Reyes slowed, looking up. “That’s Delores. It’s her job to be calm, but also, nothing rattles that woman. She’s been doing this since before I was born.”
Delores’s voice came over the radio again. “All units be advised, a tornado is on the ground, traveling north, northeast. Current location is Prairie Street and South Avenue.”
Delores continued to repeat the report while Reyes’s eyebrows pulled together, and he began frantically searching the sky.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“We’re a block north of that location.”
Shepley
The wind blew in clusters of rain, soaking the tile and toppling chairs. Several men with hospital badges rushed over with a large piece of plywood, hammers, and nails, and then they got to work covering the broken glass. A few more swept up the glistening pieces of glass that had scattered onto the floor.
Chief stood and started to walk over to where the maintenance men worked. Just as he began to chat with one of the men, he glanced out the window. Then he turned on his heels and yelled, “Everybody, move!”
He grabbed a woman and leaped just as a compact car punched through the plywood and the remaining windows, coming to a halt on its side in the middle of the waiting room.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, wailing and yelling filled the room. Brandi turned the children she’d been holding over to me, and she ran over to the car, checking the workers and some patients who had been mowed down.
She held her palm on the forehead of a man, blood gushing down his face. “I need a stretcher!”
Chief stirred and then looked up at me with confused eyes.
“You all right?” I asked, hugging the children around me.
He nodded and then helped up the woman he’d pushed out of the way.
“Thank you,” she said, looking around in a daze.
Chief peeked out the hole in the wall that the car had created. “It’s passed.”
He took a step toward the broken bodies around the car but paused when his radio came on.
A deep voice broke through as a man spoke, “Two-nineteen to Base G.”
“Base G. Go ahead,” the dispatcher spoke back.
Chief turned up his radio. He could hear the disguised panic in the officer’s voice.
“Officer down at Highway Fifty and Sherman. My cruiser has been overturned. Multiple fatalities and injuries in this area, including me. Requesting ten-forty-nine to this location. Over,” he said, grunting the last word.
“How badly are you injured, Reyes?” the dispatcher said.
Chief glanced up at me. “I have to go.”
“Not sure,” the officer said. “I was bringing a young woman to the hospital. She’s unconscious. I think her leg is trapped. We’re going to need some hardware. Over.”
“Copy that, two-nineteen.”
“Delores?” Reyes said. “Her boyfriend was reported to be at Newman Regional with the fire chief. Can you radio the hospital to notify?”
“Ten-four, Reyes. You hang in there. We have units on the way.”
I gripped Chief’s arm. “That’s her. America is with that cop.”
“Base G is the Turnpike Highway Patrol. She’s with a state trooper.”
“It doesn’t matter who she’s with. He’s hurt, and she’s stuck in there. He can’t help her.”
Chief turned away from me, but I tightened my grip on his arm.
“Please,” I said. “Take me there.”
Chief made a face, already against the idea. “By the sounds of it, they’re going to have to cut her out of the cruiser. That could take hours. She’s unconscious. She won’t even know you’re there, and you’ll probably just get in the way.”
I swallowed and looked around as I thought. Chief pulled his keys out of his pocket.
“Just …” I sighed. “You don’t have to take me. Just tell me where it is, and I’ll walk.”
“You’ll walk?” Chief said in disbelief. “It’s dark. No electricity means no streetlights. No moon because of the clouds.”
“I have to do something!” I yelled.