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The world widen then narrowed and Jake gulped the acrid air, bending over so he didn't pass out.
God, Eva was down. Down.
It was the worst thing a firefighter could hear. But to a firefighter who was in love with the one down, it was agony.
"Man down!" Dutch yelled into his mic.
"Goddamn it. Get in there," Hank cried, running toward the structure, helping to pull the charred mess out of the garage.
A flashback of such vivid horror hit Jake.The flashing lights, the smell of hot metal, him stuck beneath the driver's door, hearing Clint yell, "Help me. Oh, God, help me."
Gas, blood, the sound of death.
Jake had tried to move Clint. Made things worse. So he lay like a pathetic coward, waiting for some one else to do what he could not.
But he wasn't that man-child anymore.
He couldn't stand and watch the woman he loved die because he couldn't do what needed to be done. Jake lunged toward Gary Winter, who stood at Engine One.
"Give me your gloves."
"Jake, I don't think- "
"Give me your coat and gloves or I'll beat the shit out of you right here."
Gary's eyes widened and then he shrugged out of his coat and gloves. "Jesus."
"Yeah, call on him," Jake said as he ran toward the building, swerving around to the left side where the back door could possibly be accessed.
Two volunteers were working on loosening the door from the crushed jamb.
"Let me help," Jake said, bracing a tennis shoe against the frame. All of them pulled, sinews popping, teeth gritting, biceps screaming. The damn thing wouldn't budge.
''Again," Jake yelled.
They all pulled and then suddenly the door flew open and Dutch stood in the opening. The large man had kicked from the inside at the same time Jake and the others had been pulling. Draped over Dutch's shoulder in a traditional fireman's carry was Eva. In Dutch's left hand he held webbing that supported an unconscious Jimbo. For the rest of his life, Jake knew he would remember Dutch's face.
Mask streaked with soot, wet as a drowned kitten, and eyes burning with determination, Dutch walked out of the destroyed building and set Jimbo on the ground. Then he pulled Eva from his shoulder and cradling her, he ran toward the nearest ambulance.
"Eva! Oh, God, Eva," Jake called, running after Dutch.
He passed a team of EMTs-two guys he'd taken classes with on their way to Jimbo. Dutch met the EMTs and lay Eva on the stretcher. Her hair was plastered to her head and her face was almost completely covered with soot. But she was breathing. And coughing.
"She took in a lot of smoke. A big canister fell on her and knocked her air out," Dutch told Manny Ruiz, the EMT clipping the pulse-ox clip on her finger.
Jake was shoved back as Manny's partner, a woman he didn't recognize, covered Eva's mouth and nose with an oxygen mask. Then the woman started her evaluation, prying one of Eva's eyes open to reveal a bloodshot eye.
"Mmm," Eva groaned, her voice raspy as hell.
She swatted at the woman.
"We're trying to help you," the EMT said to Eva, holding down her hand.
"Guuuh. Puuh," Eva thrashed, ripping at the mask on her face.
"We're gonna have to restrain her," said the woman, whose tag read Mary.
Jake moved around to Eva's head and leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Relax, E. They're going to help you. Relax, baby."
