FOUR
Redford
Her strength has me convinced I’m looking at a curvy, brunette superhero with eyes the color of maple syrup.
Only I know she’s not a superhero, I know because she’s a mermaid.
To stand on the edge of an inferno and still find the strength to smile, I’m in awe of the woman before me. She was going to jump, she’d have broken a few bones, maybe worse, but that will to live shines brightly in her glittering eyes, making the flames growing behind her pale in comparison.
“I didn’t think you’d make it. We saw them try to blow up your boat.” Voice raspy from smoke inhalation through her wet sweater, every note sounds sincere. She’s more worried about us than her circumstances give her any right to be.
“It’ll take more than a few Molotov cocktails to stop ol’ Redford,” I say with a wink, helping her onto the ladder, trying to keep the mood light despite everything.
“And Redford would be you or the boat?”
“Me. Boat’s Crazy Aunt Gertrude.”
“Well then I owe you and your crazy aunt my life. There are way too many rocks down there to stick my landing.”
“Something tells me your friend would have caught you, even though you made her promise not to. Look, the walls are getting a bit toasty for my liking so here’s what we’re gonna do, you climb down like normal, I’m gonna flip around to the underside of the ladder.”
She nods. Her teary eyes make contact with mine for longer than we have time for right now, but I’m not able to look away. I’ve been telling people for years the mermaids were real, despite no recent sightings, but I never expected them to be so resilient.
I swing around to the other side of the ladder, certainly not something Lieutenant would approve of, but if we don’t get down soon, I’m worried we’ll go crashing through the burning wall.
I wouldn’t be opposed to cradling her in my arms and climbing down the steep pitch facing forward but, she was willing to jump, there’s no way she’s not walking out of here on her own two feet. And I wouldn’t dream of stopping her.
“The wet sweaters around your mouths, I’m impressed.”
She shrugs, flashing me that smile of hers that damn near knocks me off my feet. “What can I say? Fashion first even in the face of danger. It’s the new thing. All the rage in Milan.”
“Yeah, I thought I read something about that in Vogue. Is that where you got the idea for the rope of sheets and curtains?”
“Cosmo, maybe, one or the other.”
I’m not sure if it’s her flirty tone or the adrenaline that has my bones rebelling against my skin. How is she so perfect in a situation like this? Like the world is hers, so obviously she can’t be fazed by it.
“So the cardigan face mask was a good idea? Because I wasn’t so sure.”
“It was brilliant, and probably saved your lives. You’ll still need to be checked out by an EMT at some point, but since you can carry on a conversation, you should be good.”
The warmth of her shaky exhale blowing between the rungs has my knees knocking. The relief from her lungs washes over me and I’ve never felt anything more scintillating.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I literally do this all the time, no one I’ve ever rescued has affected me like this. I’m convinced when we get down, Charlie and Davis are going to ask me who the hell I’m talking to when there’s clearly no one there.
Getting lost in her eyes as we climb down the ladder in unison, it’s easy to forget we’re being propped up by a burning cabin while someone on a motorboat is zipping around the lake, intent on killing firefighters. And possibly a couple mermaids.
“This fire wasn’t an accident, was it?”
The question blurts out of me in an attempt not to ask any of the things I really want to know. Her name. Her marital status. Her astronomical sign or whatever it is all the girls are into.
I want to know everything there is to know about her.
What are they doing here? Where has she been all my life? What’s in the pillowcase she tossed to her friend? I feel like it’s important to her and now it’s important to me.
She shakes her head but I’ve asked so many questions telepathically, I’m not sure what she’s saying no to.
“We were upstairs when they broke in. I think we pissed them off when we knocked one off the loft ladder. We should have just hid but I didn’t know what they were gonna do to us.
They took something, from the kitchen I think, I couldn’t quite see.
That’s when they set the place on fire and started throwing firebombs at you. Who the hell were they?”
Her words run together into a single thought as we move in tandem, shaking the ladder more with every step.
The wall’s giving way but we’re almost down.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be able to salvage anything from the cabin, it’s going to be a total loss and I hate that for her even more than I do for the mountain of paperwork I’ll have to fill out.
“I don’t know who they are but I have a friend on the force and I promise you, he’ll get to the bottom of it. But right now, I’m gonna need you to jump. I’ll catch you.”
“What?”
Her eyes go wide when I dangle from the ladder and drop like the remaining five rungs are optional. The structural integrity of our wall is gone and in a matter of seconds, the ladder will go crashing through it, but there isn’t enough time to explain.
The instant my feet hit, I position myself beneath the mermaid, not bothering to shake off the sting from my landing. “Let go and fall back. Hurry! I’ve got you.”
I can see the questions flash behind her eyes as she looks down at me, but only for a moment. She nods and I can tell she’s putting more trust in me than she would normally give to a stranger, or anyone for that matter.
I’m honored in a way that doesn’t make sense to my brain. People put their trust in me every day, but this feels like so much more. I don’t take it for granted when she closes her eyes and lets go, doing a trust fall from the ladder straight into my arms.
Not a moment too soon. The upstairs wall crumbles as she glides through the air like it’s perfectly normal for mermaids to fly.
It’s only a five foot drop but I pull her into my chest the second I catch her like this is a game winning Superbowl pass. Nothing is making me fumble this play.
“You okay?” I ask with a breathless inhale, trying to force my body to check her over and not just hold her tight against me, her back pressed into my chest.
“Better now,” she sighs, craning her neck just enough to make eye contact in the smoky night, flames reflecting in her auburn irises. “I’m Aspen, by the way.”
“That’s beautiful. I love your trees.”
“Yeah? Me too.” She rests her head against my shoulder, letting her hair get tangled in the stubble on my cheek, making me wish we could stay like this for hours. “Thanks for catching me, Redford.”
“Did you doubt I would?”
“Not for a second.”
The vibrations of her soft voice reverberate through my chest. I realize instantly it’s going to take all my willpower to let her go. I just want to keep her safe forever.
Has she realized yet that my arms don’t need to be wrapped around her anymore? Or that her hands are holding onto mine like she’s trying to keep me here? At this point I don’t even remember why I have to let her go, I’m sure there’s a valid reason though.
“Oh my god, Aspen!” The other mermaid races over, wrapping her friend in a vise grip, squeezing her between us. “Never do that again. Next time, we climb down together. I thought I was gonna lose you.”
“Mer, the pillowcase?” Aspen shrieks, jolting from her position snuggled against my chest. “I put all our work in there. Is it okay?”
“I don’t know, I was more worried about you.”
Slowly, I let go, knowing she’s in good hands.
The sound of water fighting flames snaps me back to a reality I wish I didn’t have to take part in. Suddenly I remember why I’m here.
The moment is over. It’s time to knock down the fire before it wipes out the entire island.
I watch them race over to the sack in the bushes, taking a moment to collect myself. I should be corralling them away from the building but it’s obvious how much their work means to them, whatever their work is. They’d ignore me if I tried.
“Davis, where’s Charlie?” I shout as he aims the hose at the second floor in a losing battle.
“Water cannon’s out of reach, too many trees. He’s grabbing the other hose. Dude, that was one hell of a rescue.” He turns to point at the girls, slinking their way around the back of the cabin. “You might want to stop them, they’re looking for a way inside.”
“Shit. I’ll get them. Hit the first floor, try to stop it from spreading to the back.”
He does as he’s told, turning his words back to me. “When you were on the ladder, I swear I saw someone moving in the trees. It’s just the two of them, right?”
“God dammit, no. One of the guys might still be out here, Aspen said they knocked him down from the loft. I’ll get them, keep your eyes peeled. We might have a hostile victim inside.”
I take off around the cabin where the mermaids are definitely looking for a way in, still carrying the pillowcase.
“Is someone still inside?” I shout, barely drawing their attention away from the burning building. “The guy you knocked off the ladder, did he get out?”
“I don’t know,” Aspen whimpers, shielding her face from the flames, sweater wrapped tighter than it had been a minute ago.
Reading her mind, I intercept this superhero before she can do something life threatening. “I can’t let you go back in there, Aspen. It’s not safe. Never mind the fire, you could fall through a floorboard. The whole building could collapse on you. I just met you and I’m not willing to-”
“You don’t understand, our laptops are in there. In the back bedroom. The fire hasn’t reached that part of the house yet. If there’s a chance we can save our work, we have to try. Everything we’ve been building is in there.”
“Work isn’t worth your life,” I try to reason but it’s clear neither of them is hearing a word I say.
No mermaids are dying on my watch tonight.
As a firefighter I have to protect them from their own stupidity but as a man, I’m fighting every desire to rush in there myself and retrieve their computers before Charlie and Davis have any clue what’s going on. I would never hear the end of it.
It’s almost as if Aspen can see the confusion crisscrossing my features. “Meredith, please take the pillowcase to the fire boat.”
“What? No! I’m not leaving without the rest of it. We need our laptops, Ass. We need everyth-”
Aspen cuts off her friend, pulling her arm to keep her from going into the inferno.
“We need it.” Meredith’s hopeless pleading breaks my heart as much as it does Aspen’s. She’s still struggling against her friend’s clutches, wasting precious seconds.
“Davis, I need a hand,” I shout, hoping it’s loud enough to be heard over the raging inferno, and the water he’s currently blasting it with. “I’m sorry, I can’t let you do this.”
“I got her.” Charlie’s voice over my shoulder couldn’t have come a second later or it’d be too late.
He grabs Aspen’s friend from my fading grip, pulling her away as she continues struggling to break free. “Come with me, Ass. Please! Aspen, please.”
“Get her to the boat. We might have to zip tie her to the rail,” I call after him, dragging Aspen around the building, hating myself more with every step.
“Everything we’ve built is in there,” she cries, her body going limp now that we’re alone. “This is all we have.”
She has me wanting to confess my feelings for her, instead, I keep focused on the task at hand. “I need you to show me the back entrance, I have to make sure the building’s clear, that no one’s still inside.”
I’m not trying to be heartless, in fact, just the opposite, but the more time we waste out here, the less time I have to make the save.
“Okay, and where, approximately, is the loft ladder?”
All she can do is point, adrenaline finally wearing off as her blinks become heavier.
I rush into the building with all the speed I have left in my limbs, beelining for the center of the cabin, to the empty spot on the floor.
I can’t believe they fought off a would-be attacker, just the two of them.
These women are so strong it astounds me.
I have no doubt if we weren’t here to pull them away, they’d have already rescued the last of their artwork from the bunkroom.
A flash of relief washes over me as I follow a trail of green paint until it disappears out the front door. He got out. “Building’s clear. Keep an eye out for someone covered in green paint, he’s our third suspect,” I say into the radio on my shoulder.
Now for what I really came in here to do, what I’d risk my life for over and over again if it came down to it. I got hell for going back in my rookie year for someone’s medicine but fuck it, some things are worth it.
I can’t leave through the front door, even as flames encroach my path out the back. I have to rescue their laptops, I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t at least try to save their livelihoods. These women worked so hard to start a new life, the least I can do is do everything I can to protect it.
I walk into hell for people I don’t know, it’s in my job description, but for Aspen I’d do so much more. I don’t need to know why, all I need to know is that it’s for her.
If Aspen is willing to risk her life for this, I can’t explain my reasoning but so am I.
Time to walk back through the fire.