Chapter Twelve
Mark
It's been a couple days since the Ice Cream Social and I haven't been able to stop thinking about Trish and Cora. I even made that picture of us the lock screen on my phone. It just hasn't worked out for us to be able to see each other.
It’s why I’m thinking about her instead of focusing on the lunch I’m supposed to be making. But if I don’t get my head in the game, we’re going to have a hungry house, and if these guys get hangry, it’s not good.
Lunch at the station is a group effort, which means Gunner and I are in the kitchen arguing about whether the chili needs more cumin while Torres sets the table and pretends he can't hear us.
"It needs more cumin," I say.
"It doesn't need more cumin, it needs more time." Gunner puts the lid back on the pot like that settles it.
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
"Don't touch my chili, Mark."
I hold my hands up and step back, and Torres snorts from the table. I grab my phone off the counter and flip it over because it's a habit at this point. The lock screen looks back at me. That picture makes me want everything.
I've looked at it probably forty times in the last two days.
We've texted back and forth, and there was a phone call that ran longer than either of us planned, and I've driven past the county clerk's office once, which I'm not going to admit to anyone.
But between my shift rotation and Cora's schedule and the general logistics of two adults with actual lives, we haven't managed to be in the same place at the same time. It sucks, but it’s where we are right now.
"You're looking at that picture again," Gunner says without turning around.
Fucker has eyes in the back of his head. "I'm checking the time,” I argue with him.
"Your lock screen is a photo, not a clock," he argues back.
Torres laughs out loud this time. I put my phone face down on the counter before flipping him the bird.
Lunch is good. Turns out, the chili is, in fact, better after more time, which I don't acknowledge out loud.
Afterward Gunner and I head down to the workout room to get a session in before the afternoon gets away from us.
We've done this enough times that we don't need to talk about it.
He takes the bench, I take the rack, we rotate, we spot each other, we don't talk much.
About forty minutes in, I'm on my second set of deadlifts when he speaks up.
"Amy took Rosa to the county clerk's office today."
I set the bar down. "For what?"
"Field trip. They're doing some kind of county government day for the preschool and the elementary. A couple of classrooms." He racks his own bar and sits up. "Cora's class is going too."
That puts something warm in my chest. Cora in Trish's office, probably talking the entire time, probably telling whoever will listen about her tutu and her bracelet and her very specific opinions about firework colors.
"Trish mention it?" Gunner asks.
"No. She probably figured I didn't need a rundown of the school calendar. I’ve not exactly moved in yet." Even though I kind of want to.
"She's careful about that stuff. Probably doesn't want to assume that you want to know, and she’s been doing this shit for a long time by herself."
"She should assume." I roll my shoulders back and move toward the water cooler. "I want to know about Cora's field trips and everything else with the two of them."
Gunner looks at me with the expression he gets when he's trying to keep his mouth shut. He doesn't say it. He just nods and reaches for his own water.
The alarm hits before I get the bottle to my mouth.
It's not a drill tone. It's the real one, a full station alert, and my body responds before my brain has finished processing it. I've done this long enough that the sequence is automatic — drop the bottle, move to the bay, gear up, and the information comes through the speaker in pieces as we move.
There’s a structure fire downtown, and the address is the county clerk’s office. I stop moving for exactly one second and let the fear of what that means flow over me, but then I move faster.
I'm pulling my coat on when I grab my phone and type out a text to Trish one-handed.
Me: You okay? Heard there's something happening at your building.
I hit send and pocket the phone. The truck is already running by the time I climb up, and we're rolling before the bay door is fully up. The drive is four minutes, and I watch my phone the entire way. There’s no answer to my question, and I’m fucking terrified, but I know I have a job to do.
"Gunner." My voice comes out flat.
"I know." He's already got his phone out. "Amy's not picking up either."
The smoke is visible two blocks out. This isn’t a small fire, or an electrical short that caught some insulation.
This is structural smoke, dark and angry.
It tells you that it’s been smoldering for a while before anyone called it in.
My jaw tightens and I want nothing more than to hope that this isn’t what I think it is.
We pull up and the scene is already active. There are two other units on site, the chief coordinating at the perimeter, civilians streaming out of the building from the main entrance. I'm scanning the people who are standing on the sidewalk before the truck stops moving.
People are coming out from staff to visitors, and I notice a group of kids. They’re in a line with two teachers counting heads, another group behind them. I search the faces automatically, looking for the little girl that has stolen my heart.
I look for Cora.
There she is, and my heart starts to beat more regularly. “Cora,” I yell, waving at her. She’s third in the second line, orange Converse, hand gripped tight to the kid in front of her, eyes wide and wet but moving. More than anything she’s out of the building.
I exhale, allowing myself to relax for a split second.
Then I look for Trish, and I don't find her.
I do a full sweep of everyone gathered at the perimeter.
Staff members in lanyards, a security guard with a radio, the county receptionist I recognize from the front desk.
I move toward the nearest cluster of employees coming out.
"The records department," I say to the woman closest to me, a woman in a county ID badge with her hand pressed over her mouth. "Where are those staff members?"
She looks at me, and the expression on her face makes my stomach drop straight to the ground.
"That's where it started," she says. Her voice breaks on the last word. "Some people got out through the stairwell but I don't,” she coughs. “I don't know if everyone—"
I'm already moving. Running toward the danger.
"Mark." Gunner is right behind me, and his voice sounds just as scared as I feel. "Mark, wait for the team."
"She's not out here,” I argue, pointing to everyone. “She’s not here. She’s in there.”
"I know. Wait for the team. We go in as one," he yells.
I stop walking and it takes every disciplined instinct I have built over years of this job to make myself do it. I turn back toward the truck, start pulling my mask and SCBA into position, and I can feel my own pulse in my hands and throat.
Gunner gets on the radio with the incident commander and I listen to the information come back.
It’s like I’m listening to someone else as I take in all the relevant information.
Third floor records room, fire likely started in a storage area along the east wall, currently working through the filing stacks.
Two confirmed personnel unaccounted for from that department.
Stairwell B has smoke but is passable. Stairwell A is compromised.
Two unaccounted for.
I check my phone one more time. The text sits there unread, the two gray check marks that mean it delivered but didn't open.
"Mask up," the incident commander calls, and I put my phone away.
I pull my mask on, getting ready to go to war for this woman who means the fucking world to me.
My team stacks at the entrance and I fall into my position, the sequence taking over the way it always does, the training pushing everything else into the background where it has to stay so I can do my job.
I know this process. I've done it in worse conditions, in hotter buildings, in structures that were minutes from coming down.
I know how to do this.
What I don't know how to do is stand in the lobby of a burning building and keep her face out of my head. The way she looked in the firework light the other night, my hand around hers. The photo on my lock screen. Her voice on the phone going soft when she talked about Cora, the way it always does.
You're mine now. Both of you.
I meant it when I said it. I mean it right now.
"Mark." Gunner's voice in my ear, steady and even. "We're moving."
"Moving," I confirm.
We look at each other, both hitching our chins at each other, and then? We go in.