I stop walking and it takes every disciplined instinct I have built over years of this job to make myself do it. I turn back toward the truck, start pulling my mask and SCBA into position, and I can feel my own pulse in my hands and throat.
Gunner gets on the radio with the incident commander and I listen to the information come back. It’s like I’m listening to someone else as I take in all the relevant information. Third floor records room, fire likely started in a storage area along the east wall, currently working through the filing stacks. Two confirmed personnel unaccounted for from that department. Stairwell B has smoke but is passable. Stairwell A is compromised.
Two unaccounted for.
I check my phone one more time. The text sits there unread, the two gray check marks that mean it delivered but didn't open.
"Mask up," the incident commander calls, and I put my phone away.
I pull my mask on, getting ready to go to war for this woman who means the fucking world to me. My team stacks at the entrance and I fall into my position, the sequence taking over the way it always does, the training pushing everything else into the background where it has to stay so I can do my job. I know this process. I've done it in worse conditions, in hotter buildings, in structures that were minutes from coming down.
I know how to do this.
What I don't know how to do is stand in the lobby of a burning building and keep her face out of my head. The way she looked in the firework light the other night, my hand around hers. The photo on my lock screen. Her voice on the phone going soft when she talked about Cora, the way it always does.
You're mine now. Both of you.
I meant it when I said it. I mean it right now.
"Mark." Gunner's voice in my ear, steady and even. "We're moving."
"Moving," I confirm.
We look at each other, both hitching our chins at each other, and then? We go in.
Chapter Thirteen
Trish
The smoke is thick as I crawl on the ground. My brother is a firefighter, I know what to do in a situation like this, but I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be to see, how hard it would be to breathe.
There are so many things going through my head. Where is Cora? She was here with her class. Where is Gunner and Mark. Are they here yet? Are they coming in? Will they fight the fire so that I can go home tonight?
There is one other person with me, and I’m following them as I crawl on the floor. It’s loud, the sound of the fire, the crackle of the building going up. The person in front of me stops as they reach up and feel the doorknob to the door in front of us.
“It’s hot, there’s more fire out there,” she yells back.
This absolutely can’t be the end. I have things I want to do. I need to see Cora, need to tell Mark I love him, actually know what it’s like to have sex with him, live the life I’ve always wanted to live. “No,” I cry. “This can’t be the end.”
There are so many things going through my head. Where is Cora? She was here with her class. Where are Gunner and Mark? Are they here yet? Are they coming in? Will they fight the fire so that I can go home tonight?
There is one other person with me, and I'm following them as I crawl on the floor. It's loud, the sound of the fire, the crackle of the building going up. The person in front of me stops as they reach up and feels the doorknob to the door in front of us.
"It's hot, there's more fire out there," she yells back.
This absolutely can't be the end. I have things I want to do. I need to see Cora, need to tell Mark I love him, actually know what it's like to have sex with him, live the life I've always wanted to live. "No," I cry. "This can't be the end."
That’s when I hear another person. It’s Sandra, my coworker of three years, the woman who brings homemade kolaches on Fridays and keeps a photo of her grandkids on her monitor, turns back to look at me from where she’s met up with us on the floor. Her face is streaked with ash and her eyes are red and streaming, but she's thinking. And thinking is better than anything I have going on right now. I couldn’t think myself out of a paper bag right now.
"The window," she says, pointing.
It’s what me and the other worker completely forgot about. Recognition flashes with hope in my chest.
"The window in the copy room. It faces the side street, not the alley. If we can get to it…"
A section of ceiling tile drops somewhere behind us and we flinch flat against the floor. The smoke is a wall above our heads, and I know, I know from everything my brother ever told me, that I need to stay low, that the air down here is the only air worth breathing, but my lungs are burning anyway and my eyes are streaming so hard I can barely see Sandra's shoes in front of me.
"Copy room," I say, looking behind me at my other co-worker. I don’t know her name, and maybe I should’ve learned it, but I can’t change that right now. "Let’s go!"
