Chapter Eighteen Hold the Line #3
“We’ve got a location,” Reece said to them both. “Third floor. Science block. We’re going in. Let us do our job.”
Nathan, still clutching Freddie like a lifeline, looked at his phone with trembling fingers. The screen glowed on Alfie’s last message.
“He hasn’t answered in ten minutes.” He glared at Reece. “Get to him. Or I’ll suit up and go in myself. ”
“I know you will, Staff. But not this time. Leave it to me.” Reece nodded. “I’ll get him.”
Then he turned and ran back to the pump.
Rob was unrolling the first hose line, and Steph shouted confirmation of water flow from the hydrant. Behind them, another breathing apparatus team was suiting up, strapping on cylinders, checking regulators.
“Search team Alpha entering,” Ahmed said into his radio. “Left-hand search. Target location: science corridor, third floor. Reece, move!”
They headed for the rear stairwell, the only safe entry left. The main entrance already engulfed, flames chewing through the double doors, rolling across the ceiling as they pushed through the rear doors into thick, hot darkness.
Inside, the school was chaos.
Smoke surged down the corridors in choking waves, thick and black.
The alarms screamed overhead, barely audible over the groans of warping metal and the muffled crackle of fire in the walls.
Their helmet torches sliced through the black, beams flickering over classroom doors and lockers already buckling from heat. Glass crunched underfoot.
Reece raised the TIC, sweeping the hallway. Shapes glowed. Benches, shelves, fixtures. But no people. He dropped lower, knees nearly to the floor, following Ahmed down the corridor.
“Room 3B—clear,” Reece called through comms, checking beneath the benches, his voice rasping through the mask.
“Move to the next,” Ahmed replied. “We’ve got a long corridor and a short time. Keep going.”
They crawled deeper into the blaze, temperature climbing with every step. Alarms shrieked, dull and distant, the building screaming with them. Water from the first suppression line hissed and steamed as it hit fire, but it wasn’t enough.
Reece gritted his teeth, scanning with the thermal imaging camera. Silhouettes of twisted desks and lab equipment glowed back at him. White outlines on black. No movement. No heat signatures shaped like people.
“Nothing in Room 3C,” he said into the mic.
“Pushing forward,” Ahmed responded. “Check under benches. They could be sheltering.”
They moved into Room 3D. The door resisted, swollen with heat, then burst open under Ahmed’s boot. Inside, the fire hadn’t breached yet, but smoke clung to the ceiling, curling like claws, creeping lower by the second.
Then on the TIC, two shapes .
Under a bench. Small. Close together. Reece’s pulse kicked.
“Got ‘em,” he barked. “Two students. Alive!”
He and Ahmed dropped to the floor, crawling fast. A boy and girl, coughing, eyes wide with fear. Ahmed passed them oxygen from a portable unit, clipped both harnesses to his line.
“I’ll take them. Circle back for the rest,” Ahmed ordered. “You good?”
Reece nodded, already turning to scan the next room. “Yeah.”
“Be careful. You’ve got ten minutes max on clean air.”
Then Ahmed was gone. Dragging the kids out into the smoke as Reece crawled deeper alone.
But the truth sat heavier than the kit on his back.
He wasn’t leaving.
Not until Alfie Carter was out of this hellhole and back in the arms of the man who’d begged Reece to bring him home .
The image of Nathan’s face—the fear, the fury, the desperation—burned in his mind almost as hot as the surrounding fire. And Trent, wherever he was, probably glued to a radio, waiting for news Reece wasn’t going to let be the worst. At least he wouldn’t be here. They’d keep him away. They had to.
He adjusted his grip on the TIC, flicked to the next scan, and pushed forward. If he had to crawl through every burning classroom, if he had to breathe smoke and ash and blood to do it, fine. But he was walking out of here with that boy.
The corridor groaned overhead. Beams shifted. Flames bloomed from a ventilation shaft. The heat was unbearable, pressing on his gear, trying to get in. Sweat soaked his base layers.
Room 3E was barely holding.
Half the ceiling was already down. Smoke churned so thick it blurred everything. Reece dropped to his belly, pressed the TIC to the floor. One shape. Upright. Slumped over another.
That had to be them. One teacher. One student.
He shoved his way in, glass digging through his gloves. “Jude!” he shouted through the regulator. “It’s Reece. With fire and rescue. I’m getting you out!”
The teacher’s head snapped up, eyes streaming, and he’d wrapped his arms around Alfie’s limp body, shielding him as best he could from the choking smoke, obviously having tried to pull him out himself.
“He’s not waking up,” Jude rasped. “He’s… he’s not moving!”
Reece dropped to his knees beside them, scanning the boy fast. Burns across one arm, shirt scorched, lips tinged grey .
“He’s breathing,” Reece said, “but shallow. We’ve got to move. Now.”
He yanked the rescue hood from his harness and pulled it over Jude’s head, tightening the seal. Then he clipped the hood’s airline into the auxiliary port on his BA set, splitting his own supply.
Jude blinked through the clear visor, voice muffled. “What about—”
“I’ve got him.” Reece hoisted Alfie into a carry, straining under the weight and the thickening smoke.
They staggered back through the doorway together.
Jude stumbling, smoke-blind, and Reece half-dragging Alfie, cradling him tight to his chest. The corridor groaned around them, heat pressing in from every direction.
Helmet torch flickered off cracked tiles and warped lockers.
Plaster cracked above. A sharp, splintering snap.
Then— a roar.
Louder than anything Reece had heard since entering the blaze.
Instinct screamed.
“ Go! ” In the same breath, he shoved Jude forward, hard enough to send him stumbling.
A groan tore through the ceiling.
Reece dropped to one knee, arms locking tight as he swung Alfie down from his shoulder, cradled him for half a second, then with a final burst of strength, he rolled the boy forward across the scorched floor, pushing him low and fast towards the open stretch ahead.
Away from danger. Towards Jude. Out of the line of fire.
Alfie’s limp body skidded a few feet, stopping short of the stairwell landing.
Then the ceiling came down.
A roar of collapsing wood and metal, blistering heat, and the world closing in .
Reece threw himself sideways, arms instinctively raised.
Then was swallowed by it.
Something heavy slammed across his lower body. Timber, plaster, maybe part of a beam. He hit the floor hard, his back striking debris, ribs flaring with pain. His helmet cracked loose. His regulator hose tore free.
Smoke rushed in.
He lay still, lungs screaming for air, one leg pinned beneath the wreckage, heavy timber and twisted metal crushing bone, and the other twisted awkwardly beneath him.
He tried to move, to push up, but his body wouldn’t respond.
He choked, blinking through the haze. Across the debris, Jude had crawled back to Alfie. Alive, but unmoving.
The rescue hood was still sealed over Jude’s head. Reece’s own mask, hanging from his harness, hissed softly in the smoke. He couldn’t reach them.
But Jude could still get Alfie out.
With one last burst of effort, Reece unclipped his own mask, pulled it free, and threw it across the rubble towards Jude.
The teacher caught it, wide-eyed, chest heaving.
“ No! ” Jude shouted. “You’ll die— you’ll— ”
But Reece pointed.
Alfie .
Jude moved. Fast. He sealed the full BA mask over Alfie’s face, then locked it onto the same cylinder feed still trailing from the debris. Oxygen hissed. One breath. Then another.
Alfie’s chest rose.
And Reece watched it happen, relief cutting through the pain.
Until the world tilted sideways .
And everything went black.