Storm

Chapter Thirteen

Waiting it out was much easier said than done.

Our motel, although it somehow had lasted the apocalypse, didn't do so well in the storm. Sand immediately filled the room, through the cracks under the doors and by the windows. We'd tried covering them up. Our efforts had been fruitless.

Now, there was sand everywhere, I could barely see, and I wasn't exactly sure where everyone else was.

"Ugh..." The groan came from the other side of the room. I wiped sand from my face, trying to blink through the sandy mist that hovered over the room. Outside, there was still a light drizzle, but nothing too life threatening.

"January?" I asked, frowning into the direction the noise had come from.

"Do I sound like January?" replied a grumpy voice.

I felt fear spike in me. I was glad Kyan was okay, but the fact that January wasn't responding worried me.

The room was a bit of a mess - bottles of shampoo and conditioner flung everywhere, the TV fallen over as a mess of glass on the ground, and in the corner by the bed...a drawer had fallen.

I immediately feared the worst.

"January?!" I shouted as I crawled past the other bits of wreckage, towards the fallen furniture.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed my shoulder. I spun around, sighing in relief as I saw it was January. She had a cloth pressed to her mouth, probably to avoid sucking in sand. "I'm here," she finally responded, letting the cloth fall to the ground.

I stood up, trying to wipe the bits of sand from my already dirty body. When had I last showered?

"We're all okay?" I asked, eyeing the other side of the bed, where Kyan was now seated, back to the window. He nodded. So did January.

We were alive. Somehow, we'd made it through that okay.

"We won't have any food," grumbled Kyan. "Even if there was anything left in this ruin, the storm would've destroyed it or blown it away."

He wasn't wrong. I just needed to look around the room to see the destruction it'd caused. Pieces of the bed frame littered the floor, debris from counters was everywhere, the bed sheets were all ripped, and all of the lights had been smashed. It made me wonder how many other times a storm that bad had to have passed by this place. Obviously, not too many times.

My stomach was already grumbling way too loudly. "I guess we need to find some."

I could tell Kyan was about to make another snarky comment, but he restrained himself. None of us were in the mood for bickering.

"So...are you suggesting we go?" January asked, frowning at the idea.

I knew what she meant. That we leave the motel for good. That would definitely be a little dangerous. It was hard to find any shelter here, and I was not looking forward to hiking through the dry desert with absolutely no resources. "We don't have any other choice."

Kyan was just shaking his head. "You're wrong, we do..."

I raised an eyebrow at him. I had no idea where he was going with this. He finally turned his head to look at us. He was definitely holding something back.

"What is it, then?" I said, asking the question that January and I both were a little scared to ask.

"Look, don't hate me, okay?" he started, and I already knew I wouldn't like this. He pulled something out of his pocket - a little device with a red button on it. The button was covered by a thin sheet of glass, so it couldn't accidentally be pressed. "They gave me this. Before the mission. It's a help button. They said I should use it if something happened...if I got lost...so they could take me back. Mainly, because I was a healer and they're short on doctors in their camp."

All I could focus on was what he had artfully danced around. That they hadn't given January or me one, because we weren't useful to them. I didn't know if I should be offended that they didn't deem my life important or horrified at the fact that he even held such a thing.

"No," I immediately said, crossing my arms and shaking my head. "No, no...no.....that's a horrible idea!" Anger filled my veins as I even thought about the prospect of going back after they'd so easily thrown January and I away like complete trash. "You want us to go back to them? After they ditched us to a life of slavery and becoming a pet to whoever paid the highest bid?"

Kyan rolled his eyes. It was perhaps the worst thing he could do in that moment for my anger. "If it comes down to life and death, yes. I do want to go back." He had somewhat of a point, but the betrayal was still too fresh for me to just sit down and accept their help again. The idea of returning to them was like a knife to my pride.

"They'll just throw us away again. Or worse!" I was trying not to completely blow up on him, but it was hard. I didn't really want to get in a fight with one of the few people in the world that I felt I could still vaguely trust.

"Would you rather starve to death in the deserts? Crawl through the sand, dying of thirst?! We wouldn't last more than 3 days. Probably less, actually, if another one of those storms rolls by," Kyan replied, his eyes fiery. He was just as stubborn, and I did not see this conversation ending in a good direction.

I began to pace, trying to think through what to do. He was completely right. Going out there would almost certainly lead to our deaths. I wasn't used to surviving deserts - even colder ones. I was used to large forests, trees, abandoned stores that I could steal from. Snow. All of that. But this was an entirely new terrain, and I knew I would find nothing of use in it.

Going out into the desert as we were was a suicide mission.

But what choice did that leave?

"Fine. I get it. You're right," I responded. I glanced at January who had yet to contribute her opinion to the conversation. She was just staring at the ground, looking worried. "How about this? We call them. We go back. But we don't stay."

Kyan seemed surprised that I was agreeing with him. "I'm listening..."

"And then we get out of there. We steal supplies and leave. And bring Asten with us."

I definitely wasn't going to forget about him. I was almost ashamed to realize that one of the main reasons I was okay with this plan was because it involved retrieving him.

I needed to get to him before they realized how useless he was and threw him away, too.

Kyan mulled over the idea for a second, fidgeting with the red button. I was scared he might accidentally press it, despite the cap covering it. After a few more seconds, he nodded. "All right. I can deal with that."

I looked at January. She was picking at a loose string on one of the bed sheets. She nodded, too. "That seems like our best option."

And our only option.

But it would have to do.