Page 46

CHAPTER 45

DRIFT

WILDER

T he station is quiet other than Tate’s soft snoring from his bed next to mine.

On the wall, the clock reads a little after three in the morning.

I’ve been staring at the ceiling since I lay down.

Yesterday was rough. When Cass and Cricket got home from school, Cricket launched herself at me and burst into tears. I carried her to the couch, her little body curling up in my lap, trembling with sobs after the mess at school. My guts are still twisted up about it. But in the moment, I didn’t know how to process the accusations, decipher the truth, and be there for her too. It took my whole brain and my whole heart and my whole, entire soul to get through it. I was so fucking mad at the unfairness of it all. So fucking hurt that she was hurting. And I had no idea what to do about any of it.

All she can do is the right thing, I told her. When I apologized, it wasn’t for the situation so much as it was for the world being what it is. I promised her it would be alright.

Thank God she didn’t ask me how because I had no idea.

I still don’t know. There aren’t enough options. Do I get involved or would that make it worse? Do I reach out to the girl’s family and try and smooth things over? Cass said that didn’t work before, and somehow I can’t imagine it would be helpful now, after this.

Cass doesn’t think Cricket chopped that little girl’s hair off, and judging by Cricket’s distress, I’m inclined to agree. When pressed, and sometimes unprompted, she always tells the truth. Given the pressure on Cricket, I think she’d crack. Instead, she broke.

When the Wilsons came to get her, I had a chance to talk to them about the details. This morning, they said she passed out in the truck on the way home and slept hard last night in their bed.

Cass was despondent, worried about Cricket and her job. The injustice ate at me, but I did my best not to react. I just held her and listened and watched her horny doctor show. When she initiated a little fooling around on the couch that turned into big fooling around in bed, I did everything I could to soothe her. Eventually, she fell asleep in my arms, but she never fully relaxed, her body strung tight.

Every single minute of their pain is torture. The impulse to do something, fix something, is so overwhelming, it’s a living thing in my chest, scratching and clawing to get out. But all I can do is lie here in the dark and try to get some rest.

I roll over again and punch my pillow, sighing at my new view of the cinderblock wall, wondering if I’m going to sleep at all.

When every light in the station flips on, I know the answer is no.

Dispatch comes over the speakers, and I’m out of bed before everyone, heading for the bay. The guys stumble behind me as we get the details for the fire, doing our best to listen, half awake and hurrying into our gear. Tate hisses a swear when he’s buckling his jacket and realizes he forgot to pull up his suspenders. I’m too tired to even fuck with him about it.

Brady is already climbing into the driver’s seat of the engine, and the rest of us pile in. Tate brings up the rear with half his shit in his hands. The second his ass hits his jump seat, we’re rolling, sirens blaring. As we tear through town, I’m busy getting my gear in order, listening to the call, thankful the Chief is on his way and can run command so I don’t have to. Like just about everything in Roseville, the house is less than five minutes away—by the time we reach it, I’m buzzing.

Chief Anderson is getting out of his Suburban when we pull up to the two-story house and spill out. I stride to meet him, my eyes scanning and brain clicking through a plan. Flames lick through the front left windows of the house, but given the amount of black smoke billowing from the second floor windows, I’m almost positive that’s not where the fire started. If it had, there would be more.

Chief’s gray brows are knitted together, and he’s scanning too, radio in hand. We forego greetings, heading to the left side of the house in thick smoke while we plan. The wind is steady and heavy in our direction, dead set to blanket us.

He nods when we’re able to see again—the back left corner of the house is raging.

Briskly, we walk back to the engine and solidify the plan. We’ll go in through the front door, knock out the fire in the front left, then make our way to the back where I have a feeling it started. We’ll knock out whatever we find, and once we’ve got it down, search and rescue.

Don’t be so sure of yourself. You never know what you’re going to find.

When we part ways at the engine, he’s on his radio with dispatch, his voice accompanying me from the radio on my coat.

Brady is busy with the pump, but Tate and Jake have already pulled the crosslay, the hose sitting in its neatly folded stack in the grass. It’s a flurry of motion and clipped orders, our masks on early for the heavy smoke—we have maybe twenty minutes before we’ll need air. Plenty of time. I pull on my gloves and grab my pickaxe, the open nozzle in Tate’s hands gurgling and popping as air and water rush through. My pulse thumps in my neck and ears, the heat a physical thing, hitting me like a wall as I approach the front door. The roar of the fire is all I can hear when I glance over my shoulder at Tate and get a thumbs up.

I grip my axe and turn to the door.

Time is a funny thing when you’re in danger, your brain pumping adrenaline like a steam engine in an effort to keep you alive. Things happen in bursts, clipped and shuttering. Or time stands still, hanging suspended in an everlasting moment. Nothing means anything outside of what’s in front of you, your single-minded focus the only thing keeping you on this side of the line between life and death.

It’s in flashes that I watch myself turn my axe head down. I feel the reverberation up my arms when the head slams into the door just above the deadbolt. My body is coiled, anticipating the second it breaks—it’s an explosive game of jack-in-the-box I’m playing when I bash the door again.

With the third, the door flies toward me, propelled by the pressure inside, slamming against the side of the house. A wall of smoke rushes from the doorway, strong, hot, destructive. but I’ve already dropped to the ground, the eruption of heat pouring over me. In a breath, it’s a torrent. In another, it’s a river. Which is when Tate and Jake join me, waiting on my signal to head in.

When we do, we’re plunged into darkness.

The flashlights on our straps only cut a few feet into the murky smoke as Tate leads us into the house on our hands and knees, hauling the stiff hose with Jake sandwiched between us. Instantly, I feel the heat on my neck where my hood isn’t tucked in and adjust it as we hug the wall to the left. First we hit a small bathroom, then a stairwell, until we find a wall on the left to follow. I have no idea if we’re in a room or a hallway, only that we need to go left as soon as we hit an entry. But fifteen feet into the house, and all we’ve done is weave around a recliner and a dresser standing haphazardly in our path.

I see the faint glow ahead and stop when Jake does. I can’t see Tate but for the occasional flash of reflective material until he leans toward Jake, yelling something. Jake nods and turns to me, bringing his mask close.

“There’s couches or somethin’ piled up, Cap!”

I nod, and we shuffle over to the pile of furniture barricading the entrance.

“What the fuck?” I say to nobody, inspecting the cased opening into the room. The glow of the fire is brighter between the stack of bullshit, the temperature leaping as we work on it. It takes what feels like forever to dislodge the top couch, sending it toppling into the room beyond, and a fresh wave of hot air slams into us when it’s gone. The second goes easier, and the third we get out of the way with a solid shove. We’re back on our hands and knees and surging into the room, the fire flashing and bellowing from the depths of dark smoke. Furniture litters the room, and we wind around a wardrobe, close to reaching our destination.

The creak doesn’t register until Jake sinks, toppling to the right. All three of us are yelling and confused, Jake wild eyed and scrabbling away from the leaning floor. I don’t understand what he’s saying until he points at his leg, punched through the floor up to his balls.

I grab him and pull with Tate, trying to dislodge him, but the hole isn’t much bigger than his leg. It seems like it takes too long to pull him out, the fire closer, hotter—all three of our air pack alarms are going off, clicking like little jackhammers as we huff and pant. Beyond the towering wardrobe, we have a view of the fire raging along what looks like the entire side of the house. Tate rises up to his knees with the hose and Jake braces him with a hand on his back. When he eases open the nozzle to full force, it pushes him back, despite putting all his weight into it. Jake and I wrangle the hose behind him, advancing toward the flames.

Seconds, and the fire is knocked down. I grab Tate’s right arm and pull him toward the back of the house before giving him a little shove to get going. The smoke is still muddy and dark as we crawl toward the back, met with the heart of the fire, raging in the kitchen.

The walls are black and eaten through, the glow of flames crawling across the ceiling toward us. Tate rises again, the front of him lit white-hot as a cabinet falls off close by with a crash, sending sparks and embers out in a cloud. In answer, he opens the nozzle, aiming the torrent of water at the roots of the flaming beast.

It always amazes me how unstoppable a hungry, vicious fire feels. How dangerous and deadly it is up to the very second we find it. Because once we do, it’s dead in a matter of heartbeats.

Tate whoops when it’s knocked down, closing the nozzle. But down the hall to my right, the glow flickers through the dense smoke. Again, I’m yelling orders as I grab Tate’s arm, pulling him by the coat and pointing, since I’m sure he can’t hear me. He nods when he sees it.

I clock the clicking air pack alarm and glance at my gauge with a moment of shock. There’s less than I thought. Not enough to knock out whatever’s down that hallway. I’ve gotta get Jake and?—

Time stretches and snaps to the sound of a splintering, groaning roar, and when I look up, the ceiling splits, bursting open to an explosion of wood and plaster and piping, raining down on us like hellfire.

Something hits my back, and I slam into the ground, my lungs emptying in a whoosh and locking shut. Stars dance across my vision, my mask jammed into the floor. The guys are yelling, but I can’t understand what they’re saying any better than I can see them, pinned down like I am. Their voices are frantic as I feel the weight on me shifting, but never releasing me. I press my palms into the floor and try to push, but whatever’s on me is too heavy.

“I can’t move!” I yell uselessly, panic scratching at the edges of my awareness, my mask clicking, noisy, nonstop.

They’re still shouting and frantic and shoving before one of the beams slides off my back and onto the floor. Relief floods me for a sweet, grateful moment. Until I try to roll over.

My leg is pinned under another set of crisscrossing beams, on top of which is an iron clawfoot tub with a broken toilet in it. When I twist my leg, it moves without pain, but it’s tangled up, my foot caught in something. I can’t free it because of the beam resting against the back of my knee. One inch. One more inch, and my knee would be shattered. Debris falls from the flaming second floor and into the tub. For a long moment, I stare at it while Jake and Tate work with a broken beam they’re trying to use as leverage. Above them, in the gaping hole, what was a bathroom is on fire.

My PASS alarm goes off, shrill and sharp, just like it’s supposed to anytime we’re still for more than thirty seconds. But this time, it’s not an annoyance.

It’s terrifying.

My air pack jackhammers.

Click-click-click-click-click.

I snap back into myself.

We’re out of time.

I see it all from a distance. I know what’s going to happen.

I can save them, at least.

“Hey!” I shout. They don’t hear me. I wave my hands, finally resorting to throwing a chunk of plaster at them. When they turn to me, I wave them over, grabbing Tate by the front of his coat when I can reach him, pulling him until our masks are smashed against each other.

“You’ve got to get out!” I yell over the sound of our clicking packs.

Tate’s eyes are all whites around the edges. He shakes his head. “I’m not fucking leaving you!” The words are muffled and muddy through our masks.

“ Tate! Listen to me. We are out of air. You need to get yourself air, get me air, and get some fucking help.”

He’s shaking his head. “I’m not leaving you!”

“You have to.”

“No! I can?—”

“I jerk him, shouting through my teeth, “ Tatum. Get us air and get help right now! That is a fucking order! Go, or we’re all going to die in here. ”

Tate blinks, then understands. His face hardens. “ I’ll be right back !”

“ I’ll be right here. ”

He looks at me for a long moment before clapping my arm and standing, grabbing Jake by the elbow. I watch them follow the hose line until they’re swallowed up by smoke.

My radio is chaos, and I hear it for what feels like the first time in hours. The Carterville engine is shouting that they’re almost here. Chief is asking for my status, and I give it to him as best I can, twisting and pulling pointlessly at my leg to see if I can dislodge it.

Click-click-click-click-click.

I untwist to lay out flat on my stomach and think, skip breathing to conserve air. Above me, I hear the fire chewing and grinding through the maw in the ceiling. I feel the heat rising from the hallway. I see the hose and reach for it, but my fingers don’t even graze it. Why the fuck didn’t I have him give me the nozzle? It all happened too fast.

Click-click-click-click-click.

I try to maneuver my leg again, but there’s not enough space without moving at least one of the beams, impossible from where I lay on my belly.

Click-click-click-click-click…

Futility slips over me, sinking into my marrow, cold and quiet. There’s nothing I can do. There is no way for me to save myself.

The fire rages around me.

The pack doesn’t click again—there’s no air in the tank. Thirty seconds of air is my best guess, if I’m calm. What’s in my mask is all that’s left.

I close my eyes, the corners stinging. Every breath I take tightens the masks suction, sucking my face toward the shield. Cass occupies every space inside of me.

At least we found each other again. At least I got to love her again.

I wish I’d told her.

The next breath, the suction draws tighter. The PASS alarm is far away.

Cricket joins Cass, and I can almost hear her giggle. See the ghost of her snaggletoothed smile. I picture her in that moment when she called me Daddy for the first time as hot tears trail down the bridge of my nose and cling on the tip.

The suction is terrifying. This time, there is no air.

The only thing left to do might kill me. But doing nothing guarantees it.

With a shaking hand, I unscrew my regulator from the mask and press the hole to the floor—if there’s any air, it’ll be there.

Smoke creeps into my mask in tendrils, and I sip what little air I can get.

The calm is solid and heavy. The noise and the heat fade away when I imagine myself in Cass’s arms. Always said it wouldn’t be a bad way to go. Maybe if I try hard enough, I can stay there forever with her fingers twined in my hair and her words soft in my ear.

Awareness dims as smoke snakes into my lungs, my ribs seizing and revolting and losing the battle. And in the end, there’s nothing to do but surrender.