Page 26 of Arsonist’s Match (Blaze and Badge #1)

F lash lounged in a comfy chair in the break room, stroking Snuffles, curled in a ball on her lap, while the guys whooped and hollered over a play in the ballgame on TV.

She had been uncharacteristically contemplative since she’d lost her temper with Athena.

Of course, she didn’t want to break up. Athena was amazing, like a fine vintage wine grown more valuable with age.

She was certainly not too old. Could Flash be too young?

Putting everything into perspective, she realized Athena meant pushing a promotion as a compliment, not a dig, and she felt bad for going off over it.

Self-sabotage? Maybe. Flash needed to take a long, hard look in the mirror, to assess her strengths and weaknesses, and take action to improve herself.

Experiencing that daily hero-high wasn’t the same as true courage.

Maybe she had no fear when it came to rushing into a burning building, but it didn’t mean she was brave in every aspect of her life.

“You won’t believe the call we just had,” declared Nita as she strode into the room.

Al Luis trailed in behind her, an embarrassed blush reddening his cheeks. “I’ll just be somewhere else.”

As he rushed out the other end of the room, Nita marched up to Flash and stared at her in disbelief. Someone muted the ball game, and the four guys turned their attention to the paramedic.

“What?” Flash asked, her curiosity piqued. She’d had her fair share of crazy calls—pigs in the road, a corpulent man trapped in a married lover’s window, and a hornet’s nest inside a house.

“This w oman’s vibrator was stuck in her, you know. She couldn’t get it out. Not knowing what else to do, she called 911.”

“OMG!” Woods exclaimed.

“How embarrassing,” added Flores.

Waylon’s face turned beet red as he tried to hold in an explosive laugh.

“What did you do?” Flash asked as amusement tickled her from the inside.

“Al Luis ran back to the ambo to collect ‘gear,’ leaving me to deal,” Nita explained. “I took a look with a penlight and a speculum, but it looked pretty deep. What’s more, it was still vibrating away. So we loaded her up and drove her to the ER.”

“Ah, you mean you didn’t dive in to the rescue?” Flash teased.

Nita pursed her lips and narrowed her brow.

“It’s not the kind of procedure I perform every day, you know, and it wasn’t life-threatening.

Maybe I could have extracted the device safely, but, as the paramedic in charge, I made a judgment call to let the ER handle it.

Would you have handled the situation differently?

” Nita stared at her, arrows of challenge shooting from her dark eyes.

Unable to contain herself, laughter bubbled from Flash’s mouth, and she shook her head. “Nope. Not at all. I’m not getting sued for poking around some woman’s privates, even if it was all clinical.”

“You’re kidding, right?” asked Woods. “I mean, really?”

Before Nita could confirm, the alarm bell blared through the firehouse. “Engine Eight, Engine One, Squad Eight, Ambulance Eight, residence fire at 1200 Andrews Street. Possible victims inside.”

Levity shifted to serious resolve as Flash set Snuffles aside and sprang from her chair.

“Stay,” she commanded, stern finger pointed.

The pup licked her lips, eyeing her nervously as she sat, her tail curled in and ears drooped.

The firefighter raced with her crewmembers to their waiting gear, stepping into bunker pants and boots, yanking up suspenders, shrugging into coats, and grabbing hats and gloves.

Masks, tanks, and other gear were already on the engine.

The siren screamed, lights whirred, and the shiny red truck sped out to meet the danger.

Everything else vanished as Flash’s full attention focused on the task at hand.

“A neig hbor called it in,” Lieutenant Edwards briefed the team as Waylon laid on the horn, passing stopped traffic at an intersection.

“Unknown if the family—two adults, three kids—made it out. They are our top priority, seconded by halting the spread of the fire. The houses in this neighborhood are shake-hands-through-the-windows close together, two-story, wood-framed with asphalt shingle roofs. We know what that means.”

Flash comprehended exactly what the situation entailed. With no rain in weeks and the current heat, flames could easily spread to consume house after house in the row. She secured the lacing on her boots as he continued.

“Captain O’Riley is en route to supervise the operation. Stay sharp and stay safe.”

“Copy that,” Woods replied.

Flash reran safety protocols in her head, knowing every blaze was different.

The firetruck screeched to a halt, and they piled out, making haste to pick up an ax or Hallagan, masks, and oxygen tanks, whatever they’d need.

Woods and Flores unrolled a hose, running the end to the nearest hydrant.

A group of neighbors cluttered up the front lawn, pointing and fretting.

“Move back, people,” ordered Captain Jake as he took center point. Flames tore up the house’s left side, with smoke billowing from a broken window on the second floor. Flash itched to get inside, impatient for her leader to get on with his instructions.

How would I handle it? she wondered.

“Engine One, get water on the house next door and shut this down in its tracks. Engine Eight, half of you shoot a line on the roof, and the others take a hose inside to assist and back up squad clearing the residence. Ambo, stand by to receive burn or smoke inhalation victims. Let’s move it!”

Flash grabbed the nozzle end of the hose while Waylon screwed the connection to the hydrant two houses down.

They had enough line, so Flash wasn’t worried about that.

Just as Lieutenant Edwards stepped onto the front porch, the squad crew behind him, the door flew open.

Out rushed a frantic woman clutching a screaming ba by.

“My husband and other children are inside! I don’t know what happened,” she cried. “Suddenly there was smoke, then fire bursting out everywhere. I had to get the baby first.”

“Yes, ma’am, you did.” Jackson from squad took her elbow, leading her toward the ambulance. “We’ll get them. You come over here so the medics can check you and the baby out.”

“Fire department!” Edwards shouted as he breached the doorway. Flash and Waylon squeezed in behind him to get water on the blaze before the squad team entered. “Search the ground floor first,” he directed the rescue squad members. “Adams, Cash, open her up!”

Flash opened the valve while Waylon, tight behind her, used his strength to control the high-pressure hose. As they pushed their way deeper into the front of the house, a man stumbled down the stairs, rolling up at their feet. Shutting off the hose, Flash helped him to stand.

“Help, upstairs!” he yelled, wide-eyed with terror. “I can’t reach them, too hot, flames too high. They’re alive, I heard them!”

“Yes, sir, we’ll get them,” Flash assured him. “But you need to go outside.”

The man stared at her in anger before coughing into his elbow. “No way! My kids are up there. I have to—”

“You have to come with me,” Waylon directed. Dropping the hose, he clapped his hands around the father’s arm. The guy was big, brawny, and must have had fifty pounds on Flash. Of the two of them, only Waylon could drag him from the burning house.

“Let me go!” he protested, thrashing like a bear. With a nod to Flash, Waylon restrained the homeowner and dragged him to the door.

There was no time to wait for squad. Flash struck off up the stairs into intense heat and radiating waves of fire. She pushed the button on the radio clipped to her coat collar. “Cash heading upstairs to secure child victims. Adams has custody of the father.”

“Roger,” came a male voice through the crackling speaker. “Squad on the way to assist.”

Taking th e steps two at a time, Flash arrived on an engulfed second floor. “Fire department, call out!”

A high-pitched scream cut through the roar of the blaze, followed by the words, “We’re in here!

” Not a helpful description, but Flash could discern the direction they’d come from.

Hugging the railing, she skirted a burning wall, its flaming tongues licking the ceiling, and stopped at a closed door.

Smoke puffed from under it, and she heard frantic voices within.

Flash yanked off a glove to test the door’s temperature, then the knob.

Hot, but not scorching. Nothing about the fire’s activity suggested the room presented a flashover point, especially since the crack under the door was at least two inches above the hardwood floor.

Jamming her hand back into the glove, Flash opened the door an inch, two, then flung it wide.

A curtain of flames lashed out, cruel and lethal, through the middle of the playroom, rapidly consuming a pile of stuffed toys.

One little girl hopped up and down crying on Flash’s side of the barrier, while another child—boy or girl, she couldn’t tell—pressed against an exterior wall on the far side of the conflagration.

With only a split second to act, Flash made an instinctual decision. She could, without question, rescue the girl nearest the door, so that’s what she did. Dashing into the blaze, she grabbed the child, hauling her to her hip, and pushed her face into the folds of her protective coat.

“Hang on, kid. I’ve got you.”

“Terry!” she wailed.

“I’ll come back for Terry,” Flash promised as she bustled the child from the room and down the hallway.

The growing firestorm, no doubt egged on by synthetic fabrics, a wooden floor and framing, and whatever composed the insulation, chased them down the stairs.

Two squad members met her at the landing, and Flash handed off the child.

“There’s another one up there,” she said. “I’m going back.”

“I’ll get ‘em,” asserted the other firefighter as he stepped past her.

“I promised,” Flash argued, shadowing him up the staircase. Suddenly, the stairs gave way. Flash hit hard—pain lanced her leg. They tumbled into a heap of steaming, scorched wood with combustion popping up all around them.

Flash pus hed call on her radio. “Arredondo and I are stuck in a collapsed stairwell. Get a ladder up to the second-floor window on the west side immediately. There’s a child trapped, and we can’t get to him.”

Lieutenant Edwards answered, “Damnit, that’s the side with the raging fire. We’ve got hoses spraying over there. Adams!” he clicked off, and Flash began helping Arredondo pry debris out of their way.

Searing heat assaulted them in waves. A glance over Flash’s shoulder alerted her as the hellish jaws of the monstrous beast snapped ever nearer. Like a dancing sprite, a flame erupted in the rubble an inch from her boot. Playing the role of avenging giant, she stomped it out.

“We’ve got you,” said Lieutenant Jackson as he and another squad member pried a broad hole in the side of the wrecked stairs.

“Thanks, man!” Flash and Arredondo wiggled out just as flaming fingers ignited the debris.

“The kid?” Arredondo asked.

“Don’t know,” replied Jackson, “but nobody’s getting back up there from here.”

With a knot the size of Rhode Island tightening in her gut, Flash seized the nozzle end of the hose she and Waylon had left lying in the front room.

“Give me a hand,” she called to whomever would respond.

Jackson moved in behind her, holding the hose tight, and Flash opened the valve.

Water battled fire as they made a slow retreat, steam sizzling, blaze crackling, and smoke stinging their eyes.

Wilson and Trevino from Engine One pressed in beside them in their battle to drown the monster. “We stopped it from jumping houses,” Wilson said.

“What about the second-floor kid?” Flash asked with concern. “Did they get him?”

“Don’t know,” Trevino replied. “Captain told us to come help in here.”

Overwhelmed with water and having consumed what it could, the fiery beast capitulated, giving up the fight.

Ten minutes later, only a thin trail of smoke rose from the burnt-out hole in the roof.

Flash stood solemnly between Waylon and Nita on the front lawn when Lieutenant Jackson descended the ladder, carrying a small, mot ionless bundle in his arms. The mother’s sobs drifted through the silence.

Not wanting to watch, Flash scanned the crowd of onlookers until landing on a handsome young man with longish black hair and stylish clothes, video-recording on his mobile phone.

Fury flared through every cell in her body at his insensitive intrusion on this family’s tragedy.

Without a word, she stormed over to him and ripped the phone from his hand.

Although her temper demanded she smash the offending device—and punch him in the nose—she stopped herself.

The fellow gaped at her. “Give that back. You have no right—”

“ You have no damn right! What kind of sicko are you?”

“I was just filming the fire and you guys putting it out,” he replied innocently.

“The fire’s out, dickwad. You can stop filming now.” Her glare bore into him like her brother’s oil rig drill plunging through rock.

“Is there a problem here?” A uniformed police officer approached, with Lieutenant Edwards on her heels.

I’ll be in for it now, Flash bemoaned. “Officer Middleton,” she read from the woman’s badge, “this spectator was filming that poor child’s body being carried down and I just couldn’t—”

“Gotcha,” she replied, in obvious displeasure. The officer held out her hand, and Flash placed the man’s undamaged phone into her palm.

Officer Middleton sent the photographer a seething glare as she returned it. “This isn’t a circus, mister. Move along.”

Done with it, Flash spun around, intending to return to her truck, but Tightass grabbed her arm, stopping her. She was sure she’d get an earful.

“You all right?” he asked, to her surprise.

“Jerk was—”

“I know,” he interrupted, “and I don’t blame you. You saved one, you know. Good job.”

Flash blinked. Did she hear him right? Did he mean it, or had Captain Jake given him an ultimatum?

“Thank you, sir.” Flash decided it was best to accept the praise without further comment. Time would tell. “Still, we lost one.”

“It’s the dark side of the job.”

Flash nodded, but the ache in her chest dug in.