It was going to happen, going to hit them straight on.
Dr. Allen Jacobson wrapped his arms around the nurse next to him and yanked her behind the intake counter. It was the two of them now. Everyone else had evacuated the ER with the warning siren and headed toward the inner corridors, following the hospital’s tornado warning plan. But this nurse had been ahead of him in the parking lot.
He thought. He hadn’t been paying much attention. Just running from the storm. He hadn’t even looked close to enough to see which nurse it was.
The woman and her daughter who’d come in after everything was secured were curled on the floor together a good twenty feet away from him and the nurse.
Allen wouldn’t be able to get to them. To get them away from the glass entryway.
Glass could be so deadly.
The roar of the wind drowned out their screams.
Glass shattered around them. It hadn’t stopped. Ceiling tiles bounced off his back. Allen tightened his hold on the woman in his arms. She screamed—once—as the storm struck.
He’d never forget her scream. The fear.
The wind pulled at him, yanking at his clothes. Allen pulled her to her feet. They had to get to some sort of better shelter.
He shoved her toward the underside of the desk. She was small; she fit. He managed to get himself partially under the large desk with her. He covered her head with one hand and pulled her to his chest.
She had short hair, soft as silk.
He didn’t know why that stuck with him, but it did.
Allen’s arms tightened around her.
Even the desk could turn deadly if the wind grabbed it. He wasn’t about to let her go. He yelled that it would be ok, would be over soon. He doubted she heard him. Small hands tightened on his arms.
She felt so damned breakable.
Metal and wood scraped against itself, a shrill sound unlike any he had ever heard before. The sprinklers turned on.
He prayed it wasn’t because of fire. Fire would make this so much worse.
Dust flew sideways around them. Stealing breath.
Everything crashed down around them. Leaving them in total darkness. He didn’t move. Not yet.
There were backup generators located at the rear of the hospital. They might kick on—but if the generators had been hit, the hospital would be in darkness.
He had his phone in his pocket.
Allen pulled back from the nurse in his arms. “You ok?”
“Yes. I think so.” Her words were shaky. He couldn’t blame her. “How badly were we hit?”
“Hard.” Allen shone the flashlight on his phone at the woman. He knew it was one of the ER nurses—he’d recognized the familiar green scrubs—but he hadn’t had time to get a close enough look to see which one it was.
Izzie, the third-shift nurse who liked to snip at doctors, stared right back at him out of terrified dark eyes. Eyes that dominated her pixie-cute face.
He’d never seen her scared before.
“The woman and her daughter?”
He turned the phone toward the last place he had seen them.
A child’s booted foot was all he saw. Debris covered everything but that one tiny foot.
Allen jumped to his feet, kicking ceiling tiles out of his way. Izzie was right behind him.
When he touched the little girl’s leg, she cried out. He gave a quick prayer of thanks that she was still alive. Alive meant hope. He tossed his phone at the nurse. “Point the light this way.”
By the time he got half the debris off the girl, people were moving back into the ER.
What remained of the ER looked like a war zone.
Three nurses he recognized pointed their phones in his direction to get him more light while doing what they could to shift the rubble.
Another crew worked nearby to find the girl’s mother.
Allen pulled the last of the rubble off the child. An orderly had a backboard ready. “On three.”
Allen counted it off. He, Millie, and Jade lifted the little girl carefully. Allen knew the procedures for a major catastrophic event involving the ER. He knew what his role was going to be.
He looked at the man heading the team to extract the mother.
“Do we have any portion of the building still operational?”
Rafe Holden-Deane, chief of medicine, nodded. “But we may have to do large-scale evacuations when we’re certain the weather has stabilized.”
“In the meantime?”
“Your department is still standing—running backup generators for now—but we’re going to have to carry patients up stairwells to get them there.”
“Then let’s get them up there.”
Two orderlies took over for him.
“First, you need that gash on your head taken care of.” Rafe used his own phone to gesture toward Allen’s head.
Allen didn’t remember getting hit. He touched his forehead. There was blood. “I’m fine.”
“You’re a contamination hazard. One we can’t afford right now.”
“I’ll clean him up,” the nurse who’d ridden through the storm with him said. She’d been at his side since the storm had hit, hands ready to get him everything he’d needed in an instant. Almost before he’d needed it.
She hadn’t panicked even once.
He didn’t know where she’d found half the supplies she had provided, but she had.
She was good. Definitely good at what she did. He’d make certain Rafe knew that. When this was over.
Rafe nodded. “Go.”
Allen followed the nurse toward the rear stairwell. There was a supply cabinet under there that had basics for these very kinds of emergencies. He thanked God they had some parts of the hospital still standing. “Hurry. We need to get back out there.”
“Yes. Is the storm over?”
Allen thought about the damage that had been done to one of the strongest buildings in the city. If the hospital had suffered such damage, it could be total hell out there now. “I think our storm may have just begun.”
Emergency lighting flicked on over their heads. She grabbed a bottle of antiseptic and some butterfly bandages and went to work.
Allen got his first real look at the woman working on his forehead.
His gaze dropped to the name tag still clipped to her top. He didn’t think he’d ever been this close to Izzie M. before.
He hadn’t even fully remembered her name, to his own shame.
Her rich, dark hair was cropped short and now covered in plaster dust. Her dark eyes dominated her pixyish face. She was one of those nurses who buzzed around the ER on second and third shift. There were three or four of them that he didn’t know well, a dozen more he didn’t know at all. He very rarely was on the schedule during second or third shifts.
All he had ever cared about was that there was a pair of helping hands when he needed them.
Quiet, efficient, never causing any trouble.
Interchangeable.
He hadn’t looked that closely at them, not lately.
It didn’t matter which of the staff that was.
Except for Jillian—Jillian was a fiery redhead who had nearly died because of Allen. Jillian was hard to forget.
He didn’t remember if she’d been there a moment ago. “Was Jillian back there?”
“With Rafe. She’s ok. Nobody seemed hurt. Except you.” She worked quickly, cleaning his wound expertly. “But I heard some of the other wings have injuries. I think they are being diverted to Dr. Kaur in the rear of the building.”
He nodded. “They were all in the hallways with the patients. Except us.”
“I almost didn’t make it inside. I came in right behind that woman. If you hadn’t grabbed me...” She shivered. Allen didn’t want to think about it. No one outside could have survived that storm. “We...I don’t know what to do right now.”
“We do what we always do. We treat the people in the hospital.” Thunder cracked overhead. She jumped, spilling the alcohol down the front of her scrubs. Allen’s hand rose to steady hers.
Izzie had small, pretty hands. Hands that were scraped raw from helping dig through rubble to free a child.
“And we prepare for more. Because they will come here first.”
“I—” Fear. Her fear struck him hard. “I don’t know where Annie or Nikkie Jean are. Or Fin.”
He recognized every name. His friends, too. People he cared about. “Stay close to me. We’ll get through this.”
He didn’t know what made him say it. It might have been the big brown eyes that reminded him of another woman who had wanted him to save her once before.
He’d failed Jess. He wasn’t going to fail anyone else again.