Chapter Seventeen
Wren
Isat up coughing, trying to blink through the ash that filled the air. I took a mental scan of my body. Nothing hurt except where I had landed on my ass. I turned and tried to squint through the ash to see if the firefighter I’d been running beside was okay.
I didn’t know his name, so I groped around the ground until I found his arm. “Are you okay?”
He groaned. “Ankle,” was all he said.
“Division Alpha to Command, we’ve got an injured firefighter at our location. Possible lower-limb injury. Request medical response.”
“Copy that, medical en route.”
The firefighter grabbed my hand and I held his tight, remembering what it was like to be brand new in this job. The ground was hot and hard where I sat but I didn’t let go until help arrived.
I returned to camp after my shift and went straight for the showers. They were far from perfect, but it still felt good to get a layer of dirt from my skin. Once I was dressed, I got a plate of meat and potatoes from the dinner line and sat heavily at one of the folding tables in the main tent.
The conversation level was low. Everyone was too tired to speak.
The incident commander Evan Hale approached and I shifted my eyes up to meet his.
I had worked with him a few times before.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a few tattoos on each bicep, a bit of gray in his short hair.
I knew him to be no-nonsense when it came to safety and I braced myself for a lecture.
He took a seat across from me. “Long day?” He asked, his voice gentler than I’d expected.
“Aren’t they all?”
He chuckled. “Good point. I hear there was an incident today with Bennett.”
“I never actually got his name,” I replied. “But yeah, there was.”
“Tell me what happened.”
He studied me carefully as I recounted the events that had led to the young firefighter being carried off in an ambulance. “Is he okay?” I asked once Evan had finished with his questions.
He nodded. “He got lucky. The snag that fell rolled onto his ankle rather than falling directly on it, as best we can tell anyway. He’ll be in a cast, but he’ll be fine.”
I blew out a breath, relief washing over me.
“The outcome would have been worse if you hadn’t been there, you know that, right?”
I bit my lip and nodded, not comfortable accepting praise.
“This work may look like a young person’s game. It’s hot, it’s hard, it wears you down but the experience you have is more important than cartilage in your knees.”
I snorted. “Well, experience I have. As for the knees…”
He nodded. “I get it, believe me.” He paused and took a drink from his cup. “I know from your file you move around and take postings where you’re needed.”
I nodded.
“You’ve always been in boots on the ground roles?”
I nodded again. “I go where the action is, doesn’t allow for upward mobility I guess.” A breeze blew through the tent, the smell of smoke overriding the smell of my dinner. I pushed my plate away.
“I respect that, Wren. I really do.”
“But?”
“But if you ever did want to move up to crew leader or even crew boss with the BC Wildfire Service, I’d push your name up the chain. You showed good instincts out there, level-headed thinking. You saved a young man from one hell of a bonk on the head. We’d be lucky to have you.”
After the stressful day I’d had, it was nice to hear. Of course I had thought about that. But that decision involved choosing a place to settle down. Not necessarily one city but one fire district, or province, or state.
I had been dragging my feet on making the decision, maybe looking for a sign or a reason to pick one place over another.
Setting up a home base didn’t mean I’d be stuck in one place forever, but it still felt like too big a decision to make lightly. And now he’d dropped it on me at exactly the wrong time, when Jasper was already taking up more space in my head than I wanted.
“Thank you, sir,” I said. He nodded and stepped away.
I forced myself to eat the rest of my dinner, then trudged to my tent, kicking off my boots and crawling inside. I was dead on my feet and it was one of those rare times when being independent felt a little lonely.
A new camp often felt that way until I got settled and knew a few names.
I lay out on the sleeping bag and reached for my phone, where I had left it next to my bedroll, and checked the screen. I had a ton of missed calls from an unknown number and a ton more from Kara.
I hit Kara’s number.
“Where the hell have you been?” I winced at her voice.
“Sorry, Mom, I was working.” I joked.
She didn’t laugh.
“What’s wrong?”
“I saw on the news someone got hurt and I thought it was you.”
My stomach sank. “I was there when it happened, but it wasn’t me. I’m sorry to worry you.”
She chuckled without humor. “It’s okay, part of being your friend is worrying about you and I accept that. Just make sure you have your phone on you, okay?”
“Of course, I—”
I heard someone yelling from outside the tent and it sounded vaguely like my name.
Maybe it was the commander. Maybe Bennett was worse off than he thought.
“Sorry, I have to check on something. I’ll text you, okay? Promise.”
I heard what was definitely my name and hung up the phone before poking my head out of my tent.