Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 75240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
I followed the crowd, and hunkered down with my girl, staring at the huge fucking funnel cloud that was heading our way.
“Goddamn,” some man said in awe beside me.
I didn’t look over at him.
I couldn’t.
Then, just like that, what I was looking at and was headed straight for us, was gone as if it’d never been.
The train whistle, which had likely been the tornado itself, was no longer in attendance, either. Leaving the entire overpass quiet. So fucking quiet.
“Where’d it go?” someone yelled. “Can we go?”
That question was answered moments later when the rain picked back up.
And the hail.
Hail the size of a fucking softball.
Needless to say, we chose to stay put until we could safely make it back to the ambulance.
If we could see to drive it. The glass was probably smashed. We’re just lucky that tornado didn’t take the whole rig with it.
My phone pinged, and I pulled it out, unable not to look at it.
It was a picture that Angie had sent me of the hallway of the ICU.
“Motherfucker,” I growled, my eyes taking in the pandemonium.
“You know,” the young girl in my arms said with amusement. “My momma gets mad at me when I curse. You could be a bad influence on me.”
I snorted and pocketed my phone without replying.
She didn’t have time for a reply.
“What your mom doesn’t know, won’t hurt her,” I muttered.
“I heard that!” the mother, somewhere under this stupid overpass with us, cried out.
I looked backwards over my shoulder and saw PD with his arm around his patient, the mother of the little girl in my arms. Then further to Tai, who had the little sister of my patient. She was about six or seven, and tiny.
“Sorry!” I called out.
Nobody answered, and I chose to take that as a good sign.
“Who was that on the phone?” the girl asked.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
I hadn’t had a chance to get it before I was yanking her out of the car like I normally would have.
“Macey,” she grimaced.
I tried not to think about how badly her arm was hurting her.
It was likely broken.
Not to mention had I had time, I would’ve ascertained the rest of her injuries before yanking her out of the car like I had. There was no telling what kind of problems she had.
“That was my girlfriend,” I answered her. “She’s working in the NICU today, and she sent me a picture where they had to pull out all their babies into the hallway.”
The moment the word baby was out of my mouth, my breath stalled in my lungs.
Although it was bad, having to pull babies into the hallway that were barely clinging to life, my mind was set on another baby.
A baby that’d started daycare only a few hours ago.
Elise.
My eyes closed, and I prayed whatever kind of fucked up weather this was would stop.
At least long enough for me to go check on Elise and to alleviate my fears.
***
“Jesus,” Drew groaned as he pulled out of the hospital. “This is so fucked up.”
It was.
You could see the exact path the tornado had taken.
“You didn’t want to stop in to see Angie?” Tai asked, looking at me.
I shook my head. No, I had other plans.
And I was sick to my stomach when I thought about those plans.
“Well then, we need to go get this repaired so we can go back in service,” Drew muttered, indicating the cracked windshield.
He was driving with his head out the window so he could see, and the captain would likely have a conniption if he realized how bad it actually was.
“Longview, Tyler, and the volunteer areas surrounding us have already responded to our area. We can pull over and stop, get this fixed,” Booth continued. “You’re just going to wreck us and put us out of commission.”
“Well it doesn’t look like it matters anyway,” Drew sighed as he pulled to the side of the road. “Road’s blocked. Cars everywhere.”
We all got out and looked.
There were overturned cars nearly every fifty feet, and medical personnel floating around damn near everywhere.
I nodded at a Longview paramedic that I recognized, and he nodded back, eyes going back to the man that he was helping.
“I have to go to the daycare,” I couldn’t wait anymore. “I have to go check on her. They’re not answering the phone, and I need to make sure she’s okay.”
Booth looked over at me, followed by PD, and they both nodded before falling in step with me.
“Well, I’ll stay with the rig and y’all can all go. Didn’t you say it was only a few blocks from here?” Tai asked.
I nodded, already starting to walk in the direction of the daycare.
The daycare was the perfect location for us.
It was close to both of our jobs and school. It was close to Alec—who was home today since he didn’t work on Fridays—and it was the best one in the entire city.