But my eyes flare with sparks, little prisms slicing through my vision. I squeeze them closed, pushing the flickering light down, forcing it away—hating the way it feels—and I follow Cricket out across the plains, with Noah behind me.
It doesn’t take long for regret to sink over me—to wish for the ravine and the cool river and the shade of elm trees.
The sun bakes my skin, makes dust of my throat. Sweat down my spine and cracked lips. It’s worse than I thought it’d be—hotter and dustier, with a nipping wind at my back and the sun in my eyes, making waves of my vision.
Noah’s eyes sweep across the parched, open landscape, watching for figures on horseback emerging through the heat, coming after us. I squint, trying to be watchful like him, but it’s all searing heatwaves and blinding sunlight. I feel useless. I open my mouth to suggest we turn back, that we find another way, but only dry air leaves my throat.No point wasting the words. I know we can’t go back. If those men are behind us, we have to keep moving forward.
Always forward.
Sweat streams into my eyes, and Noah hands me the canteen. I take a small sip, afraid we’ll run out. Afraid to take more than my share.
The ground changes: Where it had been acres of brittle scrub brush in every direction, I can now make out the remnants of farmland, a great endless patchwork that once grew crops, but now is only sideways wind and cyclones of dust. I wonder if the dust came first, then drove the farmers away, or if they got sick with consumption and abandoned their farms, leaving the soil to wither under the relentless sun.
I try to keep pace with Cricket ahead of me, but her gait is longer than mine, more assured—like a thin-legged deer—and I start to feel light-headed, feet dragging. In the echo of my ears, I hear a wordless hissing, but it’s only the wind growing louder.
“How much farther?” I manage, my voice a wobble against my eardrums, making loops in my stomach.
But if Noah or Cricket answers, I don’t hear it. Only the wind now, a warm breeze always tugging at my neck. Coiling through my hair. Waves of heat cutting through my vision.
Time passes, the sun high above, burning, blistering, never slipping beyond the horizon. But I suspect the night will be cold and cruel, perhaps worse than the heat.
“There,” I hear Cricket say.
I lift my eyes. They burn, stinging with each blink. I look for the outline of buildings, a town rising up from the scrubland. Rooflines and manmade angles. But there is nothing.
“There!” Cricket shouts, urgent this time. Perhaps she’s seeing things, her eyes conjuring phantoms in the heat. “Run!” she screams, an echo across the desert floor. “We need to run!”
I swivel to face her, my legs weak, unbalanced, feet sinking into the sand. “What?” I say, wiping at my eyes.
“I said run!” She grabs me roughly by the shoulder. And then Isee.
A wall of something, a broad swath of particles rising up into the sky.
“What is it?” I sputter through cracked lips, legs staggering, unable to orient myself. Cricket releases me, and I pivot my head up, gulping down the dry air, a cough at the back of my throat.
“Dust storm!” Noah says. His hands are on me now, fingers through mine, tugging, while my eyes continue to blink. “We have to move!” he yells.
Cricket is already running, a good distance away. And when Iswivel to look behind me, I see the wall of dust—a plume of awful darkness churning across the barren farmland. I’ve never seen anything like it, and for a moment I feel mesmerized, watching it grow taller, wider, meaner. It’s heading straight for us.
“Vega!” Noah shouts, his face a few inches from mine. “We have to run. Now!”
And then my legs are moving, pumping beneath me, dust rising up around my face, filling my lungs. I can’t breathe, but I keep moving, the ground soft, my heart hammering.Run, run, my mind repeats, the only command, narrowed down to a single thought.
Beside me, Noah’s eyes flash over to me.
But where are we going?
There’s no escape out here. No shelter. The sky turns from chalky blue to brown, like Medicine Bow River after a storm, mud and silt clouding it over. Only seconds now, moments, until it reaches us. I suck in a breath—maybe the last one—and I clamp my eyelids closed.
The wall of dust slams into our backs. A force that yanks me free of Noah’s grasp, our fingers separating, and nearly drops me to the ground.
Shit,I think. It’s too late.
I lose sight of Cricket; of Noah, who had been right beside me. I lose all sense of direction, of my own hands, my own feet beneath me. I try to touch my face, to clear my eyes of dust, but it’s useless—there’s too much wind and dirt. It’s everywhere. In my ears. My nostrils. I feel like I’m suffocating.
I try to yell for Noah—he had been right there—but only a cough comes out. I need water. I need the river.
I’ll turn back,I think. I’ll return to the ravine and the river.No,my mind screams.That’s too far. Hours behind us now.
