Page 57

JACK

No more than fifteen minutes after the first call, we get a second to the same location. The computerized voice begins dispatching the details.

My feet freeze just before I can take a step down the stairs. Anderson runs past me, but I grab him by the shirt. “Did it just say Maple Hollow Road?”

“Yeah,” Anderson says, looking at me confused, until we both hear the details again. Our eyes lock when we hear the street address. “Isn’t that?—”

I rush down the stairs, barreling into whoever is in my way. Adrenaline and pure terror overwhelms me, taking over my muscle memory as I gear up, my vision going blurry as I run to the truck.

“Jack!” Anderson yells to me, but it sounds like he’s underwater. “Jack!” he says again, this time closer.

“What?” I bark.

“We need your orders,” Anderson says among the movement of everyone gearing up and getting into the truck, and I can see his worried features trying to hide beneath a look of calm.

I shake my head, needing to keep a level-head.

I exhale. “This is a potential arson with a victim inside—move fast and stay sharp.

Ladder 3, you're on primary search; Rescue 5, back them up and check for extension. Engine 12, get water on that structure and secure a line for interior.” My voice is tense and loud, and the crew watches me carefully as I turn to get in the truck.

Once we’re all loaded up, we pull out into the evening, the low sun casting a warm glow over the horizon, but I can’t focus on anything except for what the fuck happened.

An active fire at Rumi’s house—is she home? Is Ava? What about Evee?

So many scenarios run through my brain, and it feels harder and harder to breathe with each one.

I can’t freeze.

I can’t make a mistake.

She needs to be okay.

“It’s my girlfriend’s address.” I look into the eyes of each member of my crew as the truck speeds down the road, my heart on the verge of exploding.

We can’t make a mistake.

Understanding dawns on their faces just before each one looks at me with determination in their eyes.

As the truck nears Rumi’s neighborhood, I see the rising column of dark, churning smoke above the rooftops, flickering orange light mixing with the approaching sunset.

“Watch for structural instability and be alert for the suspect. PD's en route,” I order.

And I hope for the suspect’s sake that one of the others finds them—there’s no telling what I’ll do if I do.

As we approach the scene, I’m supposed to repeat orders and oversee the processes, but when I see the house of the woman I love up in flames, I don’t hesitate.

Forgetting any protocol or way of handling these situations, I run directly to the front door—fuck any and all training and conditioning. I don’t even waste time grabbing my SCBA or a mask.

“Hasting!” I hear from behind me, from multiple voices of the crew, but I don’t care. I trust them to do what needs to be done, the same way I’m doing exactly what I need to do.

Kicking the door down, making a promise in my head to Rumi that I’ll fix it again, I enter the house, finding it completely filled with thick, choking smoke.

Glowing embers and flickering flames cast eerie shadows over the place I’ve gotten to know so well, and the heat is so intense that it distorts my vision.

A sense of urgency takes over as I hear the structure groan, and I have to rely on my familiarity with the house to make my way through it with how low visibility is, my arm in front of my face to decrease the amount of smoke I inhale.

Moving through the entryway, I enter the kitchen where I find a body slumped on the ground, blood coming from their head. My heart rate spikes, my stomach plummeting before I realize it’s a body I don’t recognize.

Who the fuck is this?

I reach down, feeling for a pulse, and it takes a second, but I find one on the man. Looking around, I see Evee’s empty high chair and a big pot forgotten on the floor, so I act quickly, throwing the man over my shoulder and making my way to the sliding back door.

And that’s when I see her.

Covered in black soot, laying on her side in a fetal position, wrapped around a tiny, fragile body, I see Rumi.

Carrying the man I found in her kitchen out the glass door, I set him down on the grass of the gated backyard before I gather Rumi and Evee in my arms. Evee’s eyes are swollen from the smoke and from crying, but she’s awake and responsive, her small whimpering my own personal hell.

Her cries turn to wails as I hold her against me in one arm, picking up Rumi in the other, and my body threatens to crumple when I see her face.

Her eyes are completely swollen shut, her lip gashed with a cut that’s still bleeding, her neck bruised with what look like handprints, streams of blood coming down her face.

I yell so loud that my throat starts to strain, already burning from all the smoke as I run to the gate door, hoping someone on the crew hears me.

“There he is!” I hear Anderson yell before him and two other guys from the crew run over to me, their masks down, oxygen on their backs.

“You didn’t even grab your tank, Jack,” Anderson says, as he approaches, his voice muffled behind his mask, but I see the relief on his face when he sees Rumi and Evee in my arms. “Thank fuck,” he mutters before opening the gate door for me, just as I hear ambulance sirens approaching.

“There’s another victim. A man. I found him in the kitchen,” I rasp, refusing to let go of Evee or Rumi, even as the two guys on the crew reach for them to help me.

“I thought they said the suspect was on foot.”

I think of Rumi’s injuries, the ones that couldn't have come from the fire. “I think he never made it out of the house,” I say as I walk a wailing Evee and an unconscious Rumi to the street where three paramedics are pulling out a gurney.

“We’ve got two victims—female, 25, pulled from the backyard, unconscious with smoke inhalation and burns to the arms and legs, swelling to the face, bruising on her neck.

Infant, 15 months old, was found next to her—conscious, breathing, but needs to be assessed. Both need oxygen and rapid transport.”

One of the paramedics grabs Evee from me to assess her, and I help the other two load Rumi onto the gurney. My eyes burn as I look down at her, but it’s not from the smoke.

She looks so pale, so vulnerable—the only reassuring thing about her is the slow rise and fall of her chest.

“She needs to be okay,” I whisper to myself. I take off my glove to run a hand through her hair, a tear falling from my eye as I look at her, hoping I wasn’t too late and wishing that we weren’t in this situation again.

The paramedics try to wheel her to the ambulance, but I hold it tight, looking between the two of them as I say again, “She needs to be okay.”

I look down at Rumi one more time, taking my helmet off to lean down and press a gentle kiss to her forehead, my chest cracking more and more the longer I look at her injuries.

The injuries that could only be from one person.

The person who is going to wish he died in the fire after I’m done with him.

When I pull back, I hope to see those pretty blue eyes looking back at me, but I don’t think she’d be able to open them right now even if she tried, not with how swollen her face is.

“You riding with us?” one of the paramedics asks.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I turn to find Anderson. “Go,” he says. “We got it from here.”

And I believe him.

Following the gurney to the ambulance, I hop in, taking off my gear and grabbing Evee from the paramedic, holding her close while they load Rumi up.

“She’s going to be okay,” I whisper to Evee. She looks at me, recognition falling over her little features, and her head falls into my shoulder as we drive to the hospital.