Chapter 5 Carmen #2
“I told you,” Carmen said, voice tightening despite her effort to keep it calm. “Lucy’s with her. That’s the best I can give you right now.”
Rad swallowed, then let the mask stay for a few seconds, breathing shakily. Carmen kept working, checking him, making sure he wasn’t slipping into shock, making sure his oxygen levels stayed up, watching his hands for tremors, his eyes for that faraway look that said he was about to crash.
They were close to the hospital when he pulled the mask off again, and this time Carmen saw it wasn’t just panic. It was something else, something that had been gnawing at him under the fear for Margo.
“Carmen,” Rad rasped, voice hoarse. “I know this isn’t the right time, but…”
“Rad,” she said with a warning in her voice, “you really need to keep this mask on and relax. You inhaled a lot of smoke.”
“Wait,” Rad insisted, and he held the mask off long enough that Carmen’s irritation flared. “Chief Evans said something. I have to know.”
Carmen’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say?”
Rad’s gaze locked onto hers. “He implied my father and June were once married,” he rasped. “Is that true?”
For a second, Carmen forgot the siren, forgot the rattling ambulance, forgot the smoke on Rad’s skin.
Because the question hit like a punch.
Carmen stared at him, her mind blank for one heartbeat, then full of a thousand thoughts the next.
June and Holt hadn’t told Rad yet. Which meant they hadn’t told Willa yet either.
Carmen knew that her sister had been trying to find the right moment, the right place, the right way to drop a truth that could rip a family open.
And now Zane Evans had just tossed it out like an observation over coffee.
Carmen snapped the mask back onto Rad’s face, securing it firmly.
“You’re right,” Carmen said, voice clipped despite her effort to keep it calm. “This is not the time for that. You need to be seen by a doctor. Maybe that’s a question you can ask your father when you’ve been checked out.”
Rad’s eyes widened behind the plastic, and Carmen didn’t miss the way his expression shifted into shock even while he struggled to breathe.
The ambulance slowed as they arrived, and the back doors opened.
Carmen guided the team as they transferred Rad onto a hospital gurney, her hands steady even though her mind was spinning.
She followed him inside long enough to ensure he was handed over properly, then turned sharply toward the other ambulance bay, where Lucy’s rig had arrived.
Margo was being wheeled in, Lucy walking beside her, speaking to staff, already giving a rapid, clear handoff.
Carmen watched for a second, relief loosening in her chest when she saw Margo’s chest still rising, her eyes fluttering, her hand weakly gripping the side of the gurney.
Lucy looked up briefly and met Carmen’s gaze.
Lucy didn’t smile. She didn’t have time. But she nodded once, and Carmen understood the message.
She’s alive.
Carmen exhaled, then turned back toward her crew, because there was always something else. There was always the next thing.
As she stepped back outside to check on her rig and make sure her team was settled, she pulled out her phone with fingers that were suddenly less steady than she wanted them to be.
She dialed June.
June answered immediately, voice rushed. “Carmen. Are Rad and Margo okay? Holt and I are on our way to the hospital now.”
Carmen swallowed, because there was no gentle way to say what she needed to say. “I suggest you brace yourselves,” Carmen replied, voice tight. “Chief Evans spilled the beans about you and Holt being married.”
There was a beat of silence so heavy that Carmen could almost hear June’s shock turning into fury.
Before June could answer, Carmen’s crew called out to her.
“Captain, we’ve got a firefighter with a burn!” someone shouted.
Carmen shut her eyes briefly, then opened them again, because she didn’t get to fall apart right now.
“I have to go, June,” Carmen said quickly. “You need to speak to Willa as soon as you get a moment.”
“Carmen—” June began.
But Carmen had already hung up, because someone was hurt, and that was what the job demanded.
They drove back to the fire scene, siren off now, lights still flashing as they arrived. The chaos had shifted. The worst of the flames had been beaten back, and now the fire crews were focused on control, containment, and making sure it didn’t flare again.
Carmen’s heart sank as she took in the damage to Teacups. The windows were blackened. The sign out front was scorched. The whole place looked wounded.
The injured firefighter had a minor burn, and Carmen let her crew handle it because it was within their skill, but her attention snapped toward Ace the moment she saw him.
Ace was hunched slightly, one hand braced on his knee, coughing uncontrollably, his face still streaked with soot. Willa stood beside him, her helmet off now, eyes blazing with equal parts fear and fury.
“I told you not to take your oxygen mask off in there,” Willa snapped, and Carmen heard the tremor under her anger. “In fact that was a direct order which you ignored.”
Ace tried to wave it off, then doubled over, coughing again. “I had to,” he rasped. “Margo… she… she needed it.”
Willa’s jaw clenched. “You don’t sacrifice your airway to play hero.”
Ace lifted his head, eyes red. “I wasn’t playing,” he said hoarsely. “She was struggling. She’d been in there longer than I had. She was shaking, Willa. She couldn’t catch her breath, and her lips…” He swallowed hard. “She needed oxygen.”
Carmen stepped in before Willa could rip Ace’s head off. She put her hands on Ace’s shoulders, guiding him gently but firmly. “All right,” Carmen said, her tone calm but unyielding. “You did what you thought was right. Now you’re going to let me do what I know is right.”
Ace’s gaze flicked to her and gave her a stubborn look. “Seriously, Carmen, I’m fine.”
Carmen raised an eyebrow. “You’re coughing like your lungs are trying to climb out of your throat, Ace.”
Willa’s eyes narrowed. “She’s right.”
Ace opened his mouth, probably to argue, but Zane Evans stepped closer, his expression all command.
“You heard the captains,” Zane said firmly. “You need to go and get checked out.”
Ace’s jaw flexed, stubbornness warring with exhaustion. “Not until the fire’s under control.”
Willa didn’t hesitate. “I’ll take him,” she said, voice sharp. “In the meantime, come on.” She grabbed Ace’s arm, not gently. “Let’s get you oxygen at the ambulance.”
Ace stumbled slightly, then let Willa steer him away, still coughing.
Carmen watched them go, then turned sharply toward Zane, the fury that had been building in her chest finally breaking free.
“Did you tell Detective Dillinger that his father and my sister were married?” Carmen demanded, and she didn’t bother to lower her voice because she was too angry to care who heard.
Zane blinked, genuinely startled. “What?”
“Are you deaf?” Carmen hissed, stepping closer, her anger hot and sharp.
The nickname rose in her mind, Chief Hatchet, the one people used when they thought he couldn’t hear.
The smug, superior chief who showed up unannounced to cut budgets and strip departments, who acted like small towns were toys on a board.
Carmen didn’t trust him, and she didn’t like that he was here, and she didn’t like that he was now in the middle of her family’s mess.
“I asked if you told Rad,” Carmen said, voice low and vicious, “about Holt and June having been married before Rad or Willa were born.”
Zane’s brows lifted higher, and his surprise looked real. “Rad didn’t know?” he asked, and he sounded genuinely shocked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was a secret that June and Holt were married.”
Carmen’s mouth opened, ready to tear into him again, ready to tell him exactly what she thought of men who tossed other people’s truths around like conversation starters.
But she didn’t get the chance.
Because a voice came from behind her, and the sound of it froze Carmen’s blood in her veins.
“What?”
Carmen spun.
Willa stood there with her helmet in hand, eyes wide, face pale beneath the soot, staring at Zane like he’d just dragged a ghost out of the fire and set it between them.
Willa’s gaze flicked from Zane to Carmen, then back again, and Carmen saw the exact moment the words settled.
“My Mom and Director Dillinger were married before Rad, or I, was born?” Willa spluttered, her hand tightened on the helmet until her knuckles went white, and the world seemed to tilt slightly on its axis as the truth landed in a place it had been kept away from for too long.
Well, Carmen thought grimly, as she watched her niece’s expression shift from shock toward something sharper, this day really was one blazing disaster after another. Her narrowed, angry eyes landed accusingly on Chief Zane Evans. The man was nothing but trouble with a capital T.