My hands slash the air in front of me, hoping to see some outline, some feature, of the land ahead of me. But my legs give out and I drop to my knees, wheezing, coughing.Choking.
Too much dust.
The sun is gone, blotted out by the thick, brown cloud. Only darkness now.
I can’t see where I am, can’t see what happened to Cricket and Noah. I press my hands to my eyes—I’ll wait it out, wait for it to end. I’ll sit here, lay my head on the ground, and wait for it to pass. But fear weaves through my thoughts, blood pounding in my ears, so I recite the names of stars in my head:Bellatrix, Alhena, Caster, and Pollux.I imagine their formation, their placement in the sky. I count the constellations, number them. I let their patterns become the only thought in my mind.
I lose myself in them.
I disappear.
But then, without warning, through the blur of sand and wind… a hand touches my shoulder. It yanks me upward.
A voice in my ear, steady, firm.Noah.
“This way,” he says. “Stay close.”
Relief spikes in my chest, and his hand slips through mine—a tether I refuse to lose again. My legs take a few staggering steps until I find my balance. I still can’t see, but Noah squeezes my palm and pulls me with him, as if he knows where he’s going. Two phantoms pushing through the wall of dust.
Something appears ahead of us.
My feet collide with a series of wooden steps, and we’re moving up them, onto a porch. Cricket is there, ahead of us, her fist pounding against a door. She’s shouting, pleading.
The door swings open and we stumble inside.
The howling of the wind becomes dull, quiet.
I’m on a floor, Noah beside me. Cricket a couple of feet away. We cough, heave up deep exhales of dust, lungs burning with it.
“Don’t move,” someone says. I try to push back, thinking the order to stay put is a hostile one. But then there is a cup in front of my face, and water against my lips. “Drink,” the voice says.
I gulp it down greedily, desperately, choking on it. And then there is water streaming over my eyes onto the floor, washing away the layer of dust.
“Shouldn’t have been out in that,” the voice says. A man’s voice—gravelly, hoarse. “Could have killed you all.”
Beside me, Noah pushes himself up, then reaches a hand down to me.
Cricket is already in a chair, coughing, eyes pinched closed.
“I’ll bring more water,” the man says.
I try to see, to focus on where we are, the features of the house around me, but my eyes burn each time I blink. Like gravel caught beneath my eyelids.
We’re in a stranger’s house.
And I worry we’ve just fled one danger and staggered into another.
Time passes—maybe I fell asleep. Noah and I are on a couch now, heads lolled back, breathing,breathing.
I hear footsteps across the floor; then another cup with water is placed in my hands. I drink, then give it to Noah, his hands clasped briefly around mine. Familiar.
“Eat,” the man says, a voice moving around us that slips in and out. A bowl of something is set on my lap.
I touch the spoon; smell the dull scent. “Rice,” I say to Noah. I eat from the bowl, several bites of the salted grain, then hand it to him.
“You can sleep here tonight,” the man says.
I lift my chin, squinting, trying to make him out—this man who let us in out of the dust storm. “What time is it?” I ask.
