I don't react. I want to react. I want to scream and pump my fist and call Teague and tell my parents and tell Keely and tell everyone I've ever met that Captain Vera Donnelly just cleared me for interior operations on a structure fire. But I don't react because this is the job and the job doesn't pause for celebrations.
"Copy," Hayes says. She looks at me. "On me. You go where I go. You do what I tell you. You don't improvise."
"Yes, Hayes."
"If I say out, we're out. No questions."
"Yes, Hayes."
She nods. We mount up. Last seat, next to Hayes. The engine rocks as Torres fires it and the bay doors open and the siren starts and it fills me up the same way it did on the medical call, that physical vibration through the frame and the seat and my spine, but this time it's bigger because this time I'm going into a building that's burning.
"Structure fire, 3100 block of Delancy," dispatch reports. "Two-story residential, smoke visible from the street. Engine 11 responding."
Torres drives. She drives the way she does everything: with total command, aggressive but controlled, the engine moving through intersections like the city is opening a lane for us. I watch the streets go by through the window and they're my streets, my neighborhood, the same blocks I've walked and biked and driven a thousand times, and somewhere ahead of us a house is on fire and people might be inside.
Rivera is on the radio confirming hydrant locations. Walsh and Drew are quiet in their seats, faces set, doing whatever internal thing experienced firefighters do before they enter a structure. Helena checks her mask. Hayes sits beside me and says nothing. Her presence is the instruction.
We turn onto Delancy and I see it.
Smoke. Gray-black, thick, pouring from the second-floor windows of a narrow row house, three windows across, the middle one already blown out. No visible flame from the street but the smoke is telling me the fire is interior and established and feeding on whatever the second floor is giving it. The front door is closed. A cluster of people is on the sidewalk across the street, a woman in a bathrobe holding a phone, a man with two kids, a neighbor pointing at the building.
Torres parks the engine. We dismount. The air hits me and it smells like burning wood and plastic and something chemical underneath, insulation or carpet or paint. The smoke is rolling from the second floor in waves and I can feel the heat from here, not intense, not yet, but present. A living thing behind those walls.
Cap is out first, assessing. She's looking at the building, the smoke, the windows, the roofline. Reading it the way Hayes reads me, the way Vanessa reads Teague. Seeing what's happening and what's about to happen.
"Rivera, take Walsh and Drew. Primary search, first floor." Cap turns to Hayes. "Second floor is yours. Take Kimball."
"Copy."
"Torres, water supply. Get me a line to the second floor as soon as Rivera's team confirms the first floor is clear."
Torres moves toward the hydrant, fast, purposeful. Rivera's team goes through the front door, low, masked, disappearing into smoke that swallows them in two steps.
Hayes looks at me. Through the mask her eyes are the same steady eyes that have been training me for three weeks. No different. No extra concern. She's not worried about me because worry isn't useful and Hayes doesn't carry anything that isn't useful.
"Mask on. Stay low. Left hand on the wall. We go up the stairs and we search every room. If I call it, we leave. No hesitation."
"Copy."
We go in.
The first floor is smoke but manageable. I can see Rivera's team ahead of us, flashlight beams cutting through the haze, moving room to room. The stairs are on the right, narrow, wooden, and the smoke is heavier as we go up because smoke rises and the fire is above us and we're going toward it.
I keep my left hand on the wall. I stay low. I follow Hayes.
The second floor is different. The smoke is dense and black and my visibility drops to the beam of my flashlight and the outline of Hayes in front of me. The heat is real now, pressing against my gear, my mask, the exposed skin at my wrists. I can hear the fire, a sound I've heard in training rooms and controlled burns but never like this, never in a place where someone lives, where there are photographs on walls and furniture in rooms and the building is being eaten from the inside.
Hayes moves left. I follow. First room: bedroom, door open, empty. She checks behind the door, under the bed, the closet. Systematic. Fast but not rushed. She clears it and we move to the next.
Second room: bathroom, small, empty. Clear.
The hallway. The smoke is thicker here and I can see an orange glow at the far end, the fire showing itself through a doorway. The heat jumps. My mask is working, feeding me clean air, and I breathe and stay low and keep my hand on the wall and follow Hayes.
Third room: the fire room. Hayes stops at the door. She reads it. The door is hot. She tests the handle with the back of her glove. She looks at me.
"This room is fully involved. We don't enter. We move past. There may be a fourth room beyond."
"Copy."
