Chapter Nineteen Fight for the Last Breath #2
Trent stood frozen, heart crashing, and clenching his fists so hard his gloves creaked. But he didn’t move. Not towards the flames, nor the cordon.
He turned back to Alfie.
Because that’s what Reece would want him to do .
Alfie was still breathing. The oxygen mask firm over his face, lips a little pinker now, though ash clung to his lashes. Trent checked his pulse again, watching the sluggish rise and fall of his chest.
“Still with us,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.
Nathan knelt on the other side, clinging to his son’s hand, tears carving channels through the soot on his face. Freddie stood behind them both, pale and rigid, his radio in one hand, the other tight around Nathan’s shoulder.
Trent forced his brain to stay in gear.
“Liv,” he called. “Burns dressings ready. Minimal blistering on the exposed forearm. Partial thickness, needs cooling.”
“On it.” She crouched beside the teacher. “He needs assessment, too. Smoke exposure, borderline collapse.”
“Hey, mate, what’s your name?” Trent asked, despite already knowing it. The check wasn’t for him, it was to bring Jude back into himself. “Can’t expect me to call you ‘sir’. I left here a while back.”
The teacher smiled. Barely. His hands trembled, and he still hadn’t taken off the melted rescue hood. “Jude,” he croaked out.
Trent nodded. “Alright, Jude. We’ll get you looked over. You did good getting him out.”
Trent wanted to break. Scream. Run to that building and drag Reece out himself.
But he couldn’t.
He wiped Alfie’s face clean with saline gauze, then adjusted the oxygen flow. He did what he’d trained to do. That’s what Reece would’ve done if their roles were reversed. And the reason he’d sacrificed his stupid self in the first bloody place .
The wind shifted, the smoke thickening, heat pressing off the school’s shell growing heavier. The roof groaned. He checked Alfie again. Then Jude. Then turned to help another medic triage a girl with minor burns on her legs and soot-streaked tears across her cheeks.
He did his job.
Then…
“Firefighter down! Coming out. Need medics ready!”
Trent’s head snapped up.
Through the smoke came two firefighters dragging a third between them, a limp weight in scorched gear, head lolling.
The world narrowed.
Reece .
Trent sprinted across the tarmac, dropping to his knees as they laid Reece on the blackened concrete. No helmet. Face streaked with soot, mouth slack, eyes closed. His chest didn’t rise.
Another paramedic dropped beside him. Jennie, from the county response team. They’d crossed paths a few times, traded jokes at A&E drop-offs. She dropped to her knees with a defib and BVM in hand.
“Unresponsive. No pulse,” she confirmed. “Starting CPR.”
She began compressions, counting under her breath as another medic attached the bag-valve mask, squeezing oxygen into Reece’s lungs. His chest rose mechanically under their effort. Rhythmic, hollow. But he didn’t move.
Didn’t cough.
Blink.
Nor fight .
Trent stayed rooted on his knees, the world narrowing to the sight of Reece’s still chest and the echo of gloved hands slamming into it, over and over .
“Switch in thirty?” Jennie called without looking up.
Trent nodded before he even realised his legs were moving.
At the changeover, he dropped hard to his knees. Locked his arms. Planted his palms on Reece’s sternum. He pressed. Hard. Again. And again.
“Come on…” he breathed. “Come on, baby…”
His gloves slipped on sweat and soot. Shoulders burned. Arms trembled.
But he didn’t stop.
Thirty compressions.
Two breaths.
The BVM hissed.
“Still no output,” someone said, voice clipped through comms. “Charging defib in case.”
A medic moved beside him, paddles in hand, but the monitor stayed flat. No shock advised. Reece wasn’t in a shockable rhythm.
“Come on, baby, please …” Trent whispered. “Please don’t do this to me.”
“Trent! Swap out,” Jennie ordered.
“I’ve got him.”
“You’re fatiguing—”
“I said I’ve got him!”
He pushed harder.
One, two, three, four …” Don’t you dare leave me.” Five, six, seven… “Come back.” Eight, nine, ten . “Fight for me, baby. Come back !”
Liv tried to pull him off. “Trent. Switch. You’ll hurt yourself—”
He shoved her back without looking. “Don’t touch me!”
The voices got louder. Shouting. Hands reaching.
He kept going .
Tears mixed with sweat dripped from his chin onto Reece’s uniform, and his soot-covered face.
Then—
A cough.
Wet. Shuddering. Real .
Reece’s back arched, head lolling to the side. The medic shouted, “He’s breathing! Get the airway mask on. Now!”
Someone yanked the BVM away, replacing it with high-flow oxygen as Reece dragged in another ragged breath. Trent collapsed forward, clutching the fabric of Reece’s jacket, and slammed his forehead into his chest as the sound of oxygen rushing filled the silence.
He was alive.
Breathing.
And Trent, chest heaving, tears streaking down his face, didn’t care who saw him break apart. Because he’d brought him back .
And he wasn’t letting go.
Ever .
Around them, the scene blurred: voices, radios, water hammering flame. But Trent couldn’t respond to any of it. Exhaustion didn’t cover it.
Liv crouched beside him. “We need to get him in.”
Trent looked up, dazed. “I’m coming.”
Jennie leant in. “We’ll load him. You ride in the back with me.”
They moved fast. The firefighters who’d dragged Reece out helped lift him onto the stretcher, securing straps over his scorched uniform.
His face was pale beneath the soot. His chest rose with every hiss of the non-rebreather mask.
Still unconscious, but stable. For now. What came next, Trent didn’t know.
He wasn’t a doctor. He’d done everything he could, but that didn’t mean it had been enough.
For all he knew, he’d dragged the moment of Reece’s death a little further down the line.
The crush injuries could be worse than they looked.
Internal bleeding. Organ damage. Things CPR couldn’t fix.
Things love couldn’t save.
“Watch the leg,” one medic said. “Suspected pelvic fracture. And he’s still not responding fully. We’re treating as major trauma.”
Trent climbed into the rig first, heart in his throat, and he grabbed the side rail as Jennie and Liv loaded Reece in.
Nathan appeared beside the open doors, face wet with rain. Or maybe it wasn’t rain. Tears, perhaps? “You saved him.”
Trent couldn’t speak.
Freddie stood behind him. “We’ll meet you at the hospital.”
Then the doors slammed shut.
Inside the ambulance, Trent sat on the bench seat, gripping the rail in one hand while he wrapped the other around Reece’s gloved fingers.
Jennie monitored vitals and airway, adjusting the oxygen flow, checking for secondary injuries.
Once the adrenaline drained, Trent winced at the sting forming around his wrist and the dull ache along his back.
His soaked-through uniform clung to his skin like second-degree regret.
“Your hands are shaking,” Liv said, not looking up. “How long were you doing compressions?”
“Too long.”
“Yeah. Thought so.”
She glanced at him properly then. “You’re not right.”
Trent blinked. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not. I need to log you as a secondary casualty. Wrist strain. Smoke exposure. Possibly heat exhaustion.”
“I’m not— ”
“You are . Let the hospital sort it. Don’t be a hero. He already did that part.”
He didn’t argue.
Not when he leant his head onto the cool metal wall. Nor when he realised his teeth were chattering. And when the rig finally pulled into A&E, he couldn’t think straight.
The back doors opened to the glaring lights of the trauma bay. A team stood ready. Gurney, nurse, consultant. Someone called, “Male, mid-thirties, firefighter, unconscious post-resus. Suspected crush injury, possible internal trauma, inhalation burns.”
They wheeled Reece through the doors and Trent followed until a nurse stopped him. “We’ll take him now.”
He didn’t want to let go. But he had to.
His fingers slid from Reece’s glove.
Then someone else was there, pushing a wheelchair behind him.
“For you,” Liv said. “Sit before you fall. You’ve done enough for one shift.”
Trent sank into it, too tired to argue, it all catching up to him at last. The stretcher disappeared through the trauma ward doors.
And with it, the only thing that had kept him going.