Jesse gives a decent explanation of the ladders. We go through the drill, and it's successful to my satisfaction. I dismiss the group and thank the manager for letting us use his supermarket.
“Got plans tonight?” Jesse asks as we walk toward the firehouse. “With your girl, Sammy?”
“Not my girl. Just a friend.” A friend I think about every second of the day. A friend whose dark blue eyes I can’t imagine living without.
“Fine, Crusher.” Jesse says, “yourfriend, Sammy?”
“Yeah, we’ve got plans. Her daughter comes back tomorrow.”
“Last night of freedom?”
“Something like that.” Mark is bringing Lara back. He’ll stay for a night and probably make a decent pitch for them to come back to California. I think Sammy’s going to go back even if she doesn’t like his pitch. I don’t blame her. An arsonist set two fires to her property, and the town thinks she’s doing it herself. They’re calling her a criminal. Fucking unreal. I wouldn’t want my daughter exposed to it.
My phone vibrates in the staccato beat that means the dispatcher has something for us.
Jesse's already answering his phone. “Okay,” he says after a beat.
We break into a jog. My hamstring clenches. This fire better not ask too much of me.
“We’re on our way,” Jesse says and picks up the pace.
“What’s going on?”
“Brace yourself. There’s a fire at Sammy's house.”
Terror shoots through me. I break into a sprint. “At her house in Whispering Pines?”
“Yeah. Early stage. Unknown if there are people at the scene. Call came in from Rina Patel.”
We race toward the station. I don't let myself feel the sharp pain in my hip and the raw stretch of my lungs. I can’t let Sammy down. I pull out my phone and press dial on her number.
We bust through the station’s front door, and my phone is still ringing.Where is she?
“There,” I shout as we barrel up Sammy’s driveway. I point to the side of the house where the bedrooms are situated. “On the second floor. An occupant’s waving from the back window.”
It's Sammy. Fuck.
Flames lick the bushes under the window where she’s waving. Smoke has filled the interior of the great room on the first floor.
“Open window,” Jesse says. “She’s letting in too much air.”
Oxygen feeds the flames. Sammy won’t last long in there. “I'm going in,” I say to Chief as the truck comes to a stop.
“Go on,” Chief says. “Gabriel is coming in behind you. We’ll work on the exterior around the window and set up the ladder if possible. If not, make sure whoever’s in there is prepared to jump.”
I enter the smoke-filled great room. No breathable air from top to bottom. It’s only a matter of time before the fire compromises the structure.
I take two stairs at a time, my breath filling my helmet.
Sammy waved from the bedroom on the far end. I push through a barricade of towels lining the door frame and shut the door behind me.
“Brady,” she cries. She’s halfway out the window. But alive and breathing.
“I’m here.” I pull her against me and lean out the window to check the situation below.
“We’re going to need a few more minutes on the bush fire,” Chief says into the radio. “That’s not going to leave enough time for a ladder. Occupant’s going to have to do a hang and drop.”
I meet her eyes. “Sammy, you need to prepare yourself. The only way we’re getting you out is through the window. I’m going to hold you while you dangle and the guys are going to help you make a safe landing, okay?”
