto the Earth that people drowned in it.

Not just rain either. Wind. Broken tree limbs. All of it. Most of the time the storms during the first months of rain hadn't been bad....but the few times they'd looked like what was outside our door now...they'd been horrible.

And now, added to that, we were in the middle of a sandy desert.

I did not know how we were going to get past this one.

"We need to find somewhere safer...," January muttered to herself. But even as she said it, we watched as the first raindrops came barreling into the motel's window. We saw the sand begin to pick up from the ground.

It was too late.

We were going to have to wait it out.