Something Beautiful (Beautiful #3) Read online

  I smiled, watching her stumble over the words. She was trying to tell me something without saying it, and that was something she wasn’t comfortable with. America always said what she wanted. It was one of the million reasons I loved her.

  “I wish I could go back to that moment. I need a do-over.”

  “A do-over?” I asked.

  She was both hopeful and frustrated. I opened my mouth to ask why, but quarter-sized hail began to pelt the windshield.

  “Shit. Shit!” I yelled, imagining every dent being pounded into the body. I slowed down, looking for an exit.

  “What do we do?” America asked, sitting up and planting her hands on the seat.

  “How far out are we?” I asked.

  America scrambled for her phone. She tapped on it a few times. “We’re just outside Emporia. So, a little over an hour?” she yelled over the sound of rain and a thousand ice chunks nailing the paint at forty miles per hour.

  I slowed down even more, seeing the glow of brake lights from vehicles pulled over on the shoulder. The windshield wipers were echoing my heartbeat in a fast but steady rhythm, like the dance music at The Red.

  “Shepley?” America said. Worry tinged her voice like before, but she was also afraid.

  “We’re going to be okay. It’ll pass soon,” I said, hoping I was right.

  “But your car!”

  The tail end of the Charger slipped, and I tore my hand away from America’s, using both of mine to navigate the wheel against the skid. We slid across the road, toward the median. I overcorrected, and then the Charger began to fishtail toward the ditch. Hand over hand, I turned the wheel again, taking my foot off the gas. The Charger tilted to the side, and we slipped down a short embankment before landing in a full drainage ditch.

  The water crested at the bottom of my window, the grassy brown river arching and ebbing against the glass, begging to be let in.

  “You okay?” I asked, holding her face in my hands, checking her over.

  America’s eyes bulged. “What … do we—”

  Her phone began to shriek. She took one glance and then showed me the screen.

  “Tornado warning,” she said. “For Emporia. Right now.”

  “We have to get out of here,” I said.

  She nodded and turned around in her seat.

  “Leave the luggage. We can come back for it. We have to go. Now.”

  I rolled down my window. America took the cue, unbuckled her seat belt, and rolled down hers as well. As she began to climb out, I unbuckled but paused. The ring was in my backpack in the backseat.

  “Damn it!” America yelled from the top of the car. “I dropped my phone in the water!”

  The faint rise and fall of tornado sirens blared in the distance as the hail was replaced by rain.

  I reached back for my bag, slipped it over my shoulder, and climbed out of my window, joining America on top. Water was sloshing over the top of the hood. America crossed her bare arms over her chest, shivering in the wind, her hair already becoming saturated with rainwater. In just a pair of shorts, a tank top, and sandals, she was dressed for a hot summer day.

  I took a quick look around, assessed the water, and then jumped off. It barely came to my waist.

  “It’s not deep, baby. Jump.”

  America squinted her eyes against the rain.

  “We have to take shelter, America. Jump to me!”

  She more fell than jumped, and then I helped her across the ditch to the grassy knoll. Cars were parked on both sides of the turnpike, but not all traffic was stopped. A semi blew past us, blowing America’s hair back and soaking us with water.

  America held out her arms at each side, her fingers sprawled out, her mascara running down her cheeks.

  “I don’t see anything, do you?” I asked.

  She shook her head, using her tank top to wipe her face. “That doesn’t mean anything though. They could have reports of circulation or lowering.”

  “That overpass is closer than town. Let’s go there. We can call your parents …”

  A melody of screams echoed behind us, and I glanced back to see what was going on.

  “Shepley!” America screamed, looking southwest in horror, toward the RV park nestled in a patch of trees. The branches were bending, nearly to their breaking point, thrashing helplessly in the raging wind.

  “Fuck,” I said, watching a cloud slowly fall from the sky.

  America

  Wet and freezing, I lifted my shaking hand to point toward the blue finger dangling from the clouds above. Someone shouldered past me, nearly knocking me forward, and I saw a man sprinting toward the overpass, hugging to him a toddler with pigtails and white sandals.

  The turnpike led to an overpass over Highway 170. The RV park was below on one side, and a gas station was on the other side, just a quarter of a mile away.

  Shepley held out his hand. “We should go.”

  “Where?”

  “The overpass.”

  “If it goes over the bridge, we’ll be sucked out,” I said, my teeth beginning to chatter. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was cold or terrified. “The gas station is the safest place!”

  “It’s closer than Emporia. Hopefully, it will miss us.”

  More people ran past us toward the junction, disappearing as they descended down the hill to hide under the bridge. A truck slammed on its brakes in the middle of the turnpike, and seconds later, an SUV rammed the truck. A loud crunching of metal and glass was muted from the growing wind created by the tornado. It had grown larger in just the few seconds when I turned away.

  Shepley signaled for me to wait while he jogged to the wreckage. He peeked in, took a few steps back, and then rushed to check on the driver of the truck. His shoulders slumped. They were all gone.

  “You can’t stay here!” a woman said, tugging on my arm.

  She held hands with a young boy, about ten years old. The whites of his eyes stood out against his dark bronze skin.

  “Mom!” he said, pulling her away.

  “It’s going to plow straight through here! You have to find shelter!” the mother said again, taking off toward the gas station with her son.

  Shepley returned to me, taking my hand. “We have to go,” he said, turning to see dozens of people running toward us from their parked vehicles.

  I nodded, and we began to run. The rain stung my face, blowing horizontally instead of toward the ground, making it hard to see.

  Shepley looked back. “Go!” he said.

  We ran across two lanes and then paused on the far side of the grass median. Traffic was light but still moving in both directions. We stopped for a moment, and then Shepley pulled me forward again, across both lanes of oncoming traffic and then down the on ramp toward the gas station. A tall sign overhead read Flying J. People were running from the parking lot toward the overpass.

  Shepley stopped, and my chest was heaving.

  “Where are you going?” Shepley asked no one in particular.

  A man holding the hand of a grade school–aged girl ran past us, pointing ahead. “It’s full! They can’t fit any more!”

  “Shit!” I cried. “Shit! What do we do?”

  Shepley touched my cheek, worry tightening the skin around his eyes. “Pray it doesn’t hit us.”

  We ran together to two bridges that allowed the turnpike passage over the top of Highway 170. Large concrete pillars loomed over us, creating the underbelly where the metal met the hillside. The crevices of both bridges were already pregnant with frightened people.

  “There’s no room,” I said, feeling hopeless.

  “We’ll make room,” Shepley said.

  As we climbed the steep incline of the concrete hill, cars that were still crossing overhead sounded like bass drums. Parents had tucked their children into the deepest corners they could find and covered them with their own bodies. Couples huddled together, and a group of four teenage girls wiped their wet cheeks, alternating between cussing at their cell p
hones and praying.

  “There,” Shepley said, pulling me beneath the western bridge. “It’s going to hit the east bridge first.” He led me to the center where there was a small space just big enough for one of us. “Climb up, Mare,” he said, pointing to the small lip preceding the two-feet deep concrete niche.

  I shook my head. “There’s no room for you.”

  He frowned. “America, we don’t have time for this.”

  “It’s coming!” someone from the west bridge cried.

  Shepley grabbed each side of my face and planted a hard kiss on my lips. “I love you. We’re going to be okay. I promise. Get up there.”

  He tried to guide me, but I resisted.

  “Shep—” I said over the wind.

  “Right now!” he demanded. He’d never spoken to me like that before.

  I swallowed and then obeyed.

  Shepley looked around, huffing and peeling his soaked T-shirt away from his torso. He noticed a man below holding up his cell phone.

  “Tim! Get up here!” a woman called.

  Tim slicked back his wet dark hair, continuing to point his phone in the direction of the tornado. “It’s getting close!” he called back, smiling with excitement.

  Children cried out, and a few adults did, too.

  “Is this happening?” I said, feeling my heart thundering against my rib cage.

  Shepley squeezed my hand. “Look at me, Mare. It’ll be over soon.”

  I nodded quickly, leaning over to see Tim still filming. He took a step back and then began scrambling up the incline.

  I pulled Shepley as close to me as I could, and he held me tight. Time seemed to pause. It was quiet—no wind, no crying, almost as if the whole world had held its breath in anticipation of the next few seconds. This was a moment in time that would change the lives of everyone who had taken cover under the wrong bridges.

  Too quickly, peace was over, and the wind began to roar like a dozen military jets were slowly flying low overhead. The grass in the median below began to whip, and I felt like I was under a mile of water, the change in air pressure feeling heavy and disorienting. At first, I was pushed back a bit, and then I saw Tim being taken off his feet. He slammed to the ground, clawed at the concrete, and then grass before being sucked into the sky by an invisible monster.

  Screams surrounded me, and my fingers dug into Shepley’s back. He leaned toward me, but as the funnel made its way to the other side of the east bridge and then ours, the air changed. Another person cried as she lost her grip and was pulled out from our hiding place. One by one, anyone not tucked inside the nook where the hill met the bridge was ripped away.

  “Hold on!” Shepley yelled, but his voice was snuffed out. He used every bit of his strength to push me further into the crevice.

  I felt his body pulling away from me. His arms tightened around me, but when I began to scoot forward, he released me altogether and dug his toes into the concrete, leaning into the wind.

  “Shep!” I yelled, watching as his fingers turned white, pressing against the ground.

  He struggled for a moment to hand me his backpack.

  I slid it over one arm and then reached out for him. “Take my hand!”

  His feet began to slide, and he looked up at me, recognition and terror on his face. “Close your eyes, baby.”

  Once he said the words, he was gone, whipped out like he weighed nothing. I screamed his name, but my voice was lost in the deafening wind.

  The air pressure changed, and the suction stopped. I ran down to the bottom, seeing a dark blue twisting rope barreling down the turnpike, tossing semis like they were toys. I crawled out, and then I ran from beneath the bridge, looking around in disbelief, feeling the sting of the rain on every inch of my exposed skin.

  “Shepley!” I screamed, bending over. I held tight to his backpack, hugging it to me as if it were him.

  The rain faded away, and I watched as the tornado grew in size, gracefully gliding toward Emporia.

  I sprinted to the Charger, stopping at the top of the ditch. The turnpike was now a path of destruction with mangled cars and random pieces of debris lying everywhere. The wreckage from the semi and SUV were no longer there, a large piece of tin lying in its place.

  Just moments before, Shepley and I had been on a road trip to see my parents. Now, I was in the middle of what looked like a war zone.

  The water was still sloshing over the hood of the Charger.

  “We were just in there,” I whispered to no one. “He was just in there!” My chest heaved, but no matter how many breaths I took, I couldn’t get enough air. My hands hit my knees, and then my knees hit the ground. A sob tore through my throat, and I wailed.

  I hoped he would jog up to me and reassure me that he was okay. The longer I waited by the Charger without him, the more I panicked. He wasn’t coming back. Maybe he was lying somewhere, hurt. I wasn’t sure what to do. If I left to look for him, he might come to the Charger, but I wouldn’t be there.

  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.

  The hospital had become a steady stream of the dead or dying, the wounded, and the lost. A dozen or more children had been brought in, covered in mud but otherwise without a scratch. From what I could tell, they’d been separated from their parents. Twice that number of parents had arrived, looking for their missing children.

  The waiting room had been turned into a triage of sorts, and I ended up standing against the wall, unsure of what I was waiting for. A very round woman sat a few feet away, hugging four young children, all their faces smudged with dirt and tears. The woman wore a bright green shirt that said Kids First Daycare in childlike font. I shivered, knowing the children she was holding were only a precious few of those who’d been in her care.

  My feet began to trudge toward the door, but a hand cupped my shoulder. For half a second, relief and overwhelming joy washed over me like a tidal wave. My eyes filled with tears before I even turned around. Even though Reyes was a welcome sight, the disappointment of him not being Shepley sent me over the edge.

  I choked on a sob as my knees buckled, and Reyes helped me to the ground.

  “Whoa!” he said. “Whoa, lady. Take it easy.” His thick arms were as big as my head, and he had a permanent deep wrinkle between his brows. It was even deeper now as he watched my state of mind spiral.

  “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.