Forty-Two
Luke
C losing my eyes, I roll my neck to ease some of the tension as we get closer to Amelia’s farm. I force myself to take a deep breath to try and calm my racing heart.
You’re trained for this. Amelia needs you to have your head on straight.
We jerk to a stop, and I open my eyes.
Behind me, Sam says, “Shit.”
He throws open the door and runs toward Noah, and I’m right behind him.
A lump forms in my throat as I see the flames coming out of the windows. Am is going to be devastated. I look around to see where everyone is and note that we need to check in with the team here.
As I get closer to Sam and Noah, I hear the tail end of what’s being said.
“You’re absolutely sure that’s what Pam said?”
“That’s exactly what she said to me. She was supposed to let Penny out and feed the animals so Amelia could check why a sensor kept showing a door opening and closing like it wasn’t latched all the way,” Noah tells him as he pulls up overhead shots of the farm that look like they’re from an advertisement. “Do you think this has anything to do with the firebug that you guys briefed us on earlier?”
A car door slams and we all turn toward the sound.
“What the fuck, Pam! Why are you here?” Sam says.
“My best friend is in trouble, and you think I’m just going to sit at home and do nothing? It’s like you don’t even know me.” She pauses and glares at him. “Carry on discussing your plan to get her out of there.”
“So we know for sure Am is in there?” I ask, drawing their attention back to me, and that’s when I feel something nudge my leg.
Looking down, I see Penny putting her weight on my leg while she whines looking at the farm.
“You brought Penny?” Sam asks.
“Of course I did. We need the emotional support. But she was also already on the leash in my hand as I was walking out.” She shrugs.
“Pam, you’re a hundred percent sure you saw Am in there?” I ask again.
“Yes, I saw her on the cameras, and she wasn’t alone,” she tells me.
Fear shivers down my spine at the possibility of Amelia being hurt.
“Who the fuck else would be in there with her?” I ask as I look around to see if the one person that comes to mind is here.
Noah looks over at Pam and then back at us and says, “Brian was in there with one other person.”
“Will you just fucking spit it out? Who else was in there?” I say to them.
Pam crouches to pull Penny closer to her and looks up at Sam. “Leo. Leo is the other person in that building with them.”
Without another word, I turn on my heel and walk toward Jim’s truck to grab my tank and helmet.
“Wait up, man, you can’t go in there alone. You know how the fires have started and what his pattern is. If he’s the one who has been setting the fires, the doors are where he starts them, so we have to be smart about this.”
Spinning on my heels to face him, I yell, “I don’t give a fuck how we get in, Sam. The woman I love is in there, and I’m going to do everything I can to get her out. Regardless of the risk or consequences.” Pam and Penny walk slowly toward us. “Pam. I need you to take Penny back to your car and wait there till I get back. If anything happens to either of you, she’ll kill me. I’m going to get her out of there.”
Pam nods at me, and I turn back around and jog toward the greenhouses.
“Luke, will you wait one damn minute?” Sam says as he grabs my shoulder. “She’s my sister. I’m with you, but neither of us will do her any good if we die on our way in. We have to find a safe way to enter.”
I stop and take in my surroundings. In the distance, I hear glass shattering as the heat becomes too much, thick smoke billowing out as it escapes the confines of the greenhouse.
He’s right. I take a breath to center my thoughts to come up with a plan. If we go in the wrong way, it’ll be for nothing.
As my gaze roams over the farm, I notice more flames consume the front part of the structure, and they seem to be moving backward.
“There.” I point toward the main entrance to the building. “The fire seems to have started in the front of the building and is spreading toward the back. Noah!”
“What’s up?” he says, jogging up to us.
“I need you to ask Pam which motion detectors were set off and in what pattern. I don’t have my phone on me to use my app. I’ll be on channel eight.” I look down and adjust the channel on my walkie.
“Yeah, give me a minute,” he says and runs off to Pam and her car.
I approach the building, and Sam asks, “What are you thinking?”
“If we can trace the way the sensors were tripped before the fire took them out, we can hopefully find the last one they used and use that door,” I tell him when Pam comes on over the radio.
“I have the app open. What do you specifically need?” she asks.
“I just need the location of the last sensor that went off before the system went out,” I tell her, staring at the building as the fire spreads back, slow and steady.
“The one labeled NBD1”
“Thanks, Pam. Tell Noah to let everyone know the person who has been starting the fires is inside. They’ll know how to fight it. But you have to stay in the car, okay?”
“You are going to get her out, right?” she asks, her voice thick with emotion, and I have to force a deep breath.
“That or die trying.”
After putting my mask on, I point to the new back door, as Am calls it.
Sam comes up next to me with his mask on, and we make our way to where we’ll enter.
“We could lose our jobs going in there. This is your last chance to turn back,” I tell Sam.
“Fuck that. I don’t care if I lose my job. I got both of your backs. Let’s go get her. We need to turn our radios back to channel three.”
Nodding, I turn back toward the greenhouse. I pick up my pace and have never been happier with how Amelia designed this building, with the offices in the center point and branches going out from there.
It means the fire has to work harder to get to the back part.
I yell at Sam as I get closer to him. “I’m pretty sure the fire started in the front part of the office section and spread to the new section.”
“I’m not mad. Hopefully, that makes it easier to get to her.”
“I hope so too.” I try to look in the windows next to the door but can’t see anything past the smoke.
As I go to grab my Halligan, I freeze.
I have never been nervous to walk into a fire before.
This job is what I was born to do, but the thought that Amelia is hurt on the other side of the door. . . or worse, it makes my chest tight.
With a hand on my shoulder, like he can infuse me with strength, Sam says, “I got the door, man. I’ll take point.”
I just nod and step aside, thankful he is with me.
He tries the door handle . . . because why break the door if it’s open?
We aren’t that lucky this time though. The door is jammed, so he grabs his Halligan to break it down.
Over the roar of the fire coming from the front of the farm, I hear my radio crackle, followed by the voice of the captain. “I should have known you two wouldn’t just take passive roles.”
“Sorry, Cap, but the team is needed at the front to try and slow the burn to the back so we can see if Amelia is still in there.”
“I don’t disagree, but we’ll talk about it later. What’s your plan?” he asks.
“Sam is gaining access to the back door. We can see that the fire has spread to the new section. It’s moving back this way fast, so I’m thinking of having the second hose brought back this way.”
“10-4. Don’t do anything dumb, and keep the line open. Part of the team is on their way to assist.”
The wood on the door snaps at the frame, and smoke surges past us. Keeping pace behind Sam, I follow him in. Half of the walls are covered in flames, and it’s spread to the wood being used to finish up the area.
“Based on the feedback from Pam, this is the section where she last saw the three of them.”
“I think since it isn’t set up like the rest of the areas, we should walk up the middle. You cover the right, and I’ll take the left?”
“Sounds good, but we need to move fast. The fire is coming in faster than I thought it would.”
We nod and scan the room as we start our search.
After a couple of minutes, we get to the front of the section when an ear-piercing scream breaks through the roar of the fire. We turn and see someone flailing around as the fire quickly covers their body.
I run toward who I’m guessing is Leo or Brian because they’re far too big to be Amelia. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sam bend over to try and use his gloves to help put the fire out on him.
He is a better man than I am.
“Help. Help me!” he yells at us.
“Where is Amelia!” I yell.
“Help me, and I’ll tell you.”
My blood pressure spikes. How dare he try to bargain with us. We’re going to help him either way—because we have to, not because we want to.
“You have to stop moving if you want us to help you,” Sam says.
He flails around as Sam continues doing what he can to put the fire out.
“Cap! We’re gonna need a hose close by! We have one of the perps, but he’s on fire,” I say into the radio.
“Someone will meet you with an extinguisher by the door in one minute.”
“I got him. See if you can find Amelia and do it fast,” Sam says as he goes to drag Leo, mumbling about him being a piece of shit.
I couldn’t agree more.
My heart is in my stomach as I try to look around, but the smoke has become so dense I can’t see more than a couple of inches in front of me. I can hear the team getting closer, which means the front part must be close to under control.
I have to find her. Losing her is not an option.
Walking back to the middle of the main aisle, I think about what I would have done. With the fire being the worst in the front, she wouldn’t be able to go to her office, and with how the door was jammed, I don’t think she could have gotten out that way.
Come on, sweetness, give me a sign.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a piece of wood sticking up out of one of the tanks in here. Hope blooms in my chest as I get closer and see what looks like red hair.
“Amelia!” I yell at a half jog, but I trip when my boot hits something solid.
I drop to my knees and feel something solid, with a slight up-and-down movement. I move my face closer to make sure it isn’t Amelia.
Brian.
A wave of relief flows through me when I see it isn’t my girl.
Making a decision, I grab my radio. “Cap, we’re gonna need two guys in here. I found Brian, and I think he’s still alive. Through the door, straight up the middle, to the left. He’s on the floor. I see Am, so I’m going to get her.”
“10-4.”
I crawl the rest of the way to the tank. Standing, I see her body. “Sweetness, can you hear me?”
I start to panic because, at first glance, I don’t think she’s breathing, but as I pull the hoodie away from her face, her chest rattles with a cough.
I reach for the wood to move it out of the way, but it’s attached to her wrist—which looks twice the size it should be—with a pair of cuffs.
“I’m so sorry, baby” is all I can say.
I pull the chunk of wood out of the tank and angle it so I can pick her up without it twisting her wrist and doing more damage. The weight of her in my arms is almost enough to bring tears to my eyes, but it’s hearing her whimper that causes the tears to slip down my face. Holding her close, I turn and run toward the door.
As I walk outside, Sam runs back toward me. “I was just about to come back in there. The bus is toward the front. Let’s go.”
We run toward the front, and I’m bombarded with questions from the medics as I lay her down.
“Where did you find her?” The medic asks.
“In a tank mostly filled with water. She was propped up with this piece of wood handcuffed to her. However, she’s been unconscious since I found her, and I don’t know how long she’s been out,” I tell him.
“Does she have any allergies?” He looks at me.
He doesn’t know we’re together; this ambulance is from the next town over, but I feel like a failure as I just stare at him, not knowing what to say.
“No known allergies as of right now. She has sensitive skin, but she can bitch about the rash later,” Pam says, coming up next to us with tears running down her face.
“We have it from here,” the medic says and turns his back to me like the love of my life isn’t lying on that gurney.
They talk about the hospital they’re going to as they take her vitals and slip an oxygen mask on her. I climb in the back of the ambulance with them, fully geared up.
“Sir, we need to head out,” the medic working in the back says to me as the other jumps out, waiting to close the doors.
“I’m coming with you. That’s my fiancée,” I say.
“Do you have your medic certification?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. Whatever you need me to do, just let me know.”
I turn when Sam yells my name. “We’ll meet you there after dropping Penny off.”
“Penny can come. I know the ER nurses. They won’t say anything,” Pam says, turning on her heels to go back to her car with Sam following her.
I just nod and look down at Am. I bring her hand to my lips, letting them linger.
“We’ll get her the care she needs. I think you found her in time to give her a fighting chance,” he says and continues monitoring her vitals as we head to the hospital.
This woman is my whole world. She has to be okay.