Chapter 35 #2
“Positive,” I said.
Jayden eyed the smoke-laden second-floor stairwell. “Fuck me.”
We cleared the stairs, and I led us around a caved-in beam, mentally tracing the blueprints I knew by heart.
We found the third-floor stairwell partially collapsed.
“West staircase is unstable,” I heard through the comms.
Cap barked back. “Hold position until roof hoses are in place.”
We paused, panting, listening as Tessa yelled into her radio: “Cave-in on west staircase.”
We ran for the east side.
“We’re at the east staircase,” Jayden reported three minutes later. “Advancing to third floor.”
“Pull back,” Cap said. “The ladder’s almost in place; we’ll have hoses on the roof in sixty seconds.”
All around us we heard the crack and groan of stressed wood, smoke blurring everything.
Jayden looked at me.
I shook my head. “They’re up there.” I could feel it. “I’m not waiting for that to collapse too.”
The radio crackled, and we listened in growing horror at more cave-ins being reported.
“Too unstable,” Jayden said, eyeing the fallen beam blocking the stairwell.
“We can move it.”
He grabbed my arm. “It could be load bearing—”
“It’s not.”
Jayden gave me a hard look.
“I know this building,” I reminded him. “Inside and out. It’s not load bearing, so help me or get out of my way.”
“If we don’t die,” Jayden grumbled, “you owe me big.”
Future Tucker’s problem.
We braced ourselves, heaving boards aside as smoke belched through the gap. Jayden swore with impressive creativity under his breath but kept going.
Five heart-pounding minutes later, we made it.
And there she was.
Hazel.
Crouched in the far corner, shirt over her filthy and scratched face, wheezing, barely conscious.
“You came,” she whispered.
“Always.” I dropped to my knees in front of her and cupped her face, tilting it up, needing to see her eyes. Her pupils were blown, her skin pale under soot, but she was here. Alive. “Always, Hazel.”
“My dad—I tried to get him out.” She pointed across what I knew to be a vast room, but visibility was no more than two feet now. “I thought I could do it, but then the beam started to go, and he told me to run…” A sob escaped her, and she sagged into me. “I couldn’t get to him.”
Jayden was already moving.
“We’ll get him.” I ran my hands over her, finding a bloody scratch at her hairline and a tremor in her limbs as she wheezed for air. I took a drag off my regulator and gave her my mask. My throat burned like hellfire.
Jayden called out: “Beam pinned him in. He’s conscious, but we need more manpower to move the beam.”
I wanted to order him to get Hazel out, that I’d work on getting Bill free, but that would’ve been a wasted breath.
Two firefighters in, two out.
An unbreakable rule.
No exceptions.
We called for backup to get to him ASAP, and I lifted Hazel. This wasn’t like her crash into the creek, when she’d been so furious at me, she’d held herself stiff as a board when I’d picked her up. This time she clung to me, fisting my shirt like she never planned to let go again.
Jayden led the way.
Hazel pressed her face into the crook of my neck. “My dad—”
“Another team’s on their way, and I’m going back in for him as soon as you’re clear.”
“No, you don’t understand—he didn’t mean to start the fire. Not like the other shit he did—” She shifted as if to get down and force me to go back.
I tightened my grip, having no idea what she was talking about, but her words lodged in my chest. Did she mean Bill had accidentally caused this? Or that something bigger was at play? “We’ll get him, I promise.”
She stared at me. “I’m so sorry, Tucker. About everything. I—”
“Later, Haze.” I tucked it away like a match I’d strike later. Right now, there was only getting her out. “We’ll have time for all of it later.”
“Promise that too.”
“I promise.”
Behind us, the fire roared louder, swallowing drywall and memories in one greedy gulp. The building grumbled, wood snapping like bones as another crash exploded overhead.
“Run!” Jayden barked, clearing the path.
Our boots thundered over scorched boards, each step a gamble. The hallway pitched sideways beneath us, smoke clawing at our lungs. I held Hazel tighter, imagined I could feel her breath warm and shallow against my throat.
The stairs loomed ahead, steep and sagging, but we didn’t hesitate. I hit the first step hard, the next even harder, heart pounding in my ears. Ahead of us, Jayden took them two at a time, clearing a safe path. The banister splintered as I barreled past, heat blasting up from below.
Halfway down, a new spray of water slammed the roof, and steam burst through the cracks in angry hisses. Glowing embers fell around us like furious fireflies, dotting Hazel’s hair with ash.
“Almost there,” I promised.
The front door was barely hanging on its hinges. Jayden shouldered it open, and we charged outside, smoke trailing us like a ghost with teeth.
The moment our boots hit the wet grass, the roof gave way behind us with a thunderous crack, collapsing in a blaze of sparks that painted the sky orange.
I set Hazel down gently on the grass between the parking lot and the building, gesturing for EMS. Squatting in front of her, I cupped her face again. Her eyes were watery and red, but sharp.
Good.
“Let them look at you,” I said. “Get that cut cleaned. I’m going back in for your dad.”
Her hand shot out, grabbing my arm with the strength of a superhero as she stared fiercely into my eyes. “Don’t you dare not come back. You hear me, Tucker Colburn? You leave me now and I swear I’ll haunt your ass.”
“You have that backward.” I kissed her forehead. “But for future reference, I’ll always come back for you.”
Then I ran like hell, Jayden catching up with me.
“Colburn, Jayden, stand down! That’s an order!” Cap’s voice cracked over comms. “Colburn—dammit, don’t make me write you up posthumously.”
But the only thing I could hear was her voice—her pleading voice—and every single time she’d been left behind.
Not this time.
Not by me.
The smoke swallowed us whole, sounding like a future slipping through my fingers if I didn’t fight for it.
So I ran with Jayden at my side, boots pounding, smoke howling, carrying Hazel’s voice with me like a lifeline.