“I thought you were him,” I said once I had recuperated, if it were possible after being that devastated—again.
“Shepley?” he asked.
“Did you find him?”
Reyes hesitated, but then he shook his head. “Not yet. But I’ve found you twice, so I can find him once.”
I wasn’t sure if I could feel more hopeless. Emporia had been hit hard. An entire wall of the hospital had been ripped away, insulation and glass littering the ground. Cars in the parking lot were stacked on top of one another. One was sitting in the branches of a tree. Thousands of people were without power and running water, and they were the lucky ones. Hundreds were without homes, and dozens were missing.
Amid the devastation, I couldn’t fathom where to begin to look for Shepley. I was on foot and had no supplies. He was out there somewhere, and he was waiting for me. I had to find him.
I stood up. Reyes helped.
“Take it slow,” he said. “I’ll try to find you a quiet place to wait for him.”
“I’ve been waiting for an hour. The only reason he wouldn’t have come to the car or here to find me is …” I swallowed the pain, refusing to cry again. “What if he’s hurt?”
“Ma’am”—he stepped into my path—“I can’t let you—”
“America.”
“Pardon?”
“My name. It’s America. I know you’re busy. I’m not asking for your help, but I am asking you to step out of my way.”
He frowned. “You just got your arm sewed up, and you’re going to hike out of town? It’s going to be dark in a few hours.”
“I’m a big girl.”
“Not very smart though.”
I craned my neck at him. “Here’s your blanket.”
“Keep it,” he said.
I sidestepped, but he countered.
“Get out of my way, Reyes.”
I tried to step around him, but he blocked me again, sighing.
“I’m getting ready to go back out on patrol. Give me five minutes, and you can ride along.”
I looked at him in disbelief. “I can’t ride along! I have to find Shepley!”
“I know,” he said, looking around and gesturing for me to keep my voice down. “I’m going out that way. We’ll both keep an eye out for him.”
It took me a moment to reply. “Really?”
“But at dark …”
“I understand,” I said, nodding. “You can bring me back here.”
“I’ll ask around. There will be a Red Cross shelter. Maybe FEMA will be set up by then. You can’t spend the night here. You’ll never be able to sleep.”
I couldn’t smile, but I wanted to. “Thank you.”
He fidgeted, uncomfortable with the appreciation. “Yeah. Cruiser’s out this way,” he said, gesturing to the parking lot.
I slid Shepley’s backpack over my shoulders and then followed Reyes outside, under the stormy sky. My hair still damp, I twisted it and then knotted it into a bun, away from my face. My feet slid against the wet soles of my sandals, my toes already aching from the chilly air.
“Where are you from?” Reyes asked, pressing the keyless entry on his key ring.
We both settled into our seats. The fabric seats felt warm and soft.
“I grew up in Wichita, but I go to school in Eakins, Illinois.”
“Oh, at Eastern State?”
I nodded.
“My brother went to school there. Small world.”
“God, these seats are like memory foam and velvet.” I sighed, leaning back.
Reyes made a face. “You’ve been uncomfortable for too long. They’re more like toilet padding and tweed.”
I breathed out a laugh through my nose, but I still couldn’t form a smile.
His eyes softened. “We’re going to find him, America.”
“If he doesn’t find me first.”
Shepley
Rain spattered on my eyelids, tapping me awake. I blinked, covering my eyes with my hand, and my shoulder instantly complained … then my back … and then everything else. I pushed myself upright, finding myself sitting in a field of green plants. I guessed it was soybeans. Debris was all around me—everything from clothes to toys to pieces of wood. Fifty yards ahead, light glinted off the twisted metal of a bicycle. I grimaced.
My shoulder felt stiff as I tried to stretch it, and I growled when the sting turned into fire shooting through my arm. My once white T-shirt was soiled with mud mixed with crimson at the site of the pain.
I stretched the collar with my fingers to see a dirty mess of a laceration that spanned six inches from just above my heart to the edge of my left shoulder. When I moved, a foreign object moved with it, stabbing me from the inside. I touched the skin, sucking in air through my teeth. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but whatever had sliced open my skin was still in there.
With clenched teeth, I spread the skin with my fingers. I could see layers of skin and muscle and then something else, but it wasn’t bone. It was a piece of brown wood, about an inch thick. Using my fingers like tweezers, I dug inside, crying out while fishing the huge splinter from my shoulder. The squishing sound of blood and tissue combined with the discomfort made my head swim, but an inch at a time, I extracted the stake and let it fall to the ground. I fell back, looking up at the weeping sky, waiting for the dizziness and nausea to subside, still trying to wade through my last memories.