Hunter (Toxic Hearts Club #4)

1. Hunter

Hunter

Reality comes crashing down, settling in like the last shovel of dirt on a coffin. I've hit rock bottom. The only thing lower is six feet under, and tonight that option feels akin to mercy.

What the fuck do I have left to live for?

Nothing.

I killed the only person on this rotting planet I ever loved. That’s the simple truth. Everything else is just noise.

Nobody will miss me. Not really. They’ll say the right things at the station, pour a beer out for me, then go back to their wives and kids and pretend they didn’t see it coming.

I swallow. My mouth is dry as a desert. I tilt the bottle again—cheap tequila that stopped burning three swallows ago and now tastes like water. That should be my cue to stop.

Instead I drain the last of it, throat working until the bottle slips from my numb fingers and clatters across the floor, rolling to a stop under the futon as though it’s trying to hide from me too.

I shove upright. The room lurches hard. Or maybe that’s just me. Doesn’t matter. I shake my head once, twice, but the dizziness only digs its claws in deeper.

My eyes drift to the side table drawer. The gun is in there. Cold. Loaded. Waiting. One pull and this could all be over. No more smoke. No more waking up choking on a name I can’t stop saying in my sleep. Just blissful quiet.

Heat licks up my spine before I can reach for it.

Smoke.

I can smell it, thick, bitter, chemical. It coats the back of my throat and turns every breath into a war I’m losing. My lungs seize. I crash to my knees on the cheap carpet, palms slapping down hard enough to sting.

It’s not real.

It’s not fucking real.

But the agony in my chest says otherwise. And suddenly, he’s there, right behind my eyelids no matter how hard I squeeze them shut.

No. No. No. Go away. Let me black out instead. Please, if there is a God, just let me black out.

“Hunter!”

I spin toward him. Too slow. Always too goddamn slow.

Fire licks up the walls. When the hell did it get that bad? I don’t know. Can’t remember.

“Go!” he shouts over the roar. His voice is raw, cracking. “Get out!”

He’s too far back. I can barely see him through the black smoke—just the shape of him, gear charred and glistening, visor still down like that’ll save him.

“Get out, Hunter!”

“No.” I don’t know if I say it out loud or if the fire swallows it.

I step forward anyway, boots heavy, ready to drag his ass out if I have to. Coming back in for that recheck was stupid. The woman we pulled was half-dead and screaming about her son, but there was no kid. There never was.

The floor groans under me, soft and treacherous. A crack splits the air like a gunshot. Then the beam comes down—wood, metal, a waterfall of sparks and flame—slamming between us as though God himself decided I didn’t get to keep him.

The world caves in.

I’m thrown backward. Heat slams into me, searing through my gear like it’s tissue paper. Pain explodes across my shoulder, my arm. I hit the ground hard, and the darkness crashes over me.

“Hunter!”

Then nothing. Just silence and the smell of burning meat and melted plastic that still lives in my nose every single fucking night.

The memory spits me back out like expired meat left in a hot dumpster.

I’m on all fours on my shitty apartment floor, chest heaving, sweat pouring down my face and mixing with the tears I didn’t even notice falling. The carpet is rough under my palms. Real. No flames or collapsing beams. Just cheap, stained carpet that smells like old beer.

My stomach flips hard.

I barely have time to turn my head before it comes up—hot, sour tequila and whatever the hell I ate last; day old sitting out pizza, maybe.

It splatters across the floor in thick ropes, burning my throat worse than the liquor ever did.

Another heave, and more comes until nothing but bile comes out, strings of spit dangling from my lips.

The smell hits me—vomit, sweat, the ghost of smoke that never really leaves. I gag again even though there’s nothing left.

“Fuck… fuck you,” I rasp to no one. To him for leaving me in this shit hole. To myself for fucking up everything. My voice cracks the same way his did in the fire the last time I saw him.

My arms give out. I collapse sideways into the warm, chunky mess I just made, cheek pressing into the wet spot. The stench crawls up my nose and coats my throat. I don’t even care anymore. Let it soak into my shirt and ruin what’s left of me.

The old burn on my shoulder flares as if it’s happening all over again—hot, tight, angry scar tissue screaming where the gear failed and the fire won. It pulses in time with my heartbeat, a vicious reminder that I got to walk out and he didn’t.

I killed him.

The thought loops, vicious and endless. I killed him. I was too slow. Too weak. Too fucking stupid.

My eyelids flutter. The room tilts again, darker this time. The gun in the drawer feels a thousand miles away. Everything does.

Blackness creeps in at the edges, soft and heavy, promising nothing and everything at once.

I let it take me.

Let it drag me under into the only place where the pain finally stops.

I’m alive. My head throbbing in time to my heartbeat tells me that as I crack my eyes open.

I peel my face off the crusty carpet, vomit half dried and stiff in my hair, my cheek, my clothes. The stench is fucking biblical. My shoulder throbs with the old wound. And Robby’s name is still rattling around my skull. If I could just forget him, maybe it would make everything better.

I drag myself up, strip down, and stumble to the bathroom to stand under the coldest shower I can tolerate until the water runs clear.

By the time I pull into the station lot for my forty-eight, I’ve got my mask bolted on tight. Clean uniform. Fresh shave. Breath mints. The fake grin that says, I’m good, brother, how are you holding up?

“Morning, sunshine!” Cap calls from the bay as I walk in, clapping me on the good shoulder. “You look like shit warmed over. Late night?”

I laugh, the sound scraping my throat raw. “Nah, just still dreaming about your wife’s last visit, Cap. Tell her I said the lace was a nice touch.”

The guys roar. Mike slaps my back, Diaz whistles.

“Hunter’s back on his bullshit! Thank fuck, I was getting bored without your ugly mug the last few days,” Barry says.

Inside, it all feels like tuning into the wrong TV channel with only an antenna for a tuner. Static. They’re laughing at a dead man walking. If they knew it was my call that got Robby killed. If they knew I’m the reason he’s bones and teeth now…

I give as good as I get all morning. Through the truck checks, hose drills, the usual ball-busting over breakfast that turns my stomach. I pretend. It’s the only thing I’m good at now.

“Pass the syrup, asshole, or I’ll tell everyone about that Tinder disaster last shift.

” Fake cheer drips off me, and they eat it up.

Nobody looks too close. That’s the deal in the house: you joke, you rib, you don’t ask what’s really eating the guy next to you.

Because we’ve all lost someone to the flames we fight.

By afternoon, the exhaustion is bone-deep, but I keep moving and smiling. Try to forget last night and the memories it made fresh.

Then the tones drop.

“Engine 33, Ladder 9, five-alarm structure fire, industrial warehouse in the East Village. Multiple entrapments reported. All units respond.”

Adrenaline slams through the hangover fog. Five alarms—full fucking rodeo. Every engine, ladder, and spare body they can scrape together. My pulse kicks hard, and for a second, it almost feels like something other than guilt.

We roll heavy. Sirens screaming. Radio chatter thick. It’s what I lived for, once upon a time.

On scene it’s chaos—black smoke pouring out like the devil’s own breath, flames licking three stories high, collapse potential everywhere. Cap’s barking orders: “Hunter, Mike—interior attack on the east side with Diaz. Stay on the line, do not push past the collapse zone. I mean it.”

I nod. “Copy.”

Inside, the heat is a living thing. Gear feels as if it’s melting again. Smoke so thick it feels as though it has permeated my lungs and taken up residency. I know that’s not possible with my mask, but it still feels that way.

We push in, knocking down fire, searching for victims. Pulling a couple out. But the building’s groaning and angry. A beam shifts overhead, but I ignore it.

Cap’s voice crackles over the radio: “All units, back it down! Evacuate east side…structural compromise!”

The words sink into me, but something inside me snaps. I was too slow last time; not this time, not again.

I ignore the order. Pushing deeper into the area. “There’s movement—a civilian is sighted.”

Mike yells behind me. “Hunter, fall back! Cap said evac!”

I don’t listen. I charge the hallway as though it’s Robby on the other side of those flames. The floor buckles. Heat explodes. Something heavy slams into my helmet, my shoulder. It’s fresh agony on old scars.

Then nothing but roaring flame and the sick, familiar smell of burning meat.

Maybe this is finally it.