8. Mack #2
“You good?”
“Yeah.”
Thirty seconds ago they were busting my balls. Now we’re working.
I climb into the chauffeur seat of Ladder 26 on muscle memory, gloved hand already settling on the wheel as the rig rumbles to life beneath me. Tyler takes the jump seat and Coop swings up the tailboard. Comforting. Familiar.
Unlike basically everything else in my life at the moment.
“Building type?” Tyler asks as we pull out.
“Three-story, mixed-use. Apartments over retail.”
Coop whistles.
“Love that for us.”
“Shut up and stretch,” Tyler says.
“Yes, Mom.”
I take the corner clean and fast, shifting the truck through the turn. Tyler’s watching me the way he always does before a job, checking the scene before we’ve even arrived. Marco’s been drilling search scenarios into him for weeks, and it’s starting to show.
The column of smoke is visible before we turn the block. Dark, thick, and pushing hard from a third-floor rear window. My whole body locks in and my focus narrows.
Engine 37 is already pulling in behind us.
I swing Ladder 26 into position, brakes hissing as the rig settles.
“Truck’s set.”
Tyler is out before I finish the word, boots on pavement. The street is chaos—people yelling, a dog barking somewhere inside the perimeter, an older woman in slippers on the sidewalk sobbing into her hands while a younger guy keeps trying to push past the tape.
Trick cuts past me, mask hanging loose at his neck.
“Fire’s rear third floor. Got a head start.”
“Get eyes on extension.”
He’s gone.
Marco comes around the opposite side of the building, already pulling a saw off Rescue.
“Rear alley access is tight. Fence line.”
I scan the structure—old brick, narrow setback, rear fire escape, smoke thickening by the second. My brain does what it’s always done, building the picture before my feet have even moved. Entry points. Stairs. Egress. Fire location. Victims. The fastest way in and the fastest way back out.
“Ty,” I say into the radio. “You and Coop, primary search third floor. Rear bedrooms first.”
“Copy.”
“Marco. Rear ladder.”
He’s already there and so we move.
The alley is exactly what Marco said it would be.
Tight, icy, Boston narrow. Brick walls slick with runoff.
Trash bins jammed against chain-link fences.
By the time I get the ground ladder off the truck, Marco already has the base lined up and we get it locked.
I climb first, cold metal biting through my gloves. The smoke thickens halfway up.
Halfway up the ladder a window bangs open above me and a woman leans out coughing.
“My son is still in there! I couldn’t get to his room.”
Everything else drops away.
I pick up speed, reaching the sill as Tyler’s voice crackles through my radio.
“Primary’s got one in the front bedroom. Coop’s clearing the bathroom.”
I swing through the opening into smoke thick enough to taste and barely have both boots on the floor before the woman grabs my sleeve.
“My son—”
“I’ve got him.”
The words come automatically, steady and calm because panic is contagious and somebody in the room has to be the opposite. The kid is wedged beneath a desk in the corner bedroom, eyes locked on the flames chewing their way down the hallway, frozen hard enough that I know he’s not moving on his own.
So I crouch in front of him and wait until he finally looks at me.
“Hey, kid. You breathing?”
A nod.
“Good. That’s all I need.”
His eyes drift back toward the smoke, the flames working down the hall.
“Look at me.”
He does.
“There you go. You’re gonna come with me now.”
I reach for him.
“I got you.”
I scoop him up and pull him against my chest, one arm hooked beneath his legs as I turn back toward the window.
Kids always weigh less than you expect going up and somehow twice as much coming down, but by the time I reach the sill Marco is already in position below, one hand on the ladder, the other ready to spot the descent.
I swing out first, keeping the kid tucked tight against me as I start down.
A few seconds later my boots hit the pavement and his mother is there before I’ve fully let go, pulling him into her arms so fast it almost takes me with them.
The kid clings to my turnout coat for half a second before releasing it, and I barely register any of it.
Tyler and Coop emerge from the front entrance a minute later, black with soot and looking entirely too pleased with themselves.
“Did you just steal my save?” Coop asks.
“You were busy.”
“We found ours first.”
“You want a medal?”
Coop flips me off.
Tyler ignores him and stops beside me, his chest still working from the search. For a second neither of us says anything, just the same quick visual check we’ve been doing our whole lives.
He nods once, I nod back. Then he grins.
“Nice work, hero.”
“Shut up.”
“He gets wicked cranky after saving children,” Coop announces to nobody in particular.
It’s my turn to flip him off.
Marco appears beside us with a bottle of water and the expression of a man who’s been enjoying himself for far too long. He unscrews the cap, takes a slow drink, then looks at me.
“You’re a lot more tolerable when you’re distracted.”
I stare at him.
“Maybe it’s the promotion.”
“Mm.”
He takes another sip. Then:
“Maybe you should think about your tenant more often.”