Chapter 14
ROOF EXTRACTION
Taylor
By the time they reached the station and dragged their kits on, Amil was so wound up Taylor thought he was about to have a brain aneurysm.
“Why do you always take so fucking long to arrive?” he said, looking the two of them up and down with so much disdain it was like they’d just taken a shit in his locker.
Taylor scoffed, checking his phone. “Dude, it isn’t even eight. Untwist your knickers.” His gaze slid to Johnny. “Amil isn’t a morning person. Can you tell?”
Amil stamped a foot. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”
Taylor grinned and ruffled his hair. “Yeah, yeah. Good morning to you too.”
“There he is,” Wendy said, giving Johnny’s arm a quick squeeze as she glided through the door. “Going to need a touch-up later, baby-cakes,” she grinned, waving her hand in front of Taylor. “Got another date.” Her nails were chipped to shit.
“What the hell have you been doing, Wend?”
Wendy only grinned as she wiggled her eyebrows.
“Will you stop talking about dates and get in the car?” Amil huffed, walking towards the back door.
Wendy looked him up and down. “What’s got you all puffed up this morning, young man?”
Amil’s mouth opened and closed several times.
“Okay, guys, please,” Isla said, appearing from the stairway with a coffee cup in her hand. “Jesus, it’s like watching toddlers poke each other with sticks. Taylor, Amil, you’re to liaise with fire. John-Paul, Wendy, you secure the perimeter in case it all goes Pete Tong, alright?”
They all nodded, and Amil grumbled as he watched Taylor adjust the straps across his stab vest. He really did need to rein in the eating, because fuck, the sucker was getting tight.
Just as he was tuning his radio to the correct channel, he felt a feather-light touch on his lower back.
“Wait for me if you get back first,” Johnny said, mouth pressed to the shell of his ear.
Taylor shivered and rolled his shoulders. “As if I’d go without you,” he replied. “Need you for rent money, remember.”
Johnny chuckled, his breath warming Taylor’s cheek. “Do I need to remind you that you’ve been AWOL for the last three days? See you later.”
Taylor tutted, adjusting his trousers as he strode towards the back door. Amil looked him up and down. “There’s a reason people think you’re fucking.”
Taylor sucked his teeth and looped the car keys around his index finger. “And there’s a reason you have no friends, but we don’t talk about it, do we?”
Amil smirked and trotted along beside him through the car park. “Hard to make friends when I’ve got a six-foot turd stuck to my side all day.”
Taylor laughed, shoving the key into the car door. “Six foot two, actually. And maybe that’s why you attract so many flies.”
Amil rolled his eyes. “Hilarious.”
They dropped into the car, and Taylor could already see Amil’s nostrils twitching. Then he sniffed. “Go on,” Taylor said, clicking his seat belt into place. “Ask about my sordid sex life. I can tell you’re dying to.”
Amil crossed his arms. “I was just going to ask if you’d changed your shower gel. You don’t smell as horrendous as usual.”
Taylor laughed, turning the key in the ignition. “Probably best you don’t ask, actually. It’d only offend your delicate omega sensibilities.”
“Piss off.” Amil scowled, waving to Isla as she slipped into her own car.
It was a swanky Ford Ranger—of which Taylor was incredibly jealous—complete with an impatient sounding voice that told people when it was reversing, and a bullhorn. Taylor may have tried out the horn once or twice, right when Amil was about to take a swig of coffee.
Taylor grinned. “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure you look good in front of sargie. Now, punch it.”
Amil scoffed. “Punch what?”
Taylor raised his eyebrows and pointed to the ancient control panel in the middle of the dashboard. “I said ‘punch it.’ I’m Solo, you’re… Oh fuck, never mind.”
The fire service were already waiting for them at the bottom of the massive driveway. Lazy fuckers, always happy to stand around and let the police take charge so they could run back to their dart boards and pool tables and comfy beds or whatever they had in those cushty little station houses.
Out of all the emergency services, the police were definitely the shit on the bottom of the government’s shoe. Blamed for everything, praised for nothing, all whilst the fire service got back slaps and ‘oh, my heroes’ for dragging cats out of fucking drainpipes.
Maybe Taylor was bitter.
Maybe he’d tried to get into the fire service once upon a time but failed the paper sift, but that was his business. Actually, being a paramedic looked pretty terrible too, if only for the God-awful green uniforms.
“Oh look, the paw patrol have finally arrived,” one of the aforementioned cat wranglers said as he tapped Taylor’s window, gesturing for him to roll it down.
Taylor clenched his teeth, because the guy had a look about him that he did not like, all arrogant and smarmy.
Taylor grunted, rolling down the window as the firefighter leaned straight into the car.
His arm was all hairy as it pressed against the windowsill and he smelled like burning plastic.
“We’ve situated the hydraulic lift at the side of the building—” God, even his voice was annoying, and he was looking at Amil in a way that Taylor did not like. “The kid heard us coming and ran into one of the air vents. We didn’t wanna spook him so we came away.”
“Riiight,” Taylor said, winding up his window a little, making the man snatch his arm away. “Why couldn’t you just grab him?”
The firefighter scoffed. “Not worth my pension, pal. If the kid jumped, that’d be lights out for my lump sum.”
Leaning across Taylor, Amil tutted and said, “If he ran into one of the air vents, why didn’t you just go up there and pull him out? It doesn’t sound like he has any intention of jumping.”
The firefighter tipped his head back and gave Amil a long look. “Mornin’, beautiful.”
Taylor’s lips peeled back and he gripped the steering wheel. “Who are you calling beautiful, darlin’?”
The firefighter laughed and pointed to his ring finger. “Been married eight years, pal. Doesn’t mean I can’t window shop.”
Amil lurched in his seat, and it very much seemed like he was about to launch himself out of the window. Taylor pumped the accelerator and took off down the drive, grinning to himself as he watched the firefighter stumble back in the rearview mirror.
“Prick,” Amil muttered.
“Massive prick,” Taylor confirmed.
“Don’t touch the lift until we say so!” the firefighter called after them.
Taylor ran his tongue over his teeth. “Psh. Can’t be that difficult.”
“Pull around the back,” Amil said, pointing towards a fork in the driveway. “If the residents catch sight of the car it’s game over.” He shivered and hunkered down in his seat.
Taylor chuckled. “Did Wendy make you wear the baddie costume too?”
Amil closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
The fancy gravel driveway fell away into a dirt track, and Taylor had to swerve the car to avoid a wandering wheelie bin.
“Not so nice round the back,” he said, spotting the hydraulic lift. It was on some kind of flatbed truck, with shiny red stickers and a sign that read ‘No unauthorised personnel.’
Amil nodded. “They keep it nice so the families don’t feel bad about never visiting. Doesn’t matter that they dump their relatives here, so long as it’s got a fancy paint job and someone to keep the rose bushes in check.”
Humming, Taylor turned off the car and squinted up at the roof. It was pretty high—three storeys with a mess of tangled pipework. It looked as though someone had been up there and tried to nick the lead flashing, because pieces of it were hanging off in strips.
“Let’s just get the kid and get out of here,” Amil said, opening the door. “This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
They did a lap of the care home, careful to keep out of sight of the residents, before meeting back up back at the lift. Taylor eyed it again. It really didn’t look all that difficult, and in fact he was pretty sure he could—
“Don’t even think about it,” Amil said, throwing his arms across the entrance hatch. “I repeat. Do. Not. Think. About it.”
Taylor scoffed. “Well, how else are we supposed to get up there? Scale a fucking drainpipe? Did you see a ladder, because I sure as hell didn’t.”
Amil grumbled, dipping his head. “I’ll radio for that guy to come up.”
“No way,” Taylor replied, moving around Amil and placing a foot on the tyre of the flatbed. He kicked it a few times before hopping onto the back.
“Taylor, get the fuck down!” Amil said through gritted teeth.
Taylor ignored him and gave the control panel a once-over.
There really wasn’t a lot to it, just a big green button with an up arrow, and a red button with a down arrow, not unlike one of those grabby games at the arcade.
There were a few other buttons like ‘emergency stop’ and something about ‘pressure release,’ but he reasoned they probably weren’t important.
He glanced over his shoulder at Amil, who was pacing back and forth, kicking gravel up against the wall. “Be my guest,” Taylor said, unclipping the metal gate. “Call that creep over, let him strap you in and tell you to ‘hold on tight, Rose, don’t look down!’”
Amil’s fists pumped at his sides as he gave Taylor an absolutely foul look. “This is nothing like Titanic, you giant ball of fucking—”
“You coming?” Taylor said, holding a hand out over the railing. “Promise I won’t push you into the ocean.”
Amil scowled at his hand, then scowled some more before scrubbing his fingers through his dark hair. “We need safety helmets,” he said, pouting as he looked away.
“Hm? What was that?” Taylor asked, a wide grin spreading across his face.