Go. Save Them.
Chapter Nineteen
The phone alarm tore through the pre-dawn darkness like a chainsaw, all shrieking urgency and mechanical violence.
I was awake before my eyes opened, muscle memory pulling me from dreams of Vera's hands in my hair, her warm breath against my neck, the vanilla-coconut scent of her skin.
I was awake before the second scream of the alarm, my hand shooting out to silence it before it could fully wake Vera.
Too late. I felt her stir against me, her body comfortably warm and limp where she was pressed along my side, one leg tangled between mine, her hand splayed across my stomach. We'd fallen asleep like this, tangled together, hands mapping each other’s bodies.
I grabbed the phone, squinting at the screen's harsh light in the darkness.
CODE RED - ALL HANDS - Eagle Ridge - Major Wildfire - Report Immediately
My stomach dropped. Code Red. All hands. That meant every available firefighter, every station, everything we had. That meant bad. Very bad.
"Petra?" Vera's voice was thick with sleep, but I heard the worry already creeping in. She knew what a four-thirty AM call meant.
"Fire," I said quietly, already swinging my legs out of bed. "Big one. I have to go."
I didn't wait for her response. Couldn't afford to.
My body was already moving on autopilot, years of training taking over.
I crossed to the chair where I'd laid out my clothes the night before—fire season habit, always have your gear ready—and started pulling them on in the dark.
Underwear and sports bra. Pants. Shirt. Socks.
Behind me, I heard Vera sit up, heard the rustle of sheets. The bedside lamp clicked on, flooding the room with dim yellow light. When I glanced back, she was watching me, her hair a wild tangle around her face, her eyes already carrying that look I'd come to know too well.
Fear. Worry. The helpless knowledge that I was about to walk into danger and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
"How bad?" she asked.
I sat on the edge of the bed to lace up my boots, my fingers working the knots quickly and fluidly. "Don't know yet. Code Red means multiple stations responding. All hands. That's never good."
"When will you be back?"
I paused, my hands stilling on the laces. This was the part she hated. The waiting. Not knowing when I'd be back or if I'd be okay. The uncertainty that came with loving someone who ran toward fire instead of away from it.
"I don't know, baby," I said honestly. "Could be hours. Could be days. Depends on the fire."
I finished with my boots and stood, grabbed my keys and wallet from the dresser, and checked my phone again.
More messages were coming through now. Incident Commander and dispatch confirming coordinates and helicopter departure time, Rodriguez confirming crew status.
We were going in by air. Helitack. That meant it was bad enough that they needed us there fast, needed us to rappel in before the ground crews could even arrive.
I felt Vera's presence behind me before her arms wrapped around my waist, her body pressing against my back.
She was still slumped and sleepy, and for a moment I wanted nothing more than to turn around, crawl back into bed with her, forget about the fire and the crew and the danger waiting for me in the pre-dawn darkness.
But I couldn't. People's homes were in danger. Maybe people's lives. And I'd signed up for this, chosen this life, accepted the responsibility that came with it.
I turned in her arms, looking down at her face. Even first thing in the morning, even worried and scared, she was beautiful. Her blue eyes were luminous in the lamplight, the freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks like constellations I'd mapped with my fingers and lips a hundred times.
"Be safe," she whispered, her hands coming up to cup my face. "Please be safe."
"I will. I promise I'll do everything in my power to come home to you."
It was the closest to a promise I could make. We both knew I couldn't promise to come home, not really, not in this job. But I could promise to try. To be smart. To use my training and experience and instincts to survive.
She pulled me down and kissed me. It was almost desperate, her lips clinging to mine like she could keep me there through sheer force of will. I kissed her back, trying to pour everything I felt into it. All the love, all the reassurance, all the unspoken promises I couldn't quite make.
When we finally broke apart, her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
"I love you," she said, her voice breaking slightly on the words.
"I love you too. I'll be home soon."
The words felt necessary. We both knew "soon" could mean anything. Could mean tonight. Could mean three days from now. Could mean never, though neither of us would say it out loud.
I kissed her forehead, then forced myself to pull away, to grab my gear bag from the closet, to walk toward the door. Every step away from her felt wrong, felt like I was leaving something vital behind.
At the door, I looked back. She was standing in the bedroom doorway, wrapped in my oversized flannel shirt, her arms hugged around herself. The sight of her like that, small and worried and mine, made my chest ache so tight it hurt.
"I'll text you when I can," I said.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
I made myself leave. Made myself walk out of our apartment, down the stairs, out to my truck in the parking lot. The air was cool and desert-dry, full of the scent of sage. The sky was still dark, but I could see the faint glow of orange on the eastern horizon.
Not sunrise.
Fire.
I climbed into my truck, started the engine, and drove toward Station 19. Toward the helicopter waiting to take us into the heart of it. Toward the fire that was already burning out of control.
Away from Vera and safety and everything secure in my life.
Toward the only thing I knew how to do when the world was burning.
Fight a goddamn fire.
The helicopter ride to the Eagle Ridge fire was a study in controlled chaos.
The Bell 212's rotors beat the air into submission, the noise a physical weight pressing against my chest even through the helmet.
I sat in my position by the open door, harness clipped, watching the landscape unfold below us in the grey light of almost-dawn.
Captain Rodriguez's voice crackled through the comms. "Alves, what are we looking at?"
I leaned forward, assessing. The fire was already visible from miles out, an angry orange glow against the dark hillside, smoke rising in thick columns catching the first rays of sunlight and turning them the color of old blood.
"Crown fire," I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline flooding my system.
"Already jumping from treetop to treetop.
Heavy fuel load—looks like twenty years of drought-killed pine and juniper.
Wind's gusting from the southwest, pushing it toward the residential developments on the north side of the ridge. "
I could see it all from up here, the terrible mathematics of fire behavior playing out in real time. The slope of the terrain would accelerate the flames. The wind would drive them. The dry fuel would feed them. We had maybe six hours before the fire reached the first neighborhood. Maybe less.
"Spot fires?" Rodriguez asked.
I scanned the fire's perimeter, looking for the telltale sparks jumping ahead of the main body. "Negative. Not yet. But with these wind conditions, it's only a matter of time."
"Copy that. We're going in first. Cut a firebreak on the ridge, hold the line until the ground crews can establish a perimeter."
Helitack. First in, most dangerous position. The ones who rappelled into the heart of it before anyone else arrived, before the support systems were in place, before there was anything between us and the fire except skill and luck and the thin thread of rope that lowered us into hell.
I looked at Stevens sitting across from me, his face young and eager beneath his helmet, his eyes bright with the kind of enthusiasm that came from not having seen enough bad fires yet.
Jackson was beside him, older, steadier, already running through mental checklists.
Miller was further back, a wall of calm competence.
Davids and Emerson were near the rear, keeping their distance from me like they'd been doing since the barbecue incident two weeks ago.
I pushed that thought away. Whatever tension existed on the ground had no place up here. Up here, we were a crew. Up here, nothing else mattered.
"Let's get it done," Rodriguez said, and I heard our helicopter pilot, Gomez, acknowledge, felt the aircraft bank and begin its descent toward the ridge.
The fire was beautiful and terrible from above. Flames forty feet high, maybe more, consuming everything in their path with a hunger that seemed almost alive. I'd seen fires like this before. In California. In Arizona. In places where the fuel had built up for decades and the spark finally came.
I'd also seen what happened when fires like this decided to run, and it was very possible that could happen.
If we weren’t careful, we’d never make it out of this one alive.
By hour three, we were deep in it. The firebreak was taking shape—a cleared line of earth and rock cut across the ridge, backburns eating away the fuel between us and the advancing flames.
The work was brutal, physical, all chainsaw screams and shovel scrapes and the constant roar of fire filling the air like thunder that never stopped.
Sweat ran down my spine despite the early morning chill.
Ash fell around us like toxic snow, coating everything in grey.
My muscles burned from hours of swinging the Pulaski, cutting line, clearing brush.
But the burn felt good, felt purposeful.
This was what I was built for. This was where I made sense.