“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.