AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The house moans beneath my feet, swaying even with the absence of wind.
“Lieutenant?” I creep to the edge of the roof and peer over the side in search of my colleague, but fire sprints to this side of the house. Chasing me. Hungry to consume the asshole who dared step forward and challenge the dragon.
I narrow my eyes and attempt to study the ground below. “Lieutenant?”
My pulse jumps at the thought of abandonment. This place won’t be here an hour from now, I’m certain. The structure simply won’t stand up to the heat. Which means if I’ve been left behind, I either jump two stories, or I fall in with the rest when it collapses.
“Lieutenant?” I reach up and tap my radio when I hear nothing but fragmented chatter. “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m coming now!” Nix’s voice ricochets through my brain and momentarily stops my heart. Then I catch atap-tap-tapon the steel ladder by the toe of my boot to indicate he’s ready for me. “Sorry, Axe. I was dealing with the tank.”
“Kinda want your attention over here, Lew.” Shaking my head, but smiling, I turn my back to the sky, facing the doomed home, and set my foot on the fourth rung down. Fisting my Halligan in one hand, I use the other to hold on to the ladder and start down.
“You’re gonna need to hurry,” Nix murmurs through the radio. Casual, despite his instructions. “Pick it up a little, kid.”
“I’m moving as fast as I can.” Sweat dribbles along my spine and into the pants I wear beneath my turnouts. “What’s the issue?”
“Faster,” he repeats. “Calm, controlled, but faster, Feeney. I want your feet on the ground in the next ten seconds.”
“But why?” I turn and glance down to gauge how far I still have to go. Twenty feet, easy. “What’s the rush?”
“Flammables.” His tone measured, relaxed, he steadies the ladder and waits. Even if I dipped my leg and he reached up, we’re too far apart to make contact. “The basement is filled with accelerants,” he continues. “We’re pulling out and away until the scene can be secured.”
I move down another rung. Then another. “And the victims inside?”
“We ensure firefighter safety first. Alw—”
BOOM!
I fly backward through the air, barely aware when I release my Halligan bar. My helmet and mask fling off with the whoosh of boiling air that steals the oxygen from my lungs and stings my skin.
I don’t feel the ground when I slam to the grass and my back crunches and clanks around the tanks I wear, but I hear theMAYDAYSthundering into my ear and search for which direction I need to go.Who needs help? Sweat simmers on my skin from the ball of flame bursting from the house, and I catch, through shadowed eyes and dazed focus, as the roof I stood on just a minute ago falls in, and the air conditioner dropping, slamming to the floor inside.
I cough when a second cloud of fire and steam billow from the house, and wheeze when a blond EMT throws himself over my body to cover me.
“Spinal board!” he shouts to whoever will listen, and slaps a collar around my neck, rough, like he’s not scared of breaking it. Then he snatches a knife from a pocket on his leg and cuts the straps that circle my shoulders. “Get his tanks off,” he orders, shoving one strap away, while Nix works on my other side.
My vision turns spotty, but finally, water rains down over us all as Sloane and Rizzo work to douse the growing flames. Cootes, my only female coworker, skids to a stop on my right and looks to the EMT for instruction.
And all the while, I consider rolling over and getting up again.
Stop with the fuss, and get back to work.
“You’re gonna be fine.” Luc Lenaghan, the EMT I’ve worked with a million times since my first day on the job, slaps an oxygen mask over my face and rolls me onto the bright yellow board. “Let’s get him up.” He pops to his feet and lifts my board so dizziness sets in as I move through the air.
Squinting toward my feet in a daze, I find Nix carrying the other end.
“What’s your name?” Luc quick-foots it toward his ambulance. “Hey!” When I focus on the billowing smoke in the air, and not the question being asked, Luc shoves me into the back of the ambulance and climbs in beside me. “What’s your name?”
“Axel Feeney.” I close my eyes and swallow down the ash and smoke in my throat. “I’m twenty-one.” I know the drill, so I work through the questions I know are coming. “My boss is Lieutenant Nixon Rosa. It’s…” I frown for a beat and search for the details floating in the back of my mind. “Um… Tuesday? Nix is banging the Italian goddess in his spare time, and thinks no one knows.”
Relieved, Luc slows his movements as the ambulance doors shut us in and the sirens start up. “Everyone knows.” He peels back my turnout coat and slips a blood pressure cuff along my arm. “You fell on your back pretty hard, Axe.” He nods toward my feet. “Can you wiggle them for me?”
“Why?” I close my eyes and half-doze. “You think I broke something?”
“Just doing my job. Wiggle ‘em, Feeney, and prove to me you’re okay.”
I’m tired. Sore. Already, I feel the knot of all knots bunching in my back and tightening so I’ll feel it for weeks. But I think about moving my feet, and glance down just in time to be satisfied that my brain passed that message on to my limbs.
