Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
NORTH
“You need to fucking get over there!” Easton’s screaming into my ear. Ten seconds after I got to the station, a call came in that left me in a tailspin.
There’s a fire, and the caller gave Leo’s address. It took no time at all for me to suit up, and I jumped into the truck with Camilo at the wheel. We’re making good time, but Easton is freaking the fuck out because he knows the address of the fire, but he’s on a call on the other side of town.
I don’t even know how he can possibly be feeling right now, knowing he can’t drop what he’s doing and run to his brother.
The brother he already almost lost.
It’s been forty-five minutes since I left Leo’s. Forty-five minutes since I checked on my mom and then went to work. What could have possibly happened in that span of time?
“We’re two minutes away,” I tell him.
“Do you see smoke?”
Against the bright storm clouds still heaping rain down on the city—amongst the flashes of lightning—I see black billows against the skyline.
“He’s going to be fine,” I don’t know if it’s a lie. I pray to every single god ever created by man and the universe that I’m not talking bullshit right now.
“Easton, we’ve got this,” Camilo’s voice cuts in. “Focus on what you’re doing.”
Easton’s quiet, and then he says, “I can’t lose him, Cap. Please.”
“You won’t.”
I want to believe Camilo, but I don’t know if I can. The visibility gets worse as we pull onto the street I just left, and I feel another surge of resentment because if my mom hadn’t needed me, maybe I could have been there for whatever started this.
A fire this big means that forty-five minutes ago, it had just started, and I don’t know how. Leo was fine when I left, and yeah, he had candles everywhere, but he knows what to do if one falls over.
He knows everything Easton taught him.
So how?
Was the tree in his yard struck by lightning? Was his house?
I don’t have time to really think about the answer as the truck comes to a halt a few feet away from Leo’s driveway. There are people standing under their awnings watching, and in the doorway, I see a hunched body against the door.
I act without thinking, jumping out of the truck, preparing to hurtle myself toward the scene, when Logan grabs me by the back of the shirt.
“Don’t!”
“Get the fuck off me!” I shove him off, but he doesn’t let go.
“North,” he says, his voice low and commanding. “You need to take a beat.”
I freeze. I don’t have my mask on, but in that moment, I don’t care what regulations that’ll break.
“Let me go,” I warn.
He meets my gaze, and then against orders, he does.
Turning, I race across the grass, slipping twice as Camilo yells my name. When it’s clear I’m not going to turn back, he begins barking orders at Logan, Kelsey, and Teo to get the hose ready.
The sounds become background noise as I stumble up the steps and fall to my knees as the heat becomes unbearable.
I can tell immediately that the flames are mostly coming from the living room, and from the height of the flames, I can tell the fire has already spread past the drywall and is consuming the wood and insulation.
We have minutes to deal with this, maybe less.
I blink against the smoke and realize the man in the doorway isn’t Leo. It’s the neighbor Easton’s been paying to keep an eye on Leo.
“Chuck?” I ask.
He turns and coughs. “I found him on the floor by the coffee table. I wasn’t strong enough to get him all the way out,” he rasps. “Got him this far, but his legs are burned.”
The body Mr. Baylin’s holding is Leo, and my heart sinks into my feet. I reach for him, but suddenly, he goes stiff all over and starts to shake. I’ve seen this before recently. But the last time, he was in my arms.
“Chuck, I need you to get to the street. Walk carefully on the lawn, and don’t stop until you’re near the truck.”
I can see flames licking up the walls now as I reach forward and put my arms under Leo’s stiff body.
This seizure’s a bad one, and it feels a bit like he’s fighting me, but I manage to collect him in my arms and pull him down off the porch, into the pouring rain.
It doesn’t take me long to notice the blistering skin going from his knees to the bottoms of his feet.
He’s going to be in agony when he comes out of this.
“We need EMS!” I shout at Logan, who’s halfway across the lawn now.
Camilo has the hose out, and Kelsey’s preparing to help him.
He nods and grabs his radio as I pull Leo further toward the street. The rain begins to ease just a little, just enough that I can see a bit more clearly. His body’s starting to soften, and his mouth parts—I see a bit of blood where he’s bitten his lip, but nothing looks emergent.
His pulse is unsteady, but it’s strong, and his breathing is starting to even out.
I check him for more burns, but I don’t find any. His feet and legs took the worst of it. Second-degree, I’m willing to bet. Not the most painful recovery, but he won’t be walking for a while.
A sob lodges in my throat, but I pull myself together enough to get Leo in a cradle hold and scoot us closer to the truck.
“I don’t know if you can hear me,” I tell him over the sound of the hose, “but I’m here, and you’re going to be okay.”
In the distance, the sounds of the ambulance get louder, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Glancing up, Camilo moves closer to me, and I’m waiting for him to cuss me out.
He doesn’t, of course. He just gives me a firm nod and then goes back to handling the scene.
I know I’m going to get reamed for this later, but this is Easton’s brother. The one who’s been through hell and back. Any one of us would have done the same, knowing who was inside that house.
“How many injured?” comes a familiar shout.
I look up as Axel comes around the truck, and his eyes widen. “One. Male, twenty-eight. Leo Harris.” My voice cracks right at the end.
“Shit,” Axel says, dropping to his knees, while another EMT I don’t recognize turns the corner with the stretcher. “Is that—”
“Yeah,” I say. “Easton’s brother.”
Axel gets his vitals, then looks down at his legs. “Jesus.” He passes a hand down his face to clear away some of the rain.
I glance back at the house. Camilo and Kelsey have it mostly contained, but there’s no saving that. I can already see the char and where it’s going to eventually collapse.
Leo’s little sanctuary—the place he’d created to heal from his grief—is unsalvageable.
“It could have been a lot worse,” I murmur. Chuck Baylin might have been less nosy. Leo might have been in his bedroom instead of the living room.
I might be holding a body instead of a breathing man, and…
No. I can’t go down that road.
Swallowing against a heavy throat, I shift over and let Axel and his team do their job. It’s hard watching them put Leo up on the stretcher, but before they can start wheeling him away, I grab Axel’s arm.
“He’s had a seizure. Maybe grand mal. I couldn’t time it with everything going on. He’s not epileptic. It’s from a TBI.” I have no idea how much Axel knows.
Axel nods firmly. “Got it. You wanna ride with us?”
I’m on duty, and I’m not supposed to leave the scene, but I nod anyway. “Let me tell Cam.”
Axel gives me a quick chin jerk, then hurries Leo toward the ambulance as I begin to peel away my coat. Camilo catches my eye as I get closer.
“You riding with them?” he asks.
“Will I be fired if I do?”
He’s quiet for a beat. “Will that make a difference?”
“No.”
He sighs, sounding like Darth Vader in his mask, and then he shakes his head. “Go. We’ll talk later.”
He didn’t answer my question about being fired, but frankly, I don’t care. I love these guys with all my heart, but I know this isn’t my forever.
My forever might be the man being loaded up into the back of the ambulance, and I want to be with him.
Dropping the coat at Kelsey’s feet, I give her arm a quick squeeze, then rush past Logan and Teo, around the back of the truck, then jump into the ambulance, where Axel’s partner is slapping some hydrogel pads on Leo’s calves and feet.
The burns don’t look as bad under the bright ambulance light, though they’re angry and red and definitely going to take a while to heal.
“You riding with us?” the guy asks me.
I get myself comfortable beside Leo. “Yeah.”
“You know him?”
He’s limp, but his breathing is even, and I can see on the machine that his vitals are steady. He’s a little tachy, probably from the pain, but he’s going to be fine.
“His brother works at the station,” I eventually say. “I’m North. You’re new, right?”
He nods. “Benson. Benny,” he adds.
I say nothing as he gets the doors closed, and the moment we’re on the road, I pull my phone out of my pocket and call Easton. It’s a risk. I have no business distracting him on a scene, but he needs an update.
“Tell me he’s okay,” Easton breathes in my ear. The background of his call is quiet, which is probably a good thing.
“He’s okay. He had a seizure, and I think some candles got knocked over.”
“Why the fuck was he burning candles?” Easton shouts in my ear.
“Power went out. Don’t start,” I say when he sucks in a breath. “Mr. Baylin got him almost all the way out of the house before the fire got to him.”
“Thank fuck. How bad is it?”
“Second-degree burns on both legs,” I say. “Not sure how bad the seizure was. We’re on our way to Harmony Creek General right now.”
He lets out a heavy puff of air. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Okay. I’ll wait there until you do.”
“North,” he says, a question in his voice. Silence follows. Then, “Never mind. See you soon.”
The line goes dead, and I let my head fall back against the side of the wall and close my eyes.
Leo’s hand is still in mine, and I get lost for a moment in the sounds of the rain beating down on us, and the tires over wet road, and the soft beep of the heart monitor letting me know that Leo is still okay.
And then suddenly, his hand twitches in mine.
“North,” he says, soft but clear.
My eyes fly open, but he’s still unconscious. I look over at Benny, who lifts a brow.
“Did he just—?”