12. Jett
12
JETT
J ett was still struggling with her emotions toward Riley. She didn’t want her feelings to get in the way of their careers, and she didn’t know if she trusted herself not to fuck it up, but she also didn’t want to let Riley go. Since Tuesday, Jett had been feeling more energized, and she realized how much she thoroughly enjoyed Riley’s presence.
She had continued seeing Riley like they used to before the Sunday gathering, and, in fact, Jett had plans to invite Riley to come with her tomorrow, but first she had to get through this Saturday and then she would see Riley tonight after her shift.
She had plans to teach Riley more recipes, and possibly have her help make something to bring tomorrow. Riley expressed an interest in baking, and Jett decided that they should at least be able to bring some brownies.
While Jett was thinking, she was in the fire station, listening to the radio. That day was not particularly busy, so Jett didn’t know what to do with her time. She offered to help her Aunt Becky with paperwork while she listened to the radio for any calls.
Aunt Becky was more than happy for the paperwork help. Jett knew that it was partially because Becky had been thinking about retiring lately and wanted someone to train for her position. She thought that Jett was interested in learning the ropes, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Jett was definitely not interested in her Aunt’s job—and the bigger responsibilities that came along with it—but she did want to be useful on a pretty boring day.
Jett was doing pretty well with everything, until a call came over the radio asking for all units to respond. Jett rushed up from the table she was writing at and rushed with her fellow firefighters to the first available truck.
She didn’t know what was going on at first, but they soon got news on the radio as they headed to the location that the fire was bad. From a long way off, Jett could see and smell the smoke and soon she saw a large, multistory warehouse engulfed in flames, she knew that this was likely to be one of the most dangerous calls of her career.
“Thompson! You are on evacuation with Silva! First floor!” Captain Hallie Hunter gave the orders.
She put on her gear and prepared to go inside the building. Already, people were running out of the building, through the smoke, and Jett could see people on the upper floors looking out of the windows. She only hoped they would let the firefighters get the life net set up before they decided to start jumping.
Jett ran out of the truck and toward the building as her colleagues began to set up hoses for the water.
She activated her breathing apparatus as she went and put her mask and helmet on. Her heart was racing and adrenaline was flooding through her veins. This was what she trained for, but it was still scary as hell.
“You with me, Thompson?!” her teammate Leilani Silva called out to her.
“Absolutely,” Jett called back, her voice muffled by her breathing apparatus.
“Right, let’s get up these stairs and get those people out!”
Fortunately for them, the stairs were metal and the fire hadn’t penetrated the stairwell, so they made quick progress to the first floor.
She could hear her breath coming quicker as she worked and she felt like she could also hear her heart beating out of her chest.
Jett knew what she had to do. This was her legacy. She had been prepared her entire life for a situation like this, and she was going to make sure that she saved as many lives as she could.
As they made it to the first floor and opened the doors to the warehouse floor, Jett’s vision was totally obscured by smoke.
“Help!” Jett heard a call and tapped Leilani on the shoulder.
Jett turned towards the call with Leilani following her. They moved carefully, checking the floor for stability as they went.
They quickly found two women huddled together under a metal table coughing. A piece of the ceiling fell away and landed on the table with a bang.
Jett and Leilani were quick to act. Jett knew they had to get them out of there as soon as possible.
“Come here,” Jett offered her hand. “Hold my shoulder, don’t let go, let’s get out of here.”
Jett moved quickly, knowing that the longer they stayed in there, the more damage the smoke would do to their lungs. Between herself and Leilani they soon had the two women back through the warehouse doors to the stairwell where they had come in.
As they bust through the doors into the stairwell, they heard an almighty crash. The building was being compromised. Their stairwell was still fine- they had to get out of there. Leilani pushed ahead at the front helping one of the women as the second of the women started coughing heavily, to the point where she was struggling to walk.
Jett knew that the smoke was already doing its damage to her lungs. She made a decision—not the smartest decision for herself, but a decision to help these two women at any cost.
Jett handed the coughing woman her breathing apparatus, helping her on with the mask and hoisting the cylinder of compressed air onto her back like a backpack. As soon as she removed her mask, she could taste the heavy smoke in the air. Jett knew as she did it she was going against protocol, but she felt like it was her best chance of helping this woman.
The woman took a deep breath of clean air and seemed immediately to be improving.
“You need to get down these stairs and out of here as quickly as possible,” Jett said. “Run and I’ll be right behind you.”
Pieces of the walls and ceiling were already starting to crumble around them, and Jett knew that they really had to hurry.
Jett’s face was exposed, and she also needed to hurry out of the building for her own sake.
The woman nodded and turned away from Jett, focusing on getting down the stairs and out. Jett followed behind her with her fire hood pulled over her mouth and nose for some protection. She still held her helmet in her hand from where she had removed it to take off her face mask.
However, while Jett was focused on the woman in front of her, she wasn’t paying a lot of attention to her own surroundings, and as she neared the last step of the stairs and the woman rushed out of the exit, Jett felt a sudden dull and hot pain on the back of her head.
It was debilitating and she couldn’t focus on anything else as she stumbled forward and fell collapsing onto the floor of the warehouse.
Jett’s last thought was that this was the end as she lost consciousness.