Chapter One #2
Not that they wouldn’t go all just-in-case and get to looking. Speaking of which…
Captain Bridges’ voice filled Kellan’s ear from the two-way radio clipped just below the shoulder of his turnout gear.
“Squad Six, we need a vent on this roof immediately if not sooner. Gates, you and Faurier get a move on. Hawkins and Dempsey, take primary search and rescue, Gamble, you and Slater ready the lines, and Walker and McCullough, back up Squad on S&R. I want this fire knocked down before it grows any more teeth, people. Go.”
Gamble straightened to the top of his six-foot, five-inch frame, throwing a look from Kellan to Shae. “You heard the captain,” he said, but Kellan’s boots had already started to thump over the cracked asphalt.
“Yes, sir.” Sparing only the seconds necessary to grab his Halligan bar from its spot in Engine Seventeen’s storage compartment, he fell into step with Shae, who was right on the squad lieutenant’s boot heels on the concrete sidewalk leading up to the house.
Under normal circumstances, Hawk probably would’ve come off with a smart-assed quip in that slow, Southern drawl of his.
But pleasantries—hell, anything other than locked and loaded intensity—fell to the wayside the second something went from a smolder to a burn.
This house definitely fit the freaking bill.
“All right,” Hawk bit out, barely looking over his shoulder as he clanged past the waist-high chain link fence marked with signs warning NO TRESPASSING.
“This place is goin’ up fast, so don’t dawdle.
Dempsey, you’re my door man. McCullough, once we’re in, you and Walker hit the basement and sweep from the bottom up.
Dempsey and I will start on the second floor and work our way down. We’ll meet you in the middle.”
“Copy, Lieutenant,” McCullough said, her green stare firm and focused.
Their footsteps came to a halt on the timeworn porch boards just shy of the front door.
Hawk’s tight nod at Dempsey translated to a nonverbal “breach it,” and Kellan’s gut tightened in a quick jab of anticipation.
Dempsey put a punishing kick to the sweet spot in the lower panels, shock flashing both over his face and through Kellan’s veins when the damned thing refused to budge in its casing.
A breach like that on a house this old should’ve had the door not just wide open, but halfway off its hinges. No way would the lock hold unless—
“The fuck?” Dempsey grunted, sliding the flat end of his Halligan between the edge of the door and the jamb to visualize the deadbolt. “There’s a steel-reinforced protector screwed into the doorframe.”
Kellan’s brows popped toward the brim of his helmet. Not only was the jamb fortified to the nines, but the deadbolt itself had to be two inches thick. “That’s a shit-ton of hardware for a residence.”
“It’s definitely not your momma’s turn-and-go,” Dempsey agreed, and Hawk spun another gaze over the covered main-level windows and the thick veil of smoke muddying the morning sunlight around them.
“Put those ridiculous breach skills of yours to work, Dempsey. We need entry like five minutes ago.”
“You got it, boss.”
Determination shaped Dempsey’s features, flattening his lips into a thin line as he turned back toward the door.
Blood pulsed over Kellan’s eardrums in a white-noise whoosh—thump-thump, Dempsey finessed his Halligan into a space anyone else would’ve thought microscopic, thump-thump, a chock replaced it for leverage to create a bigger gap, thump-thump, the edge of his Halligan found the hairsbreadth again, rocking once, twice, a third time—
The rip and crack of splintering wood never sounded so fucking beautiful.
Hawk didn’t waste so much as a millisecond shouldering his way past the busted-in door and over the threshold after Dempsey, not that Kellan had expected him to.
They’d already lost valuable time with the sticky breach, and anyway, everyone’s assignments were crystal.
Squinting past the haze, he stepped inside the tiny, barely-visible foyer, primed and ready to find the point of entry to the basement so he and Shae could get to work.
A rush of heat slammed into his lungs, chased quickly by the dark, bitter taste of smoke in his mouth, and damn, they had their work laid out for them.
“All right,” he barked after he’d yanked his mask into place, the hiss of his regulator punctuating the words. “Let’s find a POE to the lower level.”
Shae’s “copy that” came past the thick shield of her own mask.
“Place looks pretty dead,” she said, flipping on the high-powered flashlight strapped just to the right of her sternum as she fell in at his six.
The beam cut a path through the smoke and the layer of ash starting to pepper in around them, revealing a whole lot of nothing much by way of furniture or belongings.
A single couch faced outward from the adjacent living room, its cushions askew.
Fast food wrappers and empty beer cans littered the floor around it, but the space appeared empty otherwise.
No coffee table, no TV, nothing on the rickety bookshelf propped against the wall.
“Shit.” Kellan turned on his own flashlight, although it didn’t do much to help illuminate the place.
Heavy curtains blanketed every window from sash to sill, and between that and the smoke, visibility grew more and more difficult with every step farther inside.
Still, the ominous glow of flames around them said this fire was eating through the house at an alarming rate.
Abandoned or not, they had to make sure no one was trapped inside.
“Even if it’s vacant, there could be squatters.
Anything goes in this neighborhood,” he said, resolve flashing harder in his chest as he scanned the front hallway for a door that might lead down.
Forcing his legs into gear, Kellan stabbed his boots into the floorboards with each decisive step, methodically ruling out a hall closet and a tiny bathroom before hitting the jackpot on the third door at the back of the narrow corridor by the kitchen.
“Basement,” he called out, pulling the door wide on its hinges and clambering down the unfinished wooden stairs. Visibility went from bad to you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me with every downward move, daring his pulse to rattle and his brain to spin back in time.
Thick air, clogging his throat, poker-hot in his lungs. Eyes stinging with sweat and sand and images he’d never forget. Screams. The screams…
This moment. Right now. Nothing else.
Ever.
Kellan’s boots hit the concrete landing, slamming his focus back into place. A long, dark hallway stretched out to both his right and his left, and he metered his breath on a three count, using his exhale to bellow, “Fire department! Call out!”
The only response was an eerie silence that sent a chill laddering up his spine.
“Hang on,” Shae said from the spot where she’d come to a stop at his nine.
She took a handheld thermal imaging camera from one of the deep-welled pockets in her coat, using it to follow the beam of her flashlight from one end of the hallway to the other.
“There’s a ton of heat building in these walls, Walker.
We need to make sure no one’s down here and get the hell out of Dodge.
I’ll take the Delta side.” She jerked her head down the left end of the hallway. “You take Bravo. Go.”
“Copy that.” Kellan pivoted on his heels, angling his body to the right.
Visibility amounted to a jack with a side of shit, which meant he was going to have to get creative in order to be thorough and fast. Throwing both arms out from his sides, he exhaled with a hell yes as his glove-covered hands made contact with either wall.
Reinforcing his limited vision with feel meant he’d have less of a chance of missing something.
Not that there had been a whole lot in the house so far to miss.
Kicking his feet into rapid motion, Kellan moved down the shadow-cloaked passageway.
The air down here felt cooler than the main level, which was only to say it wasn’t hell-hot and actively engulfed in flames.
At least, not yet. But for now, that made the basement a logical place for someone to hide, especially if they thought they’d get into trouble for squatting in an abandoned house, and damn it, there were just enough signs that someone had been here recently to make the unease in Kellan’s chest go for a double.
He opened his mouth to broadcast another offer for help, but the words jammed in his windpipe when his right palm skimmed the edge of a doorframe. The knob refused to budge despite the firm twist he tried to put to it, and seriously, what was with the Fort Knox treatment in this place?
Screw it. Not having the time for anything other than brute force, Kellan coiled up his energy on a deep inhale, sending all the power he could muster on a direct path to his leg as he unleashed a relentless kick.
The door gave way with a crash, relief filling him in a quick burst as he crossed the threshold into the dank, smoke-tinged room.
“Fire department, call out!” The bellow of his own voice reverberated in his ears.
The room was as dark as the hallway behind him, the one small rectangular window in the corner by the ceiling blacked out by a heavy layer of curtains.
Kellan aimed his flashlight toward the far side of the space, giving the room a quick yet thorough scan from left to right.