Storm (Swipe Series)

home,” Hailey told her own.
    “Yeah,” Logan said. “And sleep.”

    As Logan and Hailey rode off into the vast, empty plains, a serene silence fell over them. For miles and miles, neither Hailey nor Logan said a single thing.
    And that whole time, all Logan could think was—disbelievingly, miraculously, thankfully, so thankfully— We’ve won .
    Whatever else happens next . . . on this front, right here, right now . . . the Dust has won.
    Lily’s mission was complete.

TEN
    TRUMPET CALL
    1
    G RAY SKIES HAD NEVER BEEN MORE WELCOME overhead. Dane and Hans and Tabitha stood out in the harvest field, hands open to the storm, letting the drops kiss their skin and wet their hair and soak their clothes. They watched pools of water seep into the ground, watched it rain down in sheets, watched the corn and squash and sweet potatoes grow, watched the crops lift up and fill with life, practically right before their very eyes.
    “What happened?” Hans asked. “What changed?”
    Dane opened his mouth and let the rain hit his tongue. “No one knows for sure what’s happening out west. But in her broadcast last night, soon as the rains started, Grandma Sonya spilled the beans on a secret she’d been keeping—that apparently Logan was asking about the weather mill a few weeks ago, wondering how to work the controls . . .”
    “You mean those friends of yours are at it again? You think somehow they’re behind all this?” Tabitha actually had to raise her voice to speak over the patter of rainwater.
    “Not sure,” Dane said, squinting as the drops splashed against his face. “But it’s good to know someone in this Global Union’s still on our side.”
    That night, in the damp, underground homes of the Village of the Valley, under ceilings they were happy to see leak and between walls that shimmered with trickling rivulets, Dane and Hans and Tabby and all the rest of the Markless villagers in Appalachia ate their fill for the first time in two and a half weeks. No one went to bed hungry. No one worried about next month’s food. There was laughter at dinner again.
    2
    A week passed. Logan and Hailey made their way along the Unmarked River, pushing hard ’til they were far enough out from Lahoma that their notoriety might decrease a bit. They rode their horses through the rain and the mud. They stopped at the homes of the Unmarked River’s fishers, staying with captains and lifesavers all along the way.
    Finally, they made it to a farm that could shelter and feed the horses they’d ridden from out west.
    “It’s all right,” the farmer had told them. “No trouble at all, in fact. Plenty of hay to spare, now that the rains are back.”

    Once inside, Logan and Hailey eagerly dried off, patting themselves down with a dish towel in the farmer’s kitchen. They sat around a small table, slouching and cold and exhausted.
    “I’ve never seen cloud seeding this intense!” Logan said, shouting over the patter of rain on the farmhouse’s roof.
    “Gotta make up for lost time, I guess,” Hailey said, and Logan agreed.
    It wasn’t until late that night that the two of them even broached the topic of next steps.
    In fact, it wasn’t until Hailey tuned into her mother’s radio show that the discussion really got going. It was an on-air coughing fit that started it.
    “Your mom gonna be okay?” Logan asked.
    “Yeah,” Hailey said. “She’s had that cough for years, ever since she started working at the nanomaterials plant.”
    “I know,” Logan said. “But it’s gotten worse. I’m sorry to hear it; it must be wearing her down . . .”
    “Actually,” Hailey said. “Since you bring it up . . . I’ve been thinking recently, with this latest crisis behind us . . . maybe now might be good for me to be there for her, you know, in the weeks and months ahead . . .”
    “ There for her?” Logan specified. “Actually there?”
    A breeze ran through the farmhouse and blew a little of Hailey’s hair into her eyes. She brushed it away and tucked it behind her ear. “We’ve had a nice run, you and me. Beacon to Sierra to Lahoma . . .” Hailey swallowed hard. “That’s a whole lot farther than I ever expected we’d get.
    “But I’m close to home now, Logan. DOME’s not after me like they’re after you. DOME still doesn’t even know who I am. I can live there, still, in Spokie, with my mom. I can take care of her. Her cough and all . . . all those hours at work, and now the radio program on top of