Chapter 2 #2
I could have made a joke, changed the subject, given him the charm-and-deflect routine that had worked on everyone else for years.
But this was Brian. He'd held my hand through the worst calls of my career. He'd seen me cry exactly once, after we lost a kid in a house fire in Astoria, and he'd never mentioned it again.
"I'm tired," I said finally. "Of being that guy."
"That guy?"
"You know what I mean." I rubbed the back of my neck. "I wake up next to someone, and I can't remember her name. I go home to an empty apartment. I look in the mirror, and I don't recognize myself anymore."
Brian was quiet.
"I watched Rodriguez with his kids the other day," I continued. "Maria brought lunch. The way they looked at each other, man. Twenty years, and it's still there." I shook my head. "I want that. Something real. Someone who actually sees me, not the headline."
"So stop answering texts from women who just want the headline."
"I did. I am."
"And?"
I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "And it turns out, when you strip away all the noise, there's not much left."
Brian considered this. Then he reached over, picked up my phone, and dropped it in the trash can beside the table.
"Hey!"
"You can fish it out later." He gathered the cards and started shuffling. "In the meantime, maybe figure out who you are when you're not performing. Might be a guy worth knowing."
I stared at the trash can. Thought about Natalie's messages sitting there, unread, unanswered.
It felt like the first honest thing I’d done in a long time.
The tones dropped at 7:23 PM.
I was in the kitchen, halfway through a plate of Brian's surprisingly decent pasta, when the alarm cut through the noise. Chair scraped back. Fork dropped. Muscle memory took over.
Around me, the station came alive. Boots on concrete. Gear rattling. The controlled chaos of men who'd done this a thousand times.
"Structure fire, P.S. 156, Woodside," the dispatcher's voice crackled. "Multiple calls. Flames visible."
A school. My stomach dropped.
We rolled out in under ninety seconds. Engine 295 tore through empty streets, sirens cutting the silence, the city blurring past in streaks of streetlight and shadow. I sat in the jump seat, pulling on my SCBA, running through scenarios in my head.
We saw the glow three blocks out.
The building was fully involved by the time we arrived. Flames poured from the first-floor windows, orange and angry against the night sky. Smoke billowed thick and black, carrying the acrid smell of burning plastic, paper, everything.
"Engine 295 on scene," Rodriguez called into the radio. "We have heavy fire showing, first floor, extending to the second. Requesting second alarm."
A man stumbled toward us from the side entrance. He wore a security uniform, his face streaked with soot, coughing so hard his whole body shook.
"Anyone else inside?" Rodriguez grabbed his shoulder, steadying him.
The man shook his head, gasping between words. "Just me. I called 911 as soon as I saw it. Tried to find where it started." He doubled over, hacking into his sleeve. "Smoke got too thick. Couldn't see. Couldn't breathe."
"Get him on oxygen," Rodriguez ordered. "Briggs, check him out. Then we go in."
I guided Harold to the rig, got a mask on his face, and checked his vitals. Sixty-three years old, eleven years watching this building. His hands were shaking.
"You did good," I told him. "Getting out was the right call."
"All those kids," he kept saying. "Thank God the kids weren't there."
I left him with another medic and rejoined the crew.
We moved as we'd trained. Garrett and I pulled the attack line while Brian forced entry through the main doors. Heat hit us like a wall the moment we crossed the threshold.
The hallway was an inferno. Fire climbed the walls, licked across the ceiling, and consumed everything it touched. Somewhere deeper in the building, something crashed. Glass shattered. The structure was failing.
"Fire department! Call out!" I shouted it even though I knew no one would answer. The security guard said he was alone, but you always called. You always checked. Because the one time you didn't would be the time someone was there.
We pushed forward, knocking down flames as we went. The water hissed and steamed against superheated surfaces. Visibility dropped to nothing. I could feel Brian beside me. The two of us moved in sync, reading the fire's behavior, watching for signs of collapse.
By the time we had it under control, the first floor was gutted. The desks were black. The ceiling tiles were melted. A bulletin board near the entrance had warped into an unrecognizable mass, the student artwork it once displayed reduced to ash.
Outside, I pulled off my mask and let the night air hit my face. Sweat dripped down my back. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind the familiar exhaustion and something heavier.
"Briggs." Garrett's voice was flat. "You need to see this."
I followed him back inside, to the gymnasium. The double doors were blackened but intact. Inside, the fire had barely touched the space. Just enough to make a point.
On the far wall, spray-painted in letters three feet tall:
LET THE SYSTEM BURN.
I stared at the words. There was anger in them. Rage that had been building for a long time.
"Arson unit's already on their way," Rodriguez said, coming up behind us.
I looked around the gymnasium. Basketball hoops at either end. A painted mascot on the floor, now covered in soot and ash. A banner on the wall that read HOME OF THE THUNDERBIRDS.
Kids played here. Laughed here. Felt safe here.
And someone wanted to watch it burn.
"We'll know more once the investigators process the scene," Rodriguez said. His voice was steady, but I caught the tension underneath. "For now, we need to finish securing the building."
I nodded and took one last look at the message on the wall.
Whoever wrote that wasn't finished. I could feel it in my gut, the same instinct that told me when a structure was about to come down.
This was just the beginning.
The security guard’s name was Harold—sixty-three years old, eleven years on the overnight shift at P.S. 156. He was doing his rounds when he smelled the smoke. He tried to find the source and caught a lungful of toxic fumes before he made it out.
We loaded him into the ambulance with an oxygen mask strapped to his face. His eyes were red and watery, darting around like he still expected flames to follow him.
"The kids," he kept saying, voice muffled. "Thank God the kids weren't there."
I rode in the back with him while Brian drove. Queens General was fifteen minutes out, and I could feel him pushing it, running lights, the ambulance swaying through sparse 4 AM traffic. I kept my focus on Harold, monitoring his oxygen levels, checking his vitals, and keeping him calm.
"You're doing great, Harold. Just keep breathing for me. Nice and slow."
"Eleven years," he said. "Eleven years I've watched that building. All those kids."
"I know. You did good getting out. You did exactly what you were supposed to do."
His hand found my wrist, grip weak but desperate. "Who would do something like this?"
I didn't have an answer.
The ER was its usual chaos: fluorescent lights, beeping monitors, nurses moving with the controlled urgency of people who'd seen everything twice.
We wheeled Harold through the double doors, and I gave the report to the triage nurse.
Smoke inhalation, possible chemical exposure from the accelerants, vitals stable but he needed monitoring.
I was about to head back to the ambulance when I spotted Brian.
He was standing at the nurses' station, shoulders tense, talking to a woman in a white coat with auburn hair scraped back in a messy ponytail.
Dr. Ava Rothwell.
I'd met her a handful of times. She was brilliant and fierce, the kind of doctor who could diagnose you with a glance and make you feel stupid for not figuring it out yourself.
She also lived in Brian's building. They'd been neighbors for two years.
And every time her name came up, Brian got a look on his face like a man trying very hard not to think about something.
"Torres." Her voice was flat, professional. Sharp green eyes stayed fixed on the chart in her hands. "What did you break this time?"
"Nothing. Just escorting a patient."
"The arson victim?"
"Smoke inhalation. He was inside longer than he should've been."
"I saw the intake." She made a note, still not looking at him. "We'll run a full workup. Anything else?"
Brian hesitated. "He's scared. Keeps talking about the kids, even though there weren't any. Might be worth having someone sit with him."
Something shifted in her expression. Just a flicker, there and gone. "I'll make sure he's not alone."
"Thanks."
"Then why are you still here?"
Brian shrugged, an attempt at casual that landed somewhere around desperate. "Missed your sunny personality."
She finally looked at him. Flat. Unimpressed. "I'm working."
"I can see that."
"Then you can see yourself out."
She turned and walked away, white coat snapping behind her. Brian watched her go with an expression I recognized. I waited until we were outside, the night air cool against my face, before I nudged his shoulder.
"You gonna ask her out, or what?"
"It's not like that."
"Sure."
"She's my neighbor. We're friendly."
"Friendly." I grinned.
"Drop it, Briggs."
But I'd seen his face. The way he'd looked at her, even when she was freezing him out.
I let it go. Some things you couldn't push.
But I filed it away. One more piece of the puzzle.
One more person trying to find something real in a world full of noise.
I drove home through Queens streets I'd known my whole life. Past the firehouse where I'd found my brothers. Past the bodega where I'd bought candy as a kid. Past the park where my dad used to take me, before the cancer, before everything changed.
My apartment was dark when I got there. Empty. Same as always.
I stood in the doorway for a long moment, keys in my hand, letting the silence wash over me.
Somewhere out there, a life existed that wasn't hollow. A connection that wasn't performance.
Someone who’d see me instead of the headline.
I just had to believe that kind of connection existed.
Or maybe I had to figure out who I was, before anyone could find me at all.