Page 57 of Burn Protocol

A week ago I would’ve never expected to see Elena’s vulnerable side. To see how she folds into herself when she is stressed, or how small she becomes when that mask falls away. Yet in the span of three days, I’ve seen it twice.

My arms ache to pull her in and press her against my chest, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from doing just that. We are in her workplace. We can’t have Rosa walk in on us again. Or worse… the Chief. But I refuse to move from her side or to withdraw my hand. Not that I could with the way she is grasping it— holding on to it as if it is a lifeline. Her fingers dig into my flesh and she opens her mouth again.

“When you walk into a burning forest, you see things I don’t even want to describe. Life is lost all around you. The ancient trees, bushes, animals. And nothing is able to escape the flames. Nothing but us. Mostly.”

She pauses but doesn’t raise her eyes. I let her process instead of coaxing the story out of her. This has to be on her terms, not mine. I see her throat work and her fingers tense around my wrist.

“We were focused on the fire in front of us. Cutting handlines all morning. The trees were snapping. The forest roared so loud that you could feel the rumble in your chest. The smoke was so hot we could barely breathe. It was supposed to be black behind us. Safe ground. We had checked it. I had checked it.”

She releases my wrist and balls her hands into fists now. Her jaw is set so tight that, for a moment, I fear she might break a molar. Her eyes stare into the distance. Elena has never felt so far away and so close at the same time.

“The wind turned. Unpredictable, it was… I should have… The wall of flames suddenly chased us. I tried to pivot us back to the black, but it wasn’t black anymore. The embers somehow rekindled the fire and whatever lay under the ashes… it flamed. Low and crawling.”

Elena’s eyes flash up to mine. The panic is visible.

“We were in the middle of the fire, Maya. Inside it. And there was nowhere we could run. The embers were raining down on us like a storm and the whole world… it was just orange. Not dark, not invisible… orange.”

I swallow and put my hand back on hers.

“That sounds terrifying.”

Her nod is weak, but her eyes are locked onto mine. She is right here with me and back in the forest at the same time. I shudder. There is nothing I can do for her right now except listen.

“We dug a line so fast… thin… and far too close to us. Turned it into a bubble with some rocks. We didn’t have much time and it wasn’t much protection. The only other thing we could do was soak the ground around us, and pray.”

Elena shivers as the tears roll down her face. She doesn’t stop to wipe them away. I don’t even think she feels them.

“I didn’t even notice Cruz was gone at that point. Not until I did the head count. He had stepped out of the circle to kick away a burning log that was rolling toward us. His foot got caught on a root and… and the log pinned him down.”

Her chest heaves and her tears flow faster, but she still doesn’t stop.

“I only saw it when the flames were nearly engulfing us. We radioed for help, but what was that going to do when the fire was raging? I couldn’t leave him there. I couldn’t.”

“What did you do?”

“I jumped out of the bubble and tried to get him to safety. Two of my crew followed me. The log was so heavy, we tried to remove it but…”

“But you couldn’t. That’s how he died, isn’t it?”

She raises her eyes at me, wet with tears. The sob that wells up from her chest is so heartbreaking that I pull her into my arms without thinking. She presses her face into the crook of my neck, her tears warm against my skin. Her whole body shakes violently. I pull her closer and press my lips against her hair. This is her life, this is the burden she has to carry. How many people has she told? Is this… is this something she went through all alone? The thought horrifies me as she shivers in my arms.

“His son… he’s thirteen now—does really well in school. Cruz would have been so proud.”

I press soft kisses against the top of her head until her breath evens out. She leans back to look at me for a moment and cups my cheek with her hand. The gesture startles me, but I lean into the touch regardless.

“I never spoke about it. Thank you.”

Before I can answer, the door flies open and the ladder crew barges out. They freeze mid-step when they see us embracing, and Elena instantly pulls away. She turns her back to the crew and runs her hand over her face to brush away any residue of tears. As I turn off my voice recorder, I realize she is more worried about them seeing her cry than she is about being caught in my arms. It takes all my self-restraint not to grin at that.

***

Elena’s ‘paper shift’ turns out to be a lot less boring than I had expected. While she is working on her reports, she takes her time to talk to me and to tell me more about what it is like to be a firefighter. Our conversation is filled with wild stories that make me gasp and laugh, while she writes her reports and guides her team from the sidelines.

It isn’t until the end of the day that we are finally back in the cantina where she tells me about how they once got a call about somebody screaming fire.

“The cries were so loud that we heard them on the outside when we arrived. Nando immediately banged on the door, and this old lady opened up. All innocent. But right as we want to ask her what is going on, we hear the screams again. ‘Fire, Fire!’” She raises her eyebrow at me. “Turns out it was her freaking parrot.”

I chuckle and Elena grins. But then her grin turns into a stifled yawn and she quickly covers her mouth with her hand. I only now notice how tired she really looks. Her eyes are slightly sunken and the skin under them is dark—her face is slightly ashen. A jolt of worry rushes through me. I’ve seen her after twelve-hour shifts before, packed with calls, where she should have been physically exhausted but she wasn’t. On the days where I could barely keep my eyes open, she was still buzzed with energy. This, this is a new kind of different.