Chapter 11
CALDER
Every muscle in my body locks. Possible victims inside.
Instead of picturing the scene, something else breaks loose. A vehicle door hanging open in the darkness. Orange light moving fast across metal. Someone shouting for a man who doesn’t answer.
The smell comes next. Fuel, heat, rubber, scorched wiring. Something worse underneath it all. Not real, but close enough to make my body believe it is.
Weston’s moving. Buck comes out of the office, his paperwork abandoned. With the chief off duty and the station captain out, he’s in charge.
I know what comes next. Turnout gear. Engine response. Coordinates. Confirmation. I know the sequence as well as I know my own name. But my hands aren’t moving.
The bay seems to narrow, and the overhead lights have flattened into white bars. The engine’s red paint catches the lights and throws back reflections that look too much like flames.
“Cal.” It’s Weston, somewhere close. Not loud or alarmed.
I reach for my coat and miss the sleeve opening when I try to put it on. Possible victims inside.
The radio squawks again. “Additional caller advises fire has extended. One person may have attempted entry. Law enforcement en route.”
Attempted entry.
Another barrage of images: dark road. Headlights. A truck, one of theirs, the door open. Somebody going back. Gunfire sparking off metal.
Then the blast. Then flame.
“Calder.” It’s Buck this time.
I blink, and the bay comes back into focus. Weston’s in front of me, suspenders up, jacket half on. Buck’s a few feet away with his radio in hand.
Neither of them looks surprised, and that makes it worse.
As soon as I get one arm in the coat, my lungs forget how to work for one long, useless second.
Buck comes closer. “Look at me.” His voice is flat and unhurried. “Engine’s ours,” he says. “You’re not on nozzle. You ride in and run medical unless I tell you otherwise.”
“I’ve got attack,” Weston calls out as he moves past us.
Buck clips the radio to his coat. “I’ve got command till the next unit gets here.”
There’s no discussion, not even a questioning glance between them, as they make adjustments that would be invisible to anyone else.
I swallow once. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” Buck says. “Let’s move.”
I get the rest of my gear in place and climb into the engine. Weston drives, Buck takes the officer seat, and I sit behind them with the med bag between my boots.
The siren engages, and my molars lock together so hard my jaw starts to ache. I keep one hand wrapped around the grab bar as snowbanks, fence posts, and bare trees blur at the edges of my vision. The route should ground me, but instead I see sparks lifting in black air.
A bump in the road feels like rough terrain on another continent, another night, in another vehicle.
There’s a body on the ground that I don’t let myself look at for long, not even in memory.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but it’s still there.
I haven’t thought about that night for months. That’s the lie I tell myself, even though I think about it every day. I usually keep those pieces where they belong, but Tyler’s widow is here now, and her son looked at me with Tyler’s eyes.
Then someone started a fire in her house while she was asleep.
Buck’s saying my name. “You with me?” he asks, when I lift my head.
“Yes.”
He turns to face me. “Tell me what you’re carrying.”
I look down automatically. The med bag, usually Weston’s, between my boots. Jump bag strapped in, airway kit clipped on, burn sheets in the outer pouch. O2 secured.
After a couple of seconds, my mouth works. “Trauma bag. Airway. Burns.”
Buck nods and turns back around.
Weston takes the curve onto County Road 9 fast, but smooth enough to keep the rig balanced. “Smoke showing,” he says.
Buck leans forward to look through the windshield. “Copy.”
A column of dark smoke rises behind a line of trees, its size fitting the dispatch report. It’s not large, but it’s still enough to trigger a hard pulse behind my eyes.
Weston brings the engine in at an angle that leaves room for the next unit. Buck’s out of the cab before the truck fully settles. I step down more slowly than I want, focusing on the weight of my boots on the snow and gravel.
The house is a single-story structure with flames curling from a rear window on the left and smoke venting from the eaves. A middle-aged man in jeans and a thin coat is in the yard shouting a woman’s name. Another man is trying and failing to hold him back.
Scene, size-up, access, exposure. The steps fall in line, but my body needs to follow.
Buck directs traffic from the front corner of the house with the same efficiency he uses everywhere. Weston pulls the line and masks up, as a volunteer unit arrives, its tires kicking up gravel.
I go to the civilians. The man wearing the thin coat has burns across the back of one hand, and his hair is singed on one side. He’s coughing, but not struggling to breathe.
I get him seated on the tailgate of a pickup and take hold of his injured hand. “Look at me.”
The man keeps trying to twist away to see the house. “My sister’s in there.”
“What’s her name?”
“Lisa.”
“Where did you last see her?”
“In the back bedroom. I tried—”
“I know.” I open the water and begin cooling his burn. “You went in?”
The man’s jaw is shaking. “I couldn’t get down the hall.”
I call across the yard to relay the information to Buck, then focus on the man while he talks. There’s soot around his nostrils, but no obvious facial burns. His brows are intact. His breathing is elevated, but not critical.
I follow the structure and work.
It helps, until someone drags a salvage tarp across the yard, and the sound of the heavy material scraping across the ground becomes the sound of a body being pulled by webbing handles over dirt. I lose focus on what the patient’s saying.
Weston comes out to reset his air bottle and reads my face, but doesn’t look long enough to show concern. He crouches to eye level in front of my patient. “You’re doing fine. Stay seated.”
I step back before he asks me to, and Weston takes over, like it had always been the plan.
A moment later, Buck appears at my side over by the engine. “Victim’s out. Smoke inhalation. Medic’s six minutes out.” He doesn’t look at me straight on, a small courtesy. “Can you receive?”
Receive, not lead. Not take point.
“Yes.”
“Then do that.”
I clear space for the ambulance and set equipment. When the victim is brought out wrapped in a blanket, she’s upright and walking with the support of two men.
My brain stays where it belongs. Female, conscious, coughing, soot exposure, probably mild inhalation, no visible burns from this distance. Transport indicated. Reassure, relay, repeat.
By the time the ambulance leaves, the episode has receded to something I can contain, and the rest of the call passes like it should. Overhaul, ventilation, statements, equipment reset.
We peel off soaked gear and track frozen mud into the engine bay floor, and no one mentions the gaps.