Ash and Cinder

6| Storm

We keep a steady pace, heading east into the foothills of the mountains. We stick to the patches of wooded areas where we can. A majority of the terrain is grassland, but the many rivers and streams are lined with tall pine trees and bushes that droop over the riverbank. The water flows downstream, providing us with a well-covered path to travel. The hills get steeper, and while my muscles are conditioned for this, my bones ache. The throbbing in my knee has gotten exponentially worse as the storm draws nearer, but I grit my teeth and march on. I can only imagine that the slant will get steeper and steeper as we go along. After all, we're headed straight at the Urals.

Delilah has a permanent frown, and Piper keeps casting uneasy peeks at the sky. King lags, breathing heavier than the rest of us. The steady pace wears on him, and I keep waiting for the moment he drops. I feel bad for him. The Whitecoats might have given me constant pain, but at least I can breathe and run at the same time. Maverick should have taken him and the others somewhere safer. If something happens to them, it will be on me.

I catch myself staring up at the roiling cloud that eats up the sky between us and the dark northern horizon. Bolts of bright gold lightning snap free of the growling thunderhead as the wind picks up. A few minutes ago, Maverick sent Sky to check out what was going on below the storm. If he reports back that the storm is more than a bad rain shower, we can use the time before it hits to find shelter. That shouldn't be too hard. From what I've seen, caves dot the landscape like braille.

With any luck, we'll only clip the edge of the storm. But the creaking of my warped bones and the heavy scent of ozone hanging in the air tell me that my luck ran out a long time ago.

The blur of orange and tan comes tearing from the north, a dust tail kicking up in Sky's wake as he speeds towards us. By the looks of it, he's moving much faster than he was headed there. That's a bad sign.

He yelps something unintelligible as he plows into the group. He slams down on his heels, skidding to a stop barely short of body-slamming King, bouncing back on the balls of his feet. Words fly a mile per minute from his mouth while rainwater runs down his freckled face and plasters his ginger hair to his forehead. "We have to haul serious arse right now, or we won't have any arse left to haul later."

Maverick springs into action less than two words into Sky's warning.

"Go, run!" He shoves Delilah and Piper between their shoulder blades to get them moving faster before breaking into a run himself. The rest of us, finally processing what Sky said, follow suit. The wind swirls between the tree trunks, setting the hair on the back of my arms on end. The trees groan in anticipation, and a nearby stream that was bubbling before is roaring now. We don't have much time.

"How bad is it?" King calls, or rather, wheezes. He's already out of breath from the trek, if we don't find a cave before the storm hits, I'm not sure he'll survive it. Sky, now running only slightly faster than me, throws his hands in the air to pantomime an explosion.

I want to convince myself that he's exaggerating, but the guy is soaked from head to toe and winded like he had to wrestle his way out of the rain. I grit my teeth and lean into the run. The woods we entered not long ago whizz by on either side. My calves burn and my lungs ache. Deep down in my bones each step vibrates dully. I'm not a sprinter, and I'm less of a runner. The Whitecoats made us run for hours on treadmills, side-by-side until we all collapsed one at a time. The running labs were the worst. The duels were bad, but at least I knew I had a chance at winning them.

Rain pelts down, soft for now but not for long. The only sound audible above the howling wind is the crash and rumble of the flooding stream. It's closer than before, so either we're angled towards it and we're about to run out of land to walk on, or it's swelling dangerously fast and we have a flash flood to worry about on top of everything else. A night in a damp cave, sleeping in an inch of water, isn't appealing. But I'd rather have that than nothing.