Let me tell you, seeing through a sandstorm should not be on your bucket list.

Before the storm really hit, Rick spread the rest of the parachute material (really that stuff is like an all in one purpose thing) over the ends. I could see the internal debate of alerting the searcher's presence vs us getting buried in sand. In the end, it was the possibility of alerting the searcher's presence.

So even though they were strapped down, they still voomped back and forth every time the wind changed. Making me feel like I was about to be sucked out of a flying aeroplane every time it moved.

I slept on top of my vest pack, squinting my eyes shut to try and block out the noise. The wind mimicked a thousand ghosts screaming. Perhaps they were the wandering souls from the facility, I did my best not to listen for Aria's scream.

Sand managed to find ways to get in, Ricky did his best to block those edges but gave up after some time. Eventually, he sat down watching the sides carefully for any signs of rip or tear.

After the initial horror of the sandstorm, I began to be lulled to sleep by the howling. Soon enough, it was my track to sleep.

...

I woke up before Ricky, his head was resting on his vest pack and the material was wrapped around his face so that I could only see his eyes. They had softly closed and were still. He was very peaceful in unconsciousness, innocent.

Almost felling like I'd violated his trust by seeing him sleep, I turned away quickly and pressed my hands against the material at my end of the pipe. It was firm on the other side and there was a slice of light at the top. We'd been partially buried in.

I slowly tore away the material, large enough for a person like me to scramble through. The weight of the sand on the other side pushed through and with a loud rip, the rest of the sand spilled in. I gasped a curse. Looking over to a still-sleeping Ricky, the sand looked like it was going to cover him whole the suddenly slowed to a stop, right in front of his face.

I breathed a sigh of relief and then began to wiggle through the opening created. It took a few wild kicks and hushed profanities to finally get out. When I finally did, emerging from the hole was like coming out of my room after a seriously intense NaNoWriMo.

I squinted for about five minutes as I made my way into the ruins. The walls were blackened and I scratched into them with my nail. The houses were buried a couple of feet of sand deep. I found the most formed one; it had the higher part of three walls; the corner facing the main intersection had blown in. Some of the features of the house were still recognisable; the living room has taken the most damage, to was connected to the kitchen, some of the cupboards still hung open on rusted hinges. I walked through what was once the hallway, in the first room to my left, there was seemed was a bathroom; the roofing had fallen in and was buried under sand. The room to my right was the master bedroom, there was lots of sand lining the floor but I could see a King-sized bed, or what was left of it, peeking through. The cupboard to the side had been shattered to splinters.

I kept walking.

The next set of rooms, on my left was a laundry with a bit of imagination, I could figure that backed onto a lawn of some sort. To my right, was a bedroom. There were two, single beds pushed to opposite sides of the room, a cupboard at the end of each. Out of all the rooms in the house, this one was the most intact. The sheets, although laden with sand, brittle and sun-bleached, were salvageable for the desperate. The roofing had still caved in, giving the sun an opportunity to leech the colour out but the place was almost preserved in time.

I walked to the smaller bed, my fingers brushing the faded photographs tacked against the bed. Some had fallen down behind the bed and were on the floor. I looked at the photos; an arrangement of friends grinning at the camera, a family portrait, a girl and a guy. The girl in every one of them seemed vaguely familiar. She had hair that I wasn't sure if it were brown or blonde from the sun exposure but dark, cheery eyes. The familiarity was on the tip of my tongue.

I drew back, these people were dead. Here I was, disturbing the desert peace they had.

"They came through the night." I jerked up and saw Ricky casually leaning on the doorframe. He'd pulled down his mouth covering so that it hung around his neck like a deformed scarf. The area around his eyes were slightly redder than the rest of his face. He breathed deeply. "It was easier, they couldn't be seen that way."

"What?"

"It was still early in the war so they still had humane methods. They drugged everyone unconscious with some sort of gas before deploying the bombs."

"You were here?" I asked, my words on a whisper, I looked down at the photographs in my hands, and I got it. The girl's eyes, I'd seen them somewhere else, Ricky's eyes. Not his rugged glare that he got every time he looked at me but the cheery glint I'd seen when we were in the helicopter and Ricky and Anastasia were bantering back and forth. This was Ricky's home.

He nodded twice. "I had two older brothers, they lived in the next house over, my older sister and I still stayed with our parents, it was a small place. Mostly exporting weird stuff. There was never room for secrets in this town. But because of its vicinity to the Institution, which had just opened up, the Council decided this would be the perfect base."

Ricky stood and gingerly sat down on the bed, testing its strength. "They'd sent their first undercover fangirl to the Institute. Carlos Ren, one could say he was the prodigy of the Council. Back in the day, out of the Council, we had a leader to made the bigger calls. He was her son. So he went in, and I guess you could say, converted, back to uh, being normal." Ricky ran a hand over the doona blanket. "So he dobbed in all the secrets which set off the Great Destruction. This place was the first, all the fanpeople escaped without warning the townspeople. I was about twelve or thirteen. So that night, the bombers came and set the place alight. I covered my mouth, and carried my sister as far as I could walk. She'd inhaled too much of the stuff and was dead in my arms as I walked throughout the night. I didn't notice until morning."

Ricky's eyes weren't exactly sad, they were more... Self-punishing. In his eyes I could see that if he'd acted earlier then he sister might be alive and well. Death was a natural occurrence, hers was just too soon.

"I was found by the escapees and joined," he shrugged, the moment of self-loathing had passed. "And now here we are."

"Ricky... I'm." I tried to speak, in this moment, I literally did not know what to say. What could I say? "I'm sorry, I know that doesn't help, but people shouldn't have to go through that, especially so young."

"It's okay Princess." Ricky put on a brave smile for me. "It in the past." Under that smile, there was just pain and regret.

I honestly feel like that end bit was poorly written. Thoughts? The action should start up again soon and we should see what the heck the bad blood is about. I can believe I've updated every night for like three times in a row. I'm getting into that cycle, updating every night one book or another. For ya'll waiting for Covert to update, I'm getting there... Not. Sorry. This one has my interest for now.

If you have any questions please comment otherwise you probably won't get your answer. FYI this is the first book (and probably only) book in this series. I know it's probably a bit confusing because I haven't explained something properly but I'll do my best to help.

Lots of love,
Agent out.