Chapter Four Jase
The heat hits us before I even jump out of the truck.
“Fucking hell,” Max mutters under his breath, launching into action.
Evan crosses himself before following on his heels. I don’t even think he’s Catholic.
I hop down onto the asphalt, scanning the scene before me.
It’s bad.
And it clearly got bad very fast.
The cathedral is pure chaos, with smoke pouring out of windows and doorways, and flames flickering from within even as the larger squad that arrived before us aims hoses into the inferno.
Wedding guests are stumbling across the street, which has been efficiently closed off by the NYPD, rumpled and panicked and wide-eyed.
One guy staggers past me, coughing hard enough that it causes him to bend in half. I grab my kit and rush toward him, keeping my focus split between him and the scene as I quickly untangle the oxygen mask and help him breathe.
Max is in full Captain mode, even though he’s technically not captain yet. It comes naturally to him. He leaps right into the fray, securing his mask and jogging toward the flames as if it’s nothing at all.
“Thank you,” gasps the man as he tugs off the oxygen mask. “I’m okay, I think.”
I pat him on the shoulder and nod, eyeing him for another few seconds to confirm he is actually okay, then hurry off toward a gaggle of EMTs setting up a temporary medical assistance site on the sidewalk opposite from the smoldering cathedral.
Nodding at a familiar face, an EMT from my same training program named Lani, I try to figure out how best to be useful.
“We’ve got it mostly under control,” Lani tells me, crouching over a woman who needs a cut on her cheek cleaned up, probably from a spray of glass. “No major injuries. One sprained ankle—no wonder, running in heels.”
The woman with the cut huffs out a laugh at that, glancing between me and Lani. “It all happened so fast. It was crazy. Like, I swear, one minute, everything was fine, but then the candles…”
The fucking candles.
We told you so.
“Is everyone accounted for?” I ask, loud enough that both Lani and a nearby police officer can overhear.
Lani makes an I’m not sure sort of face, and the officer turns toward me to offer a similar answer, but then a fast-approaching shape in my periphery catches my attention.
I whirl around at the sound of rapid footsteps.
A woman with wild eyes and wavy hair now escaping a chignon rushes toward me. She stops herself at the last moment, skidding to a halt and planting a hand on my shoulder.
“My cousin!” she gasps. “My cousin! The bride! I can’t find her! She didn’t come out with us! I think she’s still in there!”
Her voice cracks on the last word.
Without hesitation, I snatch the radio on my shoulder and relay the information to the rest of the squad.
No response comes back.
The woman drops her hand from my shoulder and fights to catch her breath, eyes so wide with horror that I’m tempted to tell her to try blinking a couple of times to relieve the pressure on them.
I relay the information again.
Something vague comes back, and I think I recognize Max’s commanding tone, but I can’t make out any confirmation that anyone within is aware that there’s still a civilian in there.
“You’re sure she didn’t make it out another exit?” I ask the woman.
“Someone said she ran the other way!” she cries. “She’s—fuck! You don’t understand. She didn’t want to—this fucking wedding—she probably—fuck! You have to let me go find her!”
I step in her path before she can run back toward the church.
“I can’t let you do that.”
“She needs help!” shrieks the woman.
I remain calm, experienced enough by now to know how to not take vicious screaming personally. She’s just scared. A lot of them are.
Frowning, I peer at the church. Already, the hoses seem to be doing the trick. The smoke has lightened in color and thickened with steam, suggesting that the flames are well on their way to being extinguished.
Everyone is inside except for the police and the EMTs. Max and Evan are nowhere to be seen.
The frantic woman yanks on my sleeve. “Hello!?”
I turn back toward her, gently prying her hand off me. “Ma’am, they’ll find her.”
“How?” she shouts. “They don’t know she’s in there! She went toward the back hall! There’s no exit that way! I already asked the fucking dumbass wedding coordinator!”
Damn. Does the whole family have mouths like that on them?
I follow the direction of the woman’s pointed finger, toward a slightly mismatched addition built onto the western side of the cathedral. Administrative offices, maybe.
My gut twists.
I try the radio again.
“Redwood,” I bark into the mouthpiece. “There’s a civ in the western wing in need of rescue.”
Clumsy wording, but with this woman looking at me like she’s going to claw my eyes out if I don’t magically pull her cousin out of my pocket right now, it’s hard to speak in proper code.
“Gro—ca—emp—” is all I get back.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
I glance back at the woman. She’s whipping her head back and forth, and then she darts off to grab a police officer to see if he’ll be any more helpful than me.
I look at Lani. She’s overseeing a wedding guest getting checked for concussion symptoms by a rookie.
My gaze drifts back toward the church. Nobody has come out yet.
And nobody on my team is answering.
I scan the crowd now scattered all along the opposite side of the street and drifting toward neighboring blocks.
I don’t see anyone in a wedding dress, though I’m pretty sure I see the groom—who looks like he’s barely been roughed up at all—surrounded by what must be his groomsmen. He’s not begging every public servant in sight to go looking for his missing bride.
The woman could be wrong. Maybe the bride got out another way. Maybe she’s on the next block over and circling back.
Or maybe not.
Maybe there’s a civilian inside that building right now, and I’m the only one who knows it.
I shouldn’t.
I know I shouldn’t.
I’m not supposed to enter burning structures unless paired with a trained firefighter. I’m EMT, not a soldier. I’m the one who rescues, not attacks.
I open my mouth to speak, but before I can say anything, there’s a loud crash from within.
I’m pretty sure I hear a scream, feminine and terrified, and most definitely coming from the part of the building that the woman was pointing to.
My heart thunders. I need to make a decision, consequences be damned, and I need to do it fast. It doesn’t look like that part of the structure has succumbed to flames at all, but that doesn’t mean the interior isn’t a wasteland of smoke and debris.
Fuck the rules.
Fuck the protocol.
Fuck the invisible line EMTs aren’t supposed to cross.
I grab a spare respirator, drop the kit bag at my feet, and sprint toward the side entrance.
“JASE!” Lani calls after me, but it’s phrased more like a question than a warning.
Without a proper oxygen mask, I’ll need to be quick. This flimsy thing on my face is just a temporary solution for particularly smoky scenes.
And indeed, as I sprint across the street and stumble into the side building, smoke hits me instantly.
I’m greeted by a long, dark hallway that twists ominously in an unknown direction at the end.
I crouch low and start running, the sounds of the battle being waged inside the attached sanctuary meeting my ears.
This is so fucking stupid.
But I keep running. Something in my chest urges me onward, like someone is pulling on an invisible string.
I reach the end of the hall and nearly smack right into a wall before I steady myself and turn toward the left.
“Shit,” I gasp.
The smoke is so much worse, and the steam has thickened the air so much that I feel instantly damp and feverish.
There’s muffled shouting beyond a doorway that leads into the main church, but I run right past it.
Shards of glass crunch under my boots and I whip my head up to see the jagged maw of a shattered window high overhead.
“Hello?” I call out into the smoke. “Is anyone back here?”
Nothing.
Only the sounds of victory over the fire beyond.
I push forward, hands skimming along the wall, trying to orient myself.
I’m probably going to be fired for this. An EMT goes running into a scene he’s not trained for, gets himself halfway killed by smoke inhalation in the process, all because he hallucinated a woman screaming for help.
But, on the off chance that someone really does need me right now, I’ll take the fall.
There’s a loud slam behind me. I halt and spin around, squinting through the haze as two hulking shadows emerge from the billows of smoke, the doorway I passed now yawning open.
“Thibodeau?” crackles a voice on my radio. “The fuck?”
Max. And that must be Evan beside him, though it’s hard to tell through the bulk of their gear.
So now the radio works.
I don’t bother answering. They can catch up.
I turn and keep going, feeling Max and Evan thundering up behind me.
Up ahead, just a few feet from the sound of it, comes a weak cough.
A rasping voice makes a horrible wheezing sound.
I lunge toward it.
A pale shape takes form in the smoke, all satin and seared edges.
A woman, curled onto her side, coughing and sputtering from smoke inhalation.
I go to my knees, yanking off my long-sleeve and bunching it up quickly. I press it gently to her face, giving no second thought to the fact that I’m in the middle of a still-active blaze in nothing but my uniform pants and an undershirt.
“Breathe into this,” I tell her. “I’m going to help you, okay?”
All she can do is moan, weak hands trembling as she tries to hold onto my shirt. Big brown eyes blink up at me, red-rimmed and watering from the smoke.
“You’re okay,” I tell her. “Everything is okay.”
“FU—HIT—ACE!” comes Max’s furious bellow through the thick material of his helmet and mask. I translate it easily as, Fucking shit, Jase.
Yeah, I’m screwed.
Oh, well.
“Can you stand?” I ask the woman.
The bride, in fact. Because even though it’s now burnt up at the hem and falling in tatters of tulle around her cut-up legs, she is definitely wearing a wedding dress.
God, what a shitty way to start a marriage.
But the woman is staring up at me, her gaze fading in and out with wavering focus.
“Alright,” I say, vaguely aware of Max barking something at Evan behind me, who then hurries off. “I’m going to get you out of here. You’ll be okay.”
I slip my hands underneath her body, careful to support her head and neck just in case there’s an invisible injury, and then hoist her into my arms.
When I turn around, Max is glaring daggers at me through the smoke-blackened visor over his eyes.
I fucked up, but I can’t bring myself to care.
With the cursed bride cradled in my arms, I follow Max as he takes the lead and guides all of us back out of the building toward safety.
The woman stares at me the whole time, holding my shirt to her face to block as much smoke as possible.
But the second the exit comes into view and fresh air mingles with the gloom, her eyelids start fluttering.
“Fuck,” I mutter. “Can you stay awake for me? I need you to try to stay awake for me, okay?”
She doesn’t hear me, though, because she’s already drifting away, falling completely limp in my arms.