Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Aaron
The alarm blares, echoing through the room and dipping into the recesses of my mind. Pure adrenaline spikes through my veins. Before I can even consciously process what’s going on, the blankets are thrown off me.
Levi and I are both racing from the beds down to gear up.
“What do we know about it?” I yell over the din.
The other men are more solemn than usual. Immediately, I know that we’re not going on another house call to see Paige and her burnt pancakes.
When I’m met with silence, the truth hits me.
This is no ordinary house fire.
Zachary is down suiting up, his first day back since his lengthy honeymoon. And what a welcome back.
I clap him on the shoulder, and a weak smile manages to break through the worry and concern.
“Wildfire.” He confirms my worst fear. “Outskirts of town, but the call said it’s getting close to the houses there.”
Someone curses loudly from beside me. I start grabbing gear off the wall and throwing it into the back of the truck. I have no idea what it will look like when we get there, how long we’ll be there, or what we’ll need.
Better to be prepared.
“Let’s ride out,” Levi shouts over the din.
The last couple of firefighters are stumbling to get into their gear, the adrenaline making it difficult to focus. They’re new, and I wonder how they’ll handle the pressure.
I slam the back of the truck closed. The driver flips on the sirens, navigates out of the bay, and swings wide onto the main drag.
The fire that we put out the day I rescued the puppies was rough. This would be worse.
I lay out the strategy for our approach in the truck to absolute silence. No one speaks up or argues about protocol. The rapt attention on their faces makes me realize that somehow they have learned to trust me.
“Zachary, you’ll stay with me on the left side of the fire. We’ll take care of the retardant near the houses before we head back and beat back the flames,” I order. “Samson, evacuate the families on the block. We’re not taking any chances with casualties or injuries.”
Levi chimes in, “Everyone else, on the right with me. We’ll revisit the split once we get there and see what we’re working with. Be open to change. Keep your wits about you.”
“We work off instinct in this job,” I remind them. “Speak up if something doesn’t feel right.”
“We all go in,” Levi says solemnly as we feel the brakes catch.
“And we all go home.” The chorus of voices jolts me into the present.
The men around me tap each other on the helmet or rest their big hands on each other’s shoulders. We will all go home.
We have to.
The doors are wrenched open, giving us the first glimpse of a wildfire that has been out of control for some time. I gulp but try to maintain a careful exterior, not betraying my fear and doubt.
Heat rolls over me in one huge wave, but I don’t have time to think about discomfort.
Zachary signals to me that he’s ready to go. We take off to the left to survey what we’re working with. Samson is a couple of strides behind us, veering away as we come to the houses. By the time we pause, he’s already knocking on doors.
The fire is too close to the houses. Way too close.
“Retardant and water,” I tell Zachary. He’ll spray the retardant on the perimeter of the fire to keep it from spreading while we try to get the flames under control.
We have to hope we have the resources to tame both sides.
I jump back into the truck when we get there, sending out a message for help from the next town over. We’ll need the helicopters to get this put out with minimal damage. Last time, we could do it.
Now?
Now, the best thing I can do is take it moment by moment. I don’t have time to think about how long they’ll take to get here or what they can do for us when they arrive. Zachary and I are already pulling out hoses, neither of us really feeling the weight of them on our shoulders.
We pull and drag them to the point where the fire is closest to the houses.
Zachary nods at me, and we get started. For thirty minutes, we work in tandem without a single word exchanged. My muscles shake, and every part of me is drained by the effort of manning the hose. My body needs a break, but we’ve hardly made a dent.
“You see anything in the fire?” he asks as we stop to take the shortest breather we can. I’ve been scanning for signs of movement, of life.
“Nothing on my end. You?”
He shakes his head. “Let’s go see how the rest of the guys are doing. I need to give my arms a break for a minute. See how everything is doing.”
“Go on,” I tell him. Samson runs up behind us, ready to take his place on the hose. He’s out of breath from running across the neighborhood in full gear. “Samson and I will swap out.”
After a brief rundown, Samson takes the hose from me, and I pick up where Zachary left off for a change of pace. Zachary runs to the rest of the team to see where they stand.
Samson and I work shoulder to shoulder, both breathing too heavily to speak or strategize.
Until the wind blows.
A strong gust of eastern wind whips through the area, clearing the sweat from my face. It feels refreshing for a few seconds before it hits. The wind pushes the fire further in our direction, the flames licking at our hands on the hoses.
Samson screams as the heat from the flames hits him . He drops the hose just moments before I feel the same flames hit me.
Pain blinds me, the heat making it impossible to open my eyes and see which way we need to run. Without clarity, we could be running right into the fire. But if we stay where we are right now, we’re absolutely going to be engulfed in flames.
“Samson!”
His muffled scream comes from beside me, close enough that I can hear him. With my eyes closed, I feel around until I find him and grab a fistful of his jacket.
“We have to move,” I bark.
Somehow, I stand and haul Samson up with me. He’s stopped screaming, focused like I am on how to get out of the mess. We both stumble ahead, but the heat doesn’t abate.
I have to get out of here.
My thoughts grow more frantic with every passing second. I think of the promise we all made before we got out of the truck. We are all going home, and that includes Samson and me.
If I make it out of here, I’ll tell Paige how I really feel. I won’t take no for an answer. I’ll persuade her that this thing between us is real. Life is too short for us to avoid the issues.
Samson and I struggle until I feel more hands on our jackets. He gets pulled away from me despite my frantic cries to bring him back. Two men are on each side of me, draping my arms around their shoulders.
“I’m okay,” I pant, but I let them drag me out of the flames. “Check on Samson.”
As soon as I feel cooler air again, I throw myself to the ground so that the guys will go focus on someone else. The truck is right there. I’m just on the opposite side of it, the metal body blocking some of the heat.
I purposely don’t look at my exposed skin.
“You need medical attention,” a voice says from above me. I don’t recognize it.
“No,” I croak. “Just water. Gotta get back to it.”
Someone hands me a water bottle, which I splash on my face before drinking deeply. When I stand, my legs are steady enough, even if my body is extremely exhausted.
“Evans.” This time, I recognize Levi’s voice. “You’ll be on the opposite side now. We’re trading places.”
“Take a bigger crew with you,” I advise him.
He reassigns the men who are still available.
Samson and another man huddle together by the cab of the truck while they wait for an ambulance. He took a harder hit than I did.
I cast one more look around me and then head back into the fire.
* * *
Paige
“What did that report just say?”
I’m standing in the middle of the emergency room, watching the tail-end of a report on the local news channel. The nursing desk is a bit slow tonight, but we’ve had a whirlwind of activity in the last hour.
So far, I’ve administered fourteen stitches, two bags of fluids, a pint of blood, and some anti-nausea medication. I’ve ordered an ultrasound for a heavily pregnant woman. And now, I’m catching my breath.
The television hangs from the ceiling in the corner near the family waiting area. When the nurses need a short break from the chaos of the unit floor, they can sit in the hard plastic chairs, take a sip of lukewarm coffee, and breathe.
Lisa and I are both sitting here, holding our pagers in case we’re needed. She’s been sitting here longer than me. I just walked up in time to see the picture of uncontrolled fire flash on the screen.
She turns around and looks at me with alarm on her face.
“I thought you were in with bed nine,” she hedges. Her face is carefully blank, the kind of look I recognize from when we have to give a loved one bad news about a patient’s prognosis.
“Finished up.” I point to the screen. “I need to know what that story was about. Right now.”
“I was hoping you would have found out differently. Or that your brother might have called you, since you and that handsome captain are on the outs.” She wrings her hands.
Lisa is one of the only people who knows the truth about what happened between Aaron and me.
“I haven’t had time to check my phone,” I admit. I pull it out of my pocket and see several missed calls from Levi. “Levi—”
“Probably won’t answer,” she cuts in. “That wildfire is back.”
My stomach sinks faster than my mind can process what that means. Everything I’ve heard from the station for weeks has been about small fires, easily contained. Nothing to worry about—or so they tell me.
If Lisa thinks that Levi won’t answer my call, then it must be far worse than it was the day Aaron rescued those puppies.
Aaron and Levi.
Two of the people I care about most in the world are in the midst of fighting one of the worst fires this town has ever seen, judging from the quick glimpse I got at the pictures on the screen.
“I should go,” I say, turning back toward the desk. “I have to make sure they’re okay.”