Chapter 1 #2
A man emerged through the smoke. Large, broad-shouldered, moving fast despite obvious injury.
He carried two small shapes wrapped in a smoking blanket, one cradled against his chest, the other slung awkwardly against his neck.
Children. The man was running, stumbling, his face soot-blackened and twisted with effort, and he made it maybe twenty feet from the house before his legs started to give out.
Ethan was out of the ambulance before conscious thought caught up. He heard Carla shouting behind him, “Ethan! Wait!” but he was already moving, his trauma bag in one hand, sprinting across the frozen ground toward the man and the children.
The little girl stirred in the man’s arms, coughing. The boy slid off his back, gasping, his face streaked with soot and tears.
“Mom,” the boy wheezed. “Mom’s still inside.”
Ethan saw the man’s entire body go rigid. Watched his eyes dart back to the inferno, to the house that was seconds from total collapse.
No. Oh, no. Don’t?—
“Where?” the man asked, his voice rough.
“Upstairs,” the boy sobbed. “Her bedroom. She tried to get us out but she fell.”
“We’ve got them!” Carla shouted, running past Ethan toward the children. “Sir, stay down! We’ve got them!”
But the man was already standing up, swaying on his feet, and Ethan could see the determination in his eyes. The same look he’d seen in soldiers who were about to do something brave and stupid.
“Sir!” Ethan reached for him. “You need medical attention?—”
The man shook him off with surprising strength. “Woman upstairs. Still inside.”
“Fire department’s two minutes out—” Ethan tried, even though he knew it was pointless. He could see it in the man’s face. Two minutes was an eternity.
“She doesn’t have two minutes.”
And just like that, the man was turning back toward the house. Ethan watched, frozen for a critical second, as this civilian with no gear, no air, already injured from the first rescue, ran back into the burning building with nothing but a soaking blanket to protect him.
“Dammit!” Ethan stood there for one more heartbeat, torn between following and staying with the children who needed him now.
“Ethan!” Carla’s voice cut through his paralysis. “I need you!”
The children. He had two children who needed immediate care. He turned back to them, dropping to his knees beside Carla.
The little girl was maybe six, blonde curls matted with ash, already wearing a pediatric oxygen mask that Carla must have fitted while Ethan was trying to stop the man. Her eyes fluttered open, huge, brown, terrified, and fixed on him.
“Hey, sweetheart. I’m Ethan. I’m a paramedic,” he said gently, his hands already moving, checking for burns, feeling for broken bones. “You’re safe now, okay? Just breathe for me. Nice and slow.”
“CO2 stats are going to be terrible,” Carla said, her voice tight but controlled. She’d moved to the boy, was fitting the pulse oximeter to his finger. “Boy’s showing 87% O2 saturation. Resp rate shallow, maybe eight per minute.”
“Get a mask on him too,” Ethan ordered. “Bag him if he drops below six.”
The girl coughed, a wet, hacking sound that made Ethan’s chest tighten. He’d heard that cough before. Smoke inhalation, particulate matter in the lungs, possible chemical burns to the airways. She needed a hospital, needed it fast, but first he had to stabilize her.
“What’s your name?” he asked gently, keeping his voice calm and steady even as his hands moved quickly. The girl’s skin was hot to the touch, flushed from heat exposure, but he didn’t see any obvious burn injuries. “Can you tell me your name?”
The girl’s lips moved. “R-Rosie.”
“Rosie. That’s a beautiful name.” Ethan smiled at her, the same smile he’d used on injured soldiers in the sand, the smile that said everything’s going to be okay even when it wasn’t. “And this is your brother?”
“Eli,” the boy wheezed from where Carla was working on him. He was older, maybe nine, trying to be brave, his eyes darting between his sister and the burning house. “Is Mom … did he get Mom?”
Ethan’s chest tightened. He glanced toward the house, toward where the large man had disappeared back into the flames. Smoke was pouring from the doors now, thick and black, and there was no sign of anyone emerging.
In the distance, sirens wailed. The fire department, finally en route. But they were still minutes out, and minutes might as well be hours.
“Your mom’s going to be okay,” Ethan lied, because what else could he say to an eight-or-nine-year-old boy whose mother was trapped in a burning building? “We’re going to take care of all of you. I promise.”
The boy’s face crumpled, tears cutting tracks through the soot on his cheeks. “She fell,” he sobbed. “She tried to get us out but she fell and we couldn’t wake her up and?—”
“Shh, it’s okay. You’re safe now.” Ethan kept his voice gentle, but his mind was racing. Mother unconscious upstairs, trapped in a fully involved structure, and some civilian was in there right now trying to get her out. Trying to be a hero. Trying to get himself killed.
Ethan knew about heroes. He’d been one, once. In Kandahar, they’d given him a Bronze Star for dragging three wounded soldiers out of a kill zone under heavy fire. They’d called him brave, called him selfless, called him a credit to the uniform.
They didn’t give medals for the ones you couldn’t save.
“Ethan,” Carla said quietly, jerking him back to the present. “Kids are stable for now. But that guy who went back in?—”
“I know,” Ethan said tersely. He fit the oxygen mask more securely over Rosie’s face, made sure Eli’s was properly seated. The man had been in there for … what, five minutes now? More? The house was finished, flames through the roof, the structure groaning. No one was coming out of that.
No one.
In the distance, sirens wailed louder. The fire department, getting close. Maybe two minutes out. But two minutes was too late for anyone still inside that inferno.
Ethan focused on the children, keeping his hands busy, keeping his mind from imagining what was happening inside that house. Rosie’s breathing was improving, the oxygen helping. Eli was crying quietly, asking about his mother, and Ethan kept reassuring him with lies that felt like ash in his mouth.
The sirens grew louder. Ethan could see the glow of red lights through the trees now, hear the deep horn of Engine One. Almost here. Almost?—
He looked up.
And stopped breathing.
Twenty feet away, lying in the winter-dead grass was an unconscious woman.
Brown hair matted with soot, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths.
And beside her, the large man from before, on his side, barely moving, his scorched hand reaching weakly toward the woman like he was trying to make sure she was real.
Ethan’s mind stuttered, trying to process what he was seeing.
He’d been watching the house. He’d been treating the kids, his attention split between Rosie’s oxygen levels and Eli’s fear and the inferno twenty yards away. He hadn’t seen anyone come out. Hadn’t seen the man stagger through a door with the woman in his arms. Hadn’t seen him collapse.
They were just ... there.
“What the hell?” Carla breathed beside him, her eyes wide. “Where did they … I was watching the house. I didn’t see?—”
He was already moving, grabbing his trauma bag, his mind racing through impossible scenarios. The back of the house, maybe? Had they come out the back while he was focused on the front? But the entire structure was involved, there was no safe exit, no way?—
He reached the woman first, dropped to his knees beside her.
Check airway, clear. Check breathing, shallow but present. Check pulse, weak, maybe 95, but steady.
“Ma’am, can you hear me?” No response. Ethan tilted her head carefully, his fingers finding swelling at the base of her skull almost immediately. Swollen. Hot. Significant trauma.
Beside her, the man groaned. His eyes fluttered open for just a second, unfocused, glazed with pain, before closing again. He was still semi-conscious, barely, his chest heaving with the effort of breathing.
“Carla!” he shouted. “I need a C-collar and an IV kit! Now!”
He couldn’t think about the impossibility of it all right now. He had patients. That was what mattered. Figure out the how later, just treat them now. The woman was maybe early thirties, her face smudged with soot, a nasty laceration visible through her hair.
“Carla!” he called again.
“Coming!” She appeared at his elbow, her arms full of equipment, her face still showing confusion. “Ethan, I swear I was watching the house. I didn’t see them come out. They were just suddenly?—”