Go. Save Them. #3
The crew scattered like a flock of startled birds.
Davids and Emerson looked back at me, confusion and something like accusation on their faces, but they were moving too, grabbing essential gear and running for the ridgeline.
We'd scouted the escape route that morning—standard procedure, always know your way out—and muscle memory took over even as minds struggled to process what was happening.
We had maybe thirty seconds.
I counted them in my head, in my heartbeat, in the screaming certainty that this was either the best decision or the worst mistake of my life.
Twenty-eight seconds later, the fire crowned exactly where we'd been standing.
The sound was like a freight train, like a jet engine, like the end of the world.
Super-heated air exploded across the ridge, flames fifty feet high consuming everything in their path.
Trees exploded from the heat, sap boiling and igniting in microseconds.
The spot fires we'd seen kindling merged with the main body, creating a wall of flame that moved with terrifying speed.
If we'd stayed on that line, we'd be dead.
All of us. Stevens and Jackson and Miller and Davids and Emerson and me. Ash and bone and grief for the people waiting for us at home. Six more names on the memorial wall. Six more families destroyed by fire.
But we weren't there. We were fifty yards down the slope, scrambling over rocks and through brush, putting distance between ourselves and the inferno. I could feel the heat on my back, could hear the roar of it chasing us, but we were moving and we were alive and—
"Petra!" Jackson's shout cut through the chaos. "Stevens is down!"
I spun around, my heart in my throat. Stevens was on the ground twenty feet behind us, clutching his shoulder. Even from here I could see the way his jacket was smoking, could see the ash and debris scattered around him.
Burning debris. A chunk of it the size of a baseball, still glowing orange, must have hit him during the crown fire explosion.
"Miller, help me!" I was already running back toward Stevens, every instinct screaming at me to get away from the fire, but Stevens was down and that meant we weren't leaving. I was not leaving anyone behind, and especially not the kid.
Miller reached him first, his bulk between Stevens and the advancing flames. I grabbed Stevens' other side, and together we hauled him to his feet. His face was twisted in pain, his breathing ragged.
"My shoulder," he gasped. "Fuck, Petra, it hurts—"
"I know, kid. But you gotta move. Can you move?" I was already assessing even as we dragged him forward. Second-degree burns on his shoulder and arm, maybe worse. Smoke inhalation from the super-heated air. Shock setting in.
"I can move," he gritted out, and goddamn if the rookie didn't start stumbling forward under his own power, Miller and I supporting him on either side.
The helicopter extraction took twenty minutes that felt like twenty hours.
Rodriguez had called it in the moment we evacuated, the pilot bringing the Bell 212 in low over the ridge to extract us from a clearing half a mile from the fire.
We loaded Stevens first, Miller going with him to keep him stable.
Then the rest of the crew, one by one, until it was just me and Rodriguez on the ground.
He’d rappelled down to help the moment the bird had arrived.
He looked at me across the clearing, his face unreadable beneath the ash and sweat.
"We'll talk about this later, Alves," he said, and I couldn't tell if it was a promise or a threat.
Then we were in the air, lifting away from the ridge, and I could see the full scope of what we'd left behind.
The fire had consumed our entire position, had jumped the ridge exactly where we'd been cutting line, and was now making a run for the residential areas to the north.
Aerial retardant drops were already in progress, bright red streaks across the hillside, but the fire was moving too fast.
I watched from my position by the open door as the flames reached the first neighborhood. Watched houses begin to burn. Counted them like rosary beads, like prayers, like penance.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
Six homes destroyed. Six families losing everything they owned. Because I'd pulled my crew back. Because I'd prioritized their lives over property. Because I'd disobeyed a direct order and the consequence was that people's homes burned while we flew to safety.
Stevens was crying softly in the back of the helicopter, Miller's steady hands on his shoulders, the burns covered with emergency dressing but clearly painful, and a pain I knew all too well. But he was alive. They were all alive. We'd made it out.
And now, six homes were gone, and I'd be the one who had to live with that choice.
I turned away from the window, from the sight of smoke rising like accusations against the morning sky, and met Rodriguez's eyes across the helicopter bay.
His expression was still unreadable, but something in his eyes looked almost like understanding.
Or maybe I was just hoping for absolution that would never come.