34. Phoenix
Phoenix
T his is hands-down the worst fire I’ve ever responded to. People are screaming, sirens are wailing, and my own crew is yelling in an effort to communicate, but I can’t hear them over the sound of the hoses and the literal roar of the fire.
The structure isn’t sound. The third floor has already begun to collapse and we have two guys inside.
Knox is here with me, but I don’t know if that’s better or worse.
He and I have both been pushing ourselves a little too hard this week, but there’s no other choice.
Two additional stations have responded, as well.
There are six firetrucks out here, but with gas stoves, gas logs, curtains, carpet, and polyester couches, the building is a literal oven.
Another part of the building collapses, and I hear one of my guys scream Langley’s name.
“Fuck!” I yell. “Knox, Paul, help me with the ladder!”
Knox grabs my shoulder. “You can’t go in there, Phoe. It’s a suicide mission at this point.”
“I can’t just leave him!” I grab for the extension ladder.
I’ll do it my fucking self if I have to.
In full gear, managing the ladder is a bit challenging, but I make it.
As my feet hit the first rung, I hear my captain’s voice.
It’s easy to distinguish because she’s the only female out here tonight.
“Phoenix! Go in the window to the left. You have less than ninety seconds to locate him and get him out before that fire is up your ass. Now go! ”
I nod and race up the ladder, immediately feeling it vibrate as another pair of boots starts climbing after me.
Knoxy.
The windows have already busted out due to the pressure so I slip in easily, but that’s the only easy part.
The smoke is so thick I can’t see shit, and even breathing through my regulator is difficult.
I tap my thigh making sure my can of Flame Away—original name, I know—is attached to my side.
Langley will be in full gear, but anyone else we encounter won’t be.
Once we’re through the window, Knox is pressed up against my back so we don’t lose each other as I start screaming Langley’s name. Suddenly, a spray of water rushes past Knox and I, and I know they’ve brought the hose up the ladder to buy us a few more seconds.
Finally, I find a doorway and turn right toward the room Langley entered.
“LANG!”
I hear nothing but the roar of the fire in my ears. The heat is oppressive in a way that makes me want to succumb and just sit down. My body is exhausted. My mind is exhausted. But I must press on.
My boot kicks something on the floor and I drop to my knees expecting to find a body, but it’s just a beam from the falling ceiling…until I grope a little further. Langley’s thigh gives whereas the solid beam didn’t .
“Fuck. Knox, he’s trapped.” And based on the lack of crying out for help, he’s also either dead or unconscious.
Our clock is ticking as Knox and I try to hoist the beam off our comrade.
My vision’s starting to get blurry at the edges, which isn’t good.
It means I’ve either got a leak in my respirator, or my equipment can’t keep up with the amount of smoke around me.
Either way, I’m going to pass out in about sixty seconds if I don’t get out of here. I signal to Knox that I’m in trouble.
He motions for me to go, but I know he can’t move this beam by himself and I know he won’t leave Langley now that we’ve found him. At this point, I’m afraid Knox is looking for a reason to stay behind and I refuse, refuse , to let him go.
I shake my head and motion for him to help me slide the beam. There’s a chance we’ll crush Langley’s leg, but it’s either that or we all die.
The amount of effort it takes to push the beam off of him takes every ounce of strength I have left, and I fall to the floor in a coughing fit.
I feel hands shoving me, telling me to get my ass in gear.
Knox drops to the floor next to me, takes my hand, and wraps my fingers around Langley’s pack strap.
“CRAWL!” Knox shouts, briefly pulling his respirator away from his mouth, leading the way.
At some point, he’d managed to turn Langley around so we could pull him along the hallway back toward the room we entered.
We’re going to have to throw him out the window because there’s no way we can manage the stairs.
It’s slow and we’re most certainly on borrowed time, but if Knox isn’t giving up, neither am I.
By some miracle, we make it to the window.
“NET!” I hear Knox yell. Jumping nets became pretty obsolete in the eighties, but our station chief requires our trucks to carry them. They don’t take up a ton of space and are quick to put together. Today, it might just save a life.
Knox and I manage to get Langley out the window, dangling him as low as we can before dropping him onto the net below. He falls like a ragdoll and it doesn’t look good, but the team manages to catch him. Knox forces me out the window next, gripping my jacket tightly while still yelling.
“Phoe’s hypoxic! Keep the net ready!”
I don’t remember getting down the ladder or being put into the ambulance, but once my O2 sats have been restored and the brain fog clears slightly, my first thought is Walker.
I pull the cannula out of my nose and sit up, wanting to find Knox and ask about Langley’s fate, but my captain is there pushing me back down.
“Whoa there, Harding. Lay your ass back down.” She reaches for the plastic tube and starts putting it back on my face. “You don’t fucking touch this again, am I clear?” Her words mean business, but her tone is soft.
I nod because I know talking is going to hurt like a bitch, but I finally manage to ask what I need to know.
“Knox? Lang?”
“Knox is fine. He’s joined the team on one of the hoses.
They took Langley on to the hospital. He was still unresponsive when they left,” she says in a somber tone.
“The two guys who went in before you and Lang made it out with a six-year-old. One elderly woman didn’t make it.
The fire’s been contained on the right side of the first three floors.
Should be out within the hour.” She turns to go and then looks back over her shoulder.
“Whatever happens to Langley, you did good, Phoenix.”
I doubt his wife will feel that way if he doesn’t make it.
As soon as my captain’s gone, I lay my head back down and succumb to sleep with Walker’s face the last thing I see in my mind’s eye before it all goes black .
Just like last time.
By the time we pull back into the station, my symptoms of blurred vision, mental cloudiness, and heavy limbs have mostly subsided. All that remains is a headache. They asked if I wanted to go to the hospital just to be on the safe side, but I declined. I just want to go home and hold Walker.
On a superficial level, I knew being a firefighter wasn’t a whole lot safer than riding broncs, but I justified it because we honestly get called to more emergencies that have nothing to do with fire than we do to actual fires.
Plus, I work with a team, and I don’t spend much time upside down or incurring blunt force trauma to my head.
But tonight was eye-opening. Seeing Langley under that beam put a lot into perspective for me. Especially considering that Walker gives my system so much adrenaline that I’m not so sure I need to risk life and limb doing this anymore.
Thankfully, the other guys refill the truck, fill out the paperwork, and let me deal with the gear, so even though it’ll be another couple hours before I can get home, I have the easiest of the jobs.
I have no idea what time it is as I make my way to my locker. I need to send Walker and Cassie a text at the very least, but when I pull my phone out, I realize it’s dead.
“Well, shit. Anyone got a phone charger I can use?” I ask the guys as they tiredly spill into the locker room.
“Yeah, I got one,” Paul says, turning the dial on his lock.
I haven’t had a chance to thank Knox for saving my ass, so after I get my phone plugged in, I try to find him while I wait for my turn in the showers.
He’s drinking a bottle of water on the couch in the game room. The T.V. is off and it’s deserted in here. After what we just went through, the guys not in the showers have all hit the bunks. The clock on the far wall tells me it’s two-thirty in the morning.
Jesus. We were at that fire for almost twelve hours.
“Hey,” I say, clapping Knox on the shoulder as I take a seat next to him.
“Hey, glad to see you’ve got some color back in your cheeks. How are you feeling?”
I laugh. “Yeah, oxygen will do that for you, I guess. Still feel like shit, although my vision is finally back to normal.”
“You should’ve let them check you out at the hospital, Phoe,” Knox admonishes. He’s such a caretaker, and it breaks my heart that outside of our group, he doesn’t have anyone to fuss over because I really think he enjoys that role…at least as much as Knox enjoys anything.
We sit in silence for a moment, letting the seriousness of tonight wash over us, but finally I break it.
“Any word on Lang?”
He shakes his head. “Captain said she’d let us know as soon as she heard anything.”
“Thank you for coming in with me,” I tell him. “I don’t know what happened to my respirator, but Lang and I would both be dead if it weren’t for you.”
He nods slowly. There’s not really a great way to thank someone for saving your life.
Words always fall short because life is so precious that words alone don’t feel like enough, and I vow to myself to do better where Knox is concerned.
To help him find happiness again and drag him out of this shell.
But for now, I just sit with him until a shower opens up and my phone gets enough juice to turn on. As I wait, my mind returns to Walker. At home. Alone in my bed. I just got him back and I almost lost the future we might have.
I swallow hard, my hands itching to hold him. My lips needing to be pressed against his. And that nagging thought occurs to me again.
I don’t think I’m cut out for this job anymore.
But what the hell will I do instead?