Page 4 of Burn (Two Wheeled Psychos #2)

The fire is raging when we arrive, her flames swallowing the high rise building like a hungry beast.

The sounds of her destroying the wooden frame under the brick fa?ade are loud, like a cackling laughter from the bowels of hell.

It’s hot, even through my fireproof uniform, and I can feel the heat warm my skin more than my cum did when it spilt on my flesh.

It’s the biggest turn on for me, the warmth of the destroyer that I adore.

She’s feasting on the structure, her tongues of flames licking and tasting the place as we head inside.

With my axe in hand, I bust down the front door, backing up when a wave of fire sweeps out towards me, trying to taste me too, just like she savored the flavor of me so many years ago.

Her voice is high pitched as I step over the threshold, her screeches echoing through the thick black smoke, telling me where she is, and where her heart lies.

It’s like she’s calling to me, using that psychic link her and I have, the one she shares with none of the other guys.

“This way.”

I say to my brothers through the coms in our helmets, waving them on with my axed hand, showing them the way with the light on my helmet.

“She’s in here.”

Without question they follow me, stepping over flames and burning debris, knowing that I’ll take them right to where she was born, and where she’ll die at their hands and hoses.

My feet crunch through the burnt possessions of the family that lives on the first floor, crushing them into little charred pieces that won’t exist after this fight is over.

The floor buckles underneath us, the wood creaking and screaming from the pressure of our weight on its mangled surface.

We continue on, the men in the back with the hose blasting the flames that come at us as I lead them through the remnants of a kitchen and out the back door into the hallway that leads to the stairwell.

The metal steps and bare mortar walls act like a fire barrier, in fact they’re called fire walls that are used in structures that house more than one residence.

They’re supposed to offer protection to keep a blaze contained to one apartment instead of spreading to the others, but they don’t always work like that.

Sometimes they act as a conduit of sorts, like a wormhole that allows the fire to creep from one place to another without leaving a trace behind.

The walls can be cool, and the floors look untouched, but that’s only because she swept through and left no evidence on the grey painted surfaces.

But she’s there, lurking behind the doors that flank the landings of the stairs.

She’s hiding and waiting for us to open the portals and allow her to jump more aggressively from one place to the next.

But I won’t allow it.

I’m here to tame her, to bring her to her knees like I bring my victims down, begging for it to end. Only she won’t beg to die, she’ll fight me as hard as my brothers fight her.

Screams come from behind a heavy metal door on the fourth floor, panicked and pained yells that would make a normal person’s skin crawl, but to me, they’re just another sign of where she lies.

I bring the men to a halt, waving my axe towards the barrier between us and her, touching the handle with my gloved hand, looking for the scorching heat that I know will be there.

She’s inside.

“In here.”

I say, taking a deep breath in through the mouthpiece to the air tank I carry on my back, preparing for the suction I know will come just before the blast.

When a fire leaps and jumps, moving from place to place, hiding behind doors, taunting us, there’s always a cat and mouse chase when we get close.

The opening of the metal separation between us and her heart will make her pull back, sucking the air from the stairwell, but just as fast, she’ll lash back with a draft of flames before she retreats to her hiding spot again.

I’m here for you my beautiful girl.

“Ready…steady.”

I shout to my brothers, squaring my stance, leaning my shoulder to the door, feeling it flex and warp against me, getting a feeling of the power behind it.

Backing up, I kick the door in with my heavy booted foot, and quickly lean to the side, protecting myself behind the wall, watching the swirling smoke suck in through the open doorway, hearing the squeal of the transition.

As soon as the smoke disappears, the fire comes.

She violently blows her tendrils out towards us, like the multiple tongues from a hydra, licking and reaching for us before they slither back into the residence.

The screams from the people trapped inside become louder, their sounds becoming hoarser from the smoke and the effort in calling out to us.

“Let’s go!”

I shout, leading my team in, looking side to side through the dense blackness, seeking out the source of the cries.

There’s two distinct voices. A female and a young male, and I’m transported back in time as I listen to them come from separate sides of the apartment. She’s not with him, he’s alone, just as I was. The fire is coming for him, but fuck her, I’m getting to him first.

Oh no, no, no, no!

I’m shouting to the boy I was as I stomp through the apartment.

“Hold on. I’m coming!”

I yell, leaving my brothers behind me like I always do.

I let them fight the beast while I save the innocents.

I find the ones that are like I was in the past, the ones afraid, the ones trying to back away from their demise.

I’m the hero, even though inside I’m nothing of the sorts.

I’m a killer, a ruiner, a beast in my own right, but when the fire tries to claim the ones who are just like I was on that night, a switch flips.

“Scream for me again. I need to hear you.”

I call out through the smoke, ripping my mouthpiece from my face so I can yell louder, immediately tasting the soot in the thick air, coughing violently from the thickness of it.

“Come on buddy, where are you?”

The smoke is getting denser, filling the space, choking out everything and anything it can.

It’s the fire’s number one weapon, the thing she uses to take the majority of the victims she claims.

The flames are the last of the concern when it comes to human life, but suffocating on her smoke, that’s the real killer.

That is where her and I differ, I take with the flame, but only people who deserve it.

They aren’t victims, they’re trash to be incinerated.

I never kill innocents, and the boy screaming for his life is as innocent as they come, just like I was once.

“Help!”

The small voice cries out from my right, barely audible through the sounds of the apartment ablaze. “In here.”

“Hang on. I’m coming!”

I hack out between coughs, shoving my regulator back in my mouth, taking a deep but ragged breath in.

I’m no good to him if the smoke takes me down, I need to get to him, to bust down his door and sweep him away from this, just like my savior did for me.

Was he really a savior? Wouldn’t you have been better off dead? Not here living a lie.

The walls screech with their paint peeling from the heat as I toss a mangled chair out of my way, working through what looks like a living room.

A television explodes in the corner, with glass from the screen blowing out towards me, pelting my uniform and helmet.

I continue on through, moving a couch like it’s a toy, grabbing the arm of it and pushing it like it weighs nothing.

Another few steps on the buckling floor and I’m at a wooden door, and the only thing between me and the boy.

I can hear the sounds of my own bedroom door as it bowed inwards with the heat, and I look at the one in front of me, barely seeing it through the blackness.

I can feel it though as I place my gloved hand on its center.

I can feel the way it does the same, bending and flexing, creaking and cracking under my touch.

The knob is locked.

It’s not jammed, its fucking locked.

Just like mine was. “Fuck.”

I curse out, loud enough that the boy hears me, and his quiet cries turn to wailing screams.

“Back away from the door.”

I call out to him.

“Get back.”

The cheap, hollow core wood splits down the center with the first hit of my axe, the blade going through it easily.

Splinters fly back at me, and land on my feet as I hit it again and again, opening up enough of a hole that I can grab the edges with my hands.

Like a madman, I rip and pull at the hole, making it bigger, kicking the bottom with my foot, and breaking chunks away with my hands.

Smoke floods into the room, and the flames behind me lick at my back.

My brothers are getting to the mother, and the fire is raging its anger out, trying to keep us from our job, but I’m not letting her have him.

I won’t allow her to taste him like she tasted me.

No fucking way.

We’re on the fourth floor, and the view out the window beyond him shows no fire escape.

I can’t jump out a window with him, we’re too high up.

He needs to come out with me, to step through the flames, to walk through the fire that wants to consume him.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

“Come here. It’s okay. I’ve gotcha.”

I yell to him, dropping my axe and opening my arms like a father waiting for his child to run to him.

“I’m gonna get you out.”

The rest of the door falls away as tiny shards that dangle from the warped hinges. Flames kiss my back, hissing against the fireproof material of my uniform. It’s fucking hot and angry, but she’s no match for my determination to get him.

“Come on buddy. You’re safe with me.”

I say again, walking into the room my arms still extended.

“I’m taking you out. Don’t fight me okay?”

He’s a little thing, maybe eight years old.

A tad younger than I was when this exact thing happened to me.

He’s terrified, with a face full of tears that leave streaks in the soot on his skin. He’s in shock and not moving, all while the beast behind me is creeping in.

Flames lick up the walls, the smoke billowing in, thickening the air, trying to hide him from my view.

It’s literal hell on earth with the heat and the suffocating air.

He won’t last more than a minute in here, and as much as I hate having to traumatize him more, there’s no other choice.

Visions of the firefighter grabbing me and throwing me out the window with himself wash through my mind as I wrap my arms around him, squeezing him tightly while he kicks and screams in fear.

His cries echo, blending in with the sounds of the destruction around us, haunting me and the memories in my head.

“Easy buddy. Easy.”

I say to him, wriggling my coat open, encasing him inside of it.

“I’m gonna put this in your mouth. Just breathe.”

I add, pushing my regulator in his mouth, rubbing his back to stimulate him to breathe normally.

“Here we go. Close your eyes. Don’t look.”

I don’t know if it’s from the tight hug, or the fact that he’s acknowledged that he’s safe with me, but no matter what it is, I’m happy when he slumps against my chest and resigns himself to me.

I slap my helmet down on his head, crushing him to me, making sure the visor is down, I turn and face the monster raging at the demolished doorway.

Such a good boy.

Here we go.

Shielding him with all the gear I can, I step into hell while his little fists grab at my t-shirt so tightly.

A jump out the window for me was so easy compared to what he’s about to go through, but by God he’ll make it out of here unscathed, even if I have to burn on the way.

“You’re doing so good.

Keep those eyes closed.”

Holding him tightly I step out into the inferno that is what’s left of the living room.

The flames roll up the walls in thick panels of orange, blue and black, hissing and popping under the old paint.

The ceiling rattles with the force of the blaze, dropping chunks down on us, landing on my head and shoulders, sizzling in my sweaty hair.

It's a mad dash, as I take off at a run, stepping on and tripping over debris as he clutches to me, his eyes squeezed shut, his little cries coming from around the mouthpiece.

It’s ungodly hot, the fire, the air, everything, but I run, keeping my footing as best as I can, tearing us through the flames that taste me again.

They lick at me, singeing my exposed face.

The smoke is thick, covering my mouth and nose like a ghostly hand, suffocating the breath from me, keeping me from taking in the air I desperately need, but I continue on, carrying him through the devastation, ignoring the yells and shouts from my brothers who still try to reach his mother.

I’m sorry buddy.

Your mom is gone.

But don’t turn out like me, okay?

I can’t breathe, and my legs wobble from the exertion, even though I’m fit as fucking sin.

The physical work to run through fire and the heat is excruciating, but I continue on, battling the blaze, while fleeing from her.

She screams at me, her hot fingers grabbing at us, as I blow through the front door and out into the stairwell.

The hell has reached out here too, the steps each a single burning obstacle as I truck down them, him bouncing in my grasp.

My boots clunk on the stairs as I go down and down, dodging the blast of flames that burst from each door, trying to stop me.

My face gets licked again, burning my cheek, and I hold onto him tighter, running through it all while I cough and choke on the lack of oxygen.

I’m weak, my legs are buckling, my axe has long been forgotten in his bedroom, and as I reach the bottom and the first apartment, debris blocks the door way.

“Fuck!”

I scream, throwing my back against the pile of charred and burning wood and plaster as more rains down on us.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

He screams in my arms, vocalizing the panic he feels rising in me as I thrust myself into the barricade over and over again.

“Come on motherfucker!”

I bark out, kicking backwards with my foot, trying to move the bottom of the pile and have it come crashing down.

It shakes and tilts but doesn’t move enough. It’s not going anywhere with just my force. I need a fucking miracle to get us out now, and as I close my eyes and hold my breath, I do something I haven’t done since I was that terrified little boy, locked in my room, waiting to die. I pray.

To whom, I don’t know. I’ve never really believed in a benevolent being in the sky above. I mean if he existed why would people die, why would children get cancer, and why would I be the way I am?

“To whoever is up there, fuck, or down there, can you please give me a fucking hand here?”

Is it an answer? Or is it just goddamned stupid fucking luck that the heap of debris shakes, rattling against my back just before voices call out from behind it.

“Coming through!”

Someone hollers out from the other side.

“Fuck yes! Buddy, were good.”

I cough and choke out to the kid, squeezing him tighter, tapping the helmet that’s way too big for his little head.

It sounds like thunder as I move us out of the way and the trash heap falls, tumbling down to the floor and scattering at my feet, and precious light blasts through the opening from the torches on the helmets of the next wave of responders. There’s an army of them waiting to usher us out, blasting the flames with their hoses. The calvary has finally arrived, and just in time.

“Fourth floor,”

I cough hard, “one trapped, single team.”

I hack out, stumbling through the opening, my eyes watering so badly I can barely see, my legs so tired that my knees buckle with each step.

Hands reach out to me, grabbing at my arms, but I shake them off. I need to get him out the last few steps, but they need to go help my brothers. With nods of acknowledgement and pats to my head, they leave me and follow the path I just came down.

The lights from all the trucks outside cut through the night and the smoke, dancing in the black sky and bouncing off everything around us as I stumble out the door, gasping for the air that I need, my body shaking, my feet dragging and sliding through the debris. I’m wrecked, I can’t breathe, but in my arms, the little boy looks up at me with wide eyes of awe at the killer who just saved him. That right there is why I’m still here, right? That look? Or is it to punish the one who did this to him, if she survives?

“Fuck.”

I curse out, dropping to my knees on the sidewalk outside, leaning back on my feet, letting go of him as others rip him from my hold, whisking him away to an ambulance.

The world spins, the ground tilts, and everything goes dark, as I fall forwards, my soot covered face hitting the cement like a sack of bricks.