Storm

Chapter Seventeen

"I told you this would happen."

January and I were sitting in wooden chairs, right in front of Claire. They hadn't even bothered to tie our hands back or anything. I guess they just assumed we wouldn't try anything else.

They were right.

I felt more than a little hopeless. Not just that we'd been caught, but also that Kyan had just ditched us like that. I honestly didn't even know where he was. He still wasn't here now.

In the big tent was simply the girl who'd caught us, a couple others, and Claire.

"We have rules for a reason. If you guys had made it out there, you could've ruined the mission. You could've gotten one of our people killed. Trust me when I say you should be thankful we stopped you," she continued. She had her hands clasped behind her back and a grim expression on her face as she paced before us.

Honestly, I was seething that she was standing here going on about keeping her people safe when she'd so carelessly thrown January and I away.

"And imagine if something did happen? You would likely end up throwing away your own lives, too-"

"Like you didn't already," I replied, unable to hold myself back. I was tired of dancing around the topic. I needed an explanation, even if there wasn't a good one.

She froze where she was, and I only began to regret my statement when I saw the confusion on her face. "What?"

I would've believed she was faking it, if she weren't so obviously not faking it. She genuinely looked like I'd just told her news.

I didn't really have a choice but to continue. I couldn't turn back now. "You left us there...in the desert. You traded us for the rest of you team's freedom."

Her lips thinned into a disapproving expression. Did she really know nothing about this? Had this actually been Sean's idea after all?

"Yes, we did. But I thought you already knew about that." The people around us also seemed to be whispering, wondering what was going on.

"Knew about what?" I asked.

"That we were leaving you two behind, but sending a second team to get you out. We wanted to leave more experienced people behind, but we've known of that gang for a while. They've also known of our existence and our people. We knew they'd be suspicious if we left some of our best fighters in their bunker."

I was trying to wrap my head around all of this. "Wait...so you're saying...?"

"We were always planning on getting you out of there. You just happened to escape before we could. And Sean was supposed to tell you that we'd come back for you...I guess he didn't get the chance," she finished explaining.

I felt bewildered and stupid. Even so, I knew it had made sense at the time for me to be paranoid. I'd barely known these people. I had no reason to trust they'd come back for us.

But that brought up another question. "Then why send Asten away into such a dangerous position?"

She shook her head like it was a dumb question and began pacing again. But right before she opened her mouth to talk, our meeting was interrupted by a peculiar sound.

An engine revving.

Weirdly enough, it was getting louder by the second.

Claire immediately turned to the guy next to her, somebody who I recognized as one of her advisers. "Did we send out a mission?" she asked, seeming completely befuddled at the noise.

But before the guy could respond, half the tent suddenly caved in beneath the weight of a tan SUV.

The supports for the tent snapped as the material began sagging down, dropping light fixtures with it. There were multiple crashes as glass broke. Screaming filled the dark tent as the few people in it sprinted from the crash site, towards the now sagging door.

But I wasn't focused on any of that.

"Hey! Get in!" shouted Kyan from the driver's seat.

I guess he had pulled through after all.

For a second, I was tempted not to run. Based on what I just learned, it made it more difficult to not stay and ask for more explanation. Maybe going after Asten would get him killed. Or worse.

At the same time, if we did stay now, I was pretty sure we wouldn't be getting any forgiveness. Especially after destroying their main shelter.

I sprinted towards the SUV, January at my heels as everyone else ran the opposite direction. I didn't look over my shoulder, not even as Claire was yelling things I couldn't exactly decipher towards us. The door opened and I jumped inside, January right behind me. I almost sat directly upon the other person in the car who was definitely not Kyan.

It was Max. Seeing him up close, he looked young, with baby fat still in his cheeks and dimples. The only indication that he could be closer to my age were his height - although hard to tell with the dark and how he was being shoved against the other car door by January and I - and the look in his blue eyes. Like he'd seen too many horrible things in the world already.

He let out a grunt of pain as I re-positioned to give him more space. "Sorry...," I murmured, still running completely on adrenaline.

"It's no problem...," he muttered in response, but he still seemed irritated.

Kyan suddenly slammed on the gas and my body hit the seat hard. I groaned and rubbed my shoulder as we drove out the wide opening in the tent and into the night.

"We were wrong," I said softly. January was still quiet. She'd been quiet since hearing the news. She was just staring out the window, seeming a little tense.

"What do you mean?" Kyan asked, being the first to venture into questioning territory.

"They hadn't left us behind...or, at least, they were planning on getting us back," I answered.

Kyan went quiet for a second. "And you believe them?"

I guess he had a fair point. But if he'd been there, too, to see the look in Claire's eyes when I'd told her...

"This time."

He nodded from the front seat, but didn't turn around or anything. He also knew that this had been a one way trip. We couldn't turn back now.

"All right...we're going to need supplies, first off. We don't have any." He was right about that. We'd lost both of our bags immediately after being caught. I didn't have anything on me but my clothes.

Speaking of clothes, I needed new ones soon. What I was wearing had been given to me by the camp, and they were already a bit old and gross from the whole mess of getting left behind and crawling through the desert.

"And where do you suggest we go?" I asked.

He looked down at something to his side, and I frowned. It looked a little like a map, but only a portion of one. "Well...this may not sound like a good idea...but the only place we know that has supplies."