I sucked in a breath, wiping the rain and tears from my cheeks. “Please find your way back to me,” I whispered.
Red and blue lights reflected off the wet asphalt, and I looked over my shoulder to see a police cruiser parked behind me. An officer hopped out and rushed around, kneeling next to me, and he placed a gentle hand on my back. Reyes was engraved on a bronze name badge pinned to his front shirt pocket. He tipped his blue felt hat, and the bronze star fastened to the front said Kansas Highway Patrol.
“Are you hurt?” Reyes reached out with his thick arms, wrapping a wool blanket around my shoulders.
I didn’t realize how cold I’d been until the sweet relief of warmth sank into my skin.
The officer loomed over me, bigger than Travis. He took off his hat, revealing a clean-shaven scalp. His expression was severe, whether he meant for it to be or not. Two deep lines separated his bushy black eyebrows, and his eyes sharpened as he looked down upon me.
I shook my head.
“Is that your vehicle?”
“My boyfriend’s. We took shelter beneath the overpass.”
Reyes looked around. “Well, that was stupid. Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” When I said the words aloud, a new pain blazed through me, and I crumbled, barely catching myself as my palms flattened on the wet road.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the backpack in my arms.
“His … it’s his. He handed it to me before he …”
A high-pitch chirp sounded, and then Reyes spoke, “Two-nineteen to Base H. Two-nineteen to Base G. Over.”
“Two-nineteen, go ahead,” a woman’s voice said through the speaker. Her tone was flat, not at all overwhelmed.
“I’ve got a group of people who were taking shelter under the Highway Fifty and I Thirty-Five junction.” He scanned the area, seeing injured people scattered up and down the turnpike. “The tornado passed through here. Ten-forty-nine to this location. We’re going to need medical assistance. As many as they can spare.”
“Copy that, two-nineteen. Ambulances are being dispatched to your location.”
“Ten-four,” Reyes said, returning his attention to me.
I shook my head. “I can’t go anywhere. I have to look for him. He might be hurt.”
“He might be. But you can’t look for him until you get that taken care of.” Reyes nodded toward my forearm.
A two-inch gash had opened my skin, and blood was mixing with rain, streaming crimson from the wound onto the asphalt.
“Oh, Jesus,” I said, holding my arm. “I don’t even know how that happened. But I … I can’t leave. He’s out here somewhere.”
“You’re leaving. You can come back,” Reyes said. “You can’t help him right now.”
“He’ll come here. Back to the car.”
Reyes nodded. “Is he a smart guy?”
“He’s fucking brilliant.”
Reyes managed a small smile. It softened his intimidating glare. “Then the hospital is the second place he’ll look.”
America
I touched the bandage on my arm, the skin around it still pink and angry from being cleaned and stitched. I felt more comfortable in the pair of baby-blue scrubs the nurse had given me to change into than my wet and cold tank top and denim shorts. I had been sitting in the ER waiting room for an hour, still holding the Reyes’ wool blanket, trying to think of how to tell Jack and Deana what had happened to their son—not that I could anyway. The phone lines were down.