Chapter 17
Shane
But I couldn't wait for minutes.
I called Brian. He picked up on the second ring.
"Shane? What's—"
"Maya's school is on fire." The words came out ragged. "She's inside. I'm three minutes out."
"What? No, the fire's at P.S. 112. Jackson Heights. I just heard it on the scanner."
"This is a different one. P.S. 147." My foot pressed harder on the gas. "Millie called me. She can see smoke from Zoe's window. You can't see Jackson Heights from their apartment, Brian. This is Maya's school. She stayed late. She's not answering her phone."
Two fires. Same night.
Tommy had planned this.
Silence on the other end. Then: "I'm on my way." His voice tightened. "Shane. Don't do anything stupid before we get there."
I hung up without answering.
My stomach dropped as P.S. 147 came into view.
The first floor was fully involved. Flames licked from the windows, orange and hungry. Smoke poured from the roof in thick black columns, blotting out the night sky. The patrol car that should have been here was nowhere in sight.
Two fires. P.S. 112 to pull the responders away. P.S. 147 for Maya.
This was always the target.
She had always been it.
I slammed the truck into park just as Engine 295 came screaming around the corner. B-shift. Thank God.
I was out of my truck before they'd even stopped, running toward the rig. My gear was stored in the same compartment it always was—bunker coat, pants, helmet, gloves, SCBA. I yanked it out and started pulling it on.
"Briggs?" Captain Okonkwo jumped down from the cab, confusion on his face. "What are you—"
"Someone's inside. Second floor."
"We haven't done a sweep yet. You need to wait for—"
"I'm not waiting."
I shoved my arms through the SCBA harness, clicked the straps into place, and pulled my mask on. The familiar hiss of air filled my ears.
"Briggs!" Okonkwo grabbed my arm. "You're not on shift. You can't just—"
I shook him off. "Write me up later."
I ran toward the building.
The heat hit me like a punch.
I pushed through the front doors, and visibility dropped to nothing within seconds. Black smoke rolled through the hallways, thick and choking. The orange glow of flames pulsed somewhere to my left. The first floor was gone. The fire had likely started in the basement and climbed fast.
The SCBA mask pressed against my face. Clean air. Twenty minutes, maybe less if I pushed too hard.
"Maya!" My voice was muffled behind the mask. "MAYA!"
I moved fast, staying low, checking classrooms as I went. Empty. Empty. The stairs to the second floor were at the end of the hall. I had to get there before the first floor collapsed entirely.
The main stairwell was impassable. Flames roared up from below.
The basement fire fed into the first floor, growing fast. I doubled back and found the secondary stairs near the gymnasium.
The smoke was thinner here. The fire hadn't reached this part of the building yet, but I could feel it coming. The walls were hot to the touch. The structure groaned around me.
I took the stairs two at a time. The steps shuddered under my weight, the supports weakening as the fire ate through the building below.
Second floor.
Maya's classroom was the fourth door on the right. I knew it by heart.
Empty.
But not untouched.
Papers were scattered on her desk. A red pen lying across a half-graded essay. Her bag was on the floor by her chair.
She'd been here.
Recently.
My chest tightened. I forced myself to keep moving.
The smoke was lighter up here, but still thick enough to sting my eyes through the mask. I pushed forward, checking rooms, calling her name.
And then I heard something.
Voices. Faint. Down the hall.
I ran.
I rounded the corner and stopped.
Maya was on the floor in the middle of the hallway. Next to her sat a young man. He was thin, shaking, and crying. Nineteen, at most. His face was streaked with tears and grime.
Tommy Vickers.
A gasoline can lay on its side a few feet away. A lighter beside it, abandoned. The floor glistened with fuel that hadn’t been lit.
Maya was holding Tommy's hand, helping him to his feet. She looked up when she heard my footsteps, and relief flooded her face.
"Shane."
"We need to go. Now." I moved toward them, already mapping the fastest way out. "The first floor's almost gone. We have minutes."
Maya nodded. She squeezed Tommy's hand. "Tommy. This is Shane. He's going to help us get out of here. Okay?"
Tommy looked up at me. His eyes were red and swollen, his face a mess of tears and snot and ash. He looked at me like he expected to be tackled. Arrested. Hurt.
Like this was how it ended.
I dropped to one knee. Made myself small.
Non-threatening.
"I'm not here to hurt you," I said. "I'm here to get you both out. Can you walk?"
Tommy stared at me for a long moment. Then nodded. Barely.
"Good." I stood and offered him my hand. "Then let's go."
We moved together. I'm on one side of Tommy, Maya on the other. His legs were shaky, barely holding him up, but he was moving.
The smoke was getting thicker. The fire was climbing faster now, eating through the first floor, reaching for us.
I led them toward the secondary stairwell. It was still clear when I'd come up, but that had been minutes ago. Minutes were a lifetime in a fire.
The stairs were still holding. Barely. I could feel them shudder with every step, the structure weakening beneath us.
"Stay close," I said. "Move fast."
We were halfway down when the ceiling groaned.
I knew that sound. Deep. Terrible. The sound of a building about to give up.
"GO!"
I shoved Maya and Tommy forward just as a section of the ceiling collapsed behind us. Debris rained down—plaster, wood, burning fragments. Heat blasted my back. Something hit my shoulder, hard, and pain exploded down my arm.
I didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
Maya was ahead of me, pulling Tommy along, coughing through the smoke. I pushed them both forward, one hand on Maya's back, keeping them moving.
The front door was a rectangle of light through the black smoke.
Thirty feet.
Twenty.
Ten.
We burst through it into the night air.
Chaos.
Fire trucks. Ambulances. Police cars. Red and blue lights strobed across the scene, turning everything into a nightmare of color and shadow. B-shift had the hoses running, water arcing toward the flames. Captain Okonkwo was shouting commands, coordinating the attack.
Paramedics rushed toward us the moment we cleared the door. Two of them took Tommy from my arms, guiding him toward a waiting stretcher. Another team descended on Maya, pressing an oxygen mask to her face, checking her for burns.
Tommy didn't resist. Just went limp, let himself be taken. But as they strapped him onto the stretcher, he turned his head, searching until he found Maya.
"I'm sorry," he called out, his voice cracking completely. "Ms. Cummins, I'm sorry."
Maya pulled the oxygen mask away from her face. "I know, Tommy. It's going to be okay. I’ll find you."
She swallowed.
"I promise."
Two cops moved in, flanking Tommy's stretcher as the paramedics wheeled him toward a separate ambulance. He looked back once at Maya, his face crumpled with something that might have been gratitude or grief or both.
Maya watched him go. Something broken in her expression. Something resolved.
Then the paramedics guided her oxygen mask back into place, and she let them.
I stood apart. Bent over. Coughing smoke out of my lungs. My shoulder screamed where the debris had hit me, but I ignored it.
A familiar voice cut through the chaos.
"Shane!"
Brian. He was running across the parking lot in jeans and a hoodie, Garrett right behind him. Brian reached me first, grabbed my good shoulder, and looked me over. "I heard you told Okonkwo to write you up later."
"He told me to wait for a sweep."
"So you just... went in anyway." Brian shook his head, but there was a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You know Rodriguez is going to lose his mind, right? Going in without orders, ignoring the incident commander—"
"She was inside."
Brian's grin faded. He nodded slowly. "Yeah. I know." He squeezed my shoulder. "You're still an idiot. A hero, but an idiot. Okonkwo's definitely writing you up."
"Worth it."
Brian shook his head. But he didn't let go of my shoulder. Garrett stood beside him, silent, steady. They'd come. Off-duty, middle of the night, no questions asked.
That's what brothers do.
I looked up. Across the chaos, through the crowd of first responders and the haze of smoke, Maya was looking at me.
Our eyes met.
She was crying. The oxygen mask fogged with each breath. Her face was streaked with soot and tears. She looked shattered. Not just from the fire—from everything. Tommy. The building. The last few days.
Us.
I took a step toward her. I didn't know what I was going to say. Didn't know if she'd let me say anything.
But before I could reach her, Maya looked away. Turned her head. Let the paramedics guide her toward the ambulance.
She didn't look back.
I stopped. Stood there in the parking lot, Brian's hand still on my shoulder, watching the ambulance doors close. Watching her disappear behind frosted glass.
She was alive. That's what mattered. That's all that mattered.
I'd run into fire for her. I'd do it again. I'd do it every day for the rest of my life, whether she wanted me to or not.