Gracie Abrams is eking out a solitary existence, fighting day-in, day-out against the drain of working customer service and nursing two newborn kittens in her off time. Out on her own ever since her sister moved in with her boyfriend, the burden of...
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Turns out, trouble wasn't just occurring in the little subdivision where Patty and Ginny had created a hole in the sky. Shit had hit the fan all over Mayhop.
When we ended up at the closest emergency room, waterlogged and dazed, we had not been the only ones there.
Apparently, Patty had let loose a series of traps all across downtown. The Haskell building had only been the opening act. From what I could understand, an entire structure had up and collapsed. Luckily, it had been empty inside, but there were still a ton of curious onlookers hanging around on the outside.
But that wasn't all.
This whole mess had gotten worse with the storm. Trees uprooted, fences torn away, pools and trampolines thrown around. Micro-bursts, they were called. Not full tornadoes but mini ones.
People were hurt. Debris flew through windows and roads became inaccessible. An area flood warning had come too late, because in the houses by the golf course, those people looked out into the street and couldn't see the road. The water had risen up onto their lawns. Cars—their engines submerged in the wetness—floated up near the houses.
With a plenitude of scared people, there was always desperation. And crimes of convenience. What I couldn't understand was why there were gangs of bikers out in this mess causing trouble, but one look at Bella's and Talia's faces, and I knew.
The biker witches.
Patty wasn't alone in wanting to be seen. Wanting to stop hiding.
There were literal rioters driving by and setting things on fire, running circles around the National Guardsmen and tactical police.
What else could possibly go wrong?
When we showed up to the emergency room, news channels informed each scared and shocked person waiting to be seen. A lovely deluge of anxiety as we all contemplated if this was the end of days.
Honestly, though the method was very War of the Worlds, could we really say we didn't see this coming? Hadn't the world climate—political and environmental—been heading towards something this extreme?
That purple hole devouring Mayhop's sky never left the news screen, even as more and more was added to the scroll of information at the bottom. The Governor of Illinois issued a state of emergency. More National Guardsmen were coming. More state police were coming. More emergency vehicles were coming.
How unbelievable it all was that yesterday had shown no signs of the impending disasters that followed.
The six of us ended up staying at the emergency room all through the night and into half of the next day. As the one who was the most injured and the only reason we stayed in this madness, I felt an unbelievable amount of guilt.
