Chapter 8
Liv
Another call comes in just after midnight. Scott and I were just getting back from a patient transport, a grandma fell in the bathroom. Probably a broken hip. Her seven-year-old grandson had found her. He couldn’t stop crying, poor kid.
The radio kicks on right as Scott had just sat down.
My entire body snaps into focus. “Copy,” I state into the radio, already moving.
We race back to the rig, adrenaline flooding our veins.
He flips on the lights and sirens, and the world outside the rig blurs into streaks of red and white as we tear through the streets.
It’s on the same street as my apartment but two blocks down.
Not good. I’m sick of getting so many calls to my neighborhood.
Our station services a few square miles yet we end up within ten square blocks it seems like three quarters of our calls.
I know Scott’s thinking about it too, though he doesn’t say it.
The closer we get, the thicker the air feels. There’s smoke well before we see the building, a dark column rising into the night sky like a signal.
“Not good,” Scott mutters under his breath.
“Yeah,” I agree quietly.
Scott swings the rig around the corner, and the full scene slams into view.
It’s absolute chaos. Fire engines line the street at angles that block off traffic.
Hoses snake across pavement, water spraying in high arcs towards a three-story apartment building that’s actively burning.
I recognize it immediately. Empty, or at least it was supposed to be.
Boarded windows and broken bricks tower over the street; it’s the kind of place people avoid even in daylight.
Flames lick out of blown out, second-floor windows, glass is shattered, and smoke pours thick and black into the night sky, blocking out the already limited visible stars above.
People are everywhere: from firefighters to civilians to victims. Some wrapped in blankets, some coughing, some just… staring, disoriented and terrified. The kind of staring that I recognize as shock that hasn’t worn off yet.
This neighborhood doesn’t need another hit like this. And yet… here it is.
“Alright,” Scott says, slipping into the rhythm we’ve done a thousand times. “We triage, treat, and transport. Backup’s on the way.”
“Got it.”
“Let’s move!” Scott yells as we park.
He grabs the portable O2 from the back while I grab a bag and we rush out the back doors of the rig.
“EMS coming through!” I shout, causing a collection of gawkers to part for us.
A firefighter flags us down immediately; soot smeared across his face and breathing hard. “Second and third floor involved. Multiple victims were already pulled out. We’ve got more unaccounted for,” he declares.
“Got it,” I reply. “Where do you want us triaging?”
“We already started,” he discloses, pointing to a space between two parked firetrucks were a young woman covered in soot sits on the curb coughing.
And then I see him, Alex. He’s standing just beyond the immediate chaos, near the edge of the perimeter, dressed like he always is, in a button-up, slacks, and his badge clipped to his belt.
But there’s nothing casual about the way he’s standing.
His posture is tight and controlled, as his eyes scan everything.
Not like a bystander, not even like a cop just keeping order.
Like a hunter. Like he’s already ten steps ahead of whatever’s happening.
Like the fire is only part of the problem.
His gaze cuts across the scene and lands on me. Just for a second. A flicker of recognition crosses his face. And something else. But it’s gone before I can identify it. He’s right back to being professional and focused.
“Liv!” Scott barks, snapping me back into it.
Right, work. We move in.
When we reach our patient, she isn’t what I expect but also makes sense now why Alex is here.
She’s young, early twenties, brown hair tumbling over her shoulders in messy chunks, like she hasn’t had access to a hairbrush in weeks.
She’s covered in soot and coughing hard.
But that’s not what hits me. It’s the bruising on her wrists and her neck.
Fading yellow and fresh purple layered together.
My stomach twists. “Hey,” I say, kneeling beside her. “I’ve got you.”
Her eyes snap to mine, terrified, but not from the fire. From everything else.
“We’re getting you out of here,” I add, softer now.
She nods quickly, too quickly. Like she’s grown used to being told what to do.
Scott is already setting up oxygen, so I start assessing her. Airway: compromised but open. Breathing: rapid. Circulation: elevated pulse.
But it’s the details that don’t fit a normal fire victim.
The way she flinches every time Scott moves beside me.
It’s in the way her hands stay close to her body, protective and conditioned.
My gaze flicks toward the building again.
And that’s when I see it. Not just decay and abandonment.
But opportunity. A place no one looks at means it’s a place no one will look into.
Across the scene, Alex moves closer to the structure, ducking under tape with a quick word to a firefighter. They let him through without hesitation.
Of course they do.
A second victim is brought out. Then a third. All women. All roughly the same age. All with that same look.
Something cold settles throughout my body.
“Liv,” Scott murmurs under his breath. “You seeing this?”
“Yeah,” I reply quietly. And I hate what I’m seeing.
I stabilize my patient enough for transport, and back-up arrived in time to take her to the nearest hospital, but the scene is still active, so we hold.
Which means I hear it.
“Hey, hey, you’re safe now,” Mason’s voice floats over from the other side of a nearby firetruck. He’s crouched in front of another woman, wrapped in a blanket, and shaking so hard that her teeth are chattering.
The first thing I note is that her breathing is okay and that she doesn’t have any visible injuries. Then I notice what she’s looking at: the building, but not the fire.
Like the walls are going to reach out and drag her back in.
“They’re gone,” Mason says quietly. “Whoever was here, they ran.”
Her head shakes fast. “No, they’ll come back. They always come back.”
“They won’t tonight,” he attests firmly. Something in his tone is different than I’ve heard from him before, less charming, more… solid. Grounding.
I find myself listening, even while I keep working.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asks.
She swallows hard. “They kept us here.”
My hands still for half a second.
Scott glances at me. We both heard it.
“In the building?” Mason asks carefully.
She nods. “Second floor mostly… sometimes third…” Her voice breaks. “They’d move us around, different rooms, different nights.”
My stomach drops.
“How many?” he asks.
“I- I don’t know,” she says. “There were more. Always more. They’d bring new girls in…
take others out… hurt us.” Her fingers clutch the blanket tighter.
“Upstairs…” her eyes darting toward the third-floor windows.
“Something else was happening up there. I don’t know what.
They never let us stay there long. Just…
screams sometimes. Other times… just silence. ”
A chill crawls up my spine.
“How did the fire start?” Mason asks.
She hesitates. Then confesses, “I did it.”
Everything seems to pause.
“I knocked over a lamp,” she continues, voice shaking but stronger now. “The cord was ripped; it tugged then sparked… caught the curtain… I just- I needed a way out.”
Her eyes squeeze shut. “They ran when it started spreading. Just left us.”
Of course they did.
“Did you see who was in charge?” Mason asks, voice tightening just slightly.
She nods. “Not his face. Not really. But they…” she swallows, “they called him something.”
Mason leans in slightly. “What?”
Her voice drops. “York.”
The name hits heavily even though I don’t recognize it. Across the scene, Alex freezes. I see it, telling me he was listening to it too.
His attention sharpens like a blade as he makes his way towards Mason.
I shouldn’t be watching him, but I can’t look away.
He crouches beside them, saying something low I can’t hear. Mason looks up at him, expression shifting instantly. They’re communicating without words. Again.
And it hits me; this isn’t new to them.
“Liv,” Scott says, pulling my attention off of Alex and back onto my patient.
I force myself back into motion, mentally chastising myself for letting my attention get pulled away so badly.
But everything feels different now, heavier and darker.
This isn’t about the fire anymore.
As the fire dies down and the chaos begins to settle, my mind doesn’t. And once my last patient is stabilized, I look up again and find him already looking at me. I don’t need to say it, I can already tell that he knows I was listening.
That I know.
I know what was happening in that building.
And I’ve finally figured out that I didn’t meet a detective that night outside my apartment. I stepped into his world. And now there’s no stepping back out.