I tighten my grip on the edge of my seat. My fingers drum against my leg. I don’t know why, but something about this one feels off. Wrong in a way I can’t quite name.
When we turn onto the school’s block, the answer hits likea punch to the chest. The east wing of Lake City Elementary is on fire.
Not just smoke or a small blaze. No. The entire section is engulfed. Flames ripping out of shattered windows, dancing across the rooftop like they own the place. Black smoke coils into the sky like its job is to block out the sun. The heat is visible from the street, warping the air above the building.
My stomach drops.
We pull up and jump out. The heat slams into us even through our gear, blistering and immediate.
Cap doesn’t hesitate. “Engine Three—hydrant hookup. Ladder One, get eyes on the roof. Mateo, take Crew B and flank right. We stop this from crossing into the center corridor. Now.”
“Copy that,” I say, tightening my straps and yanking my mask into place.
We move fast. The kind of fast that’s second nature, muscle memory forged from hours of drills and dozens of calls. I lead the team around the side of the building, where the fire is curling up along the brick like it’s trying to claw its way inside.
I pause for just a second, scanning the windows.
Through broken glass, I spot a row of classroom posters curling inward, melting like they’re crying. Bright colors—dinosaurs, letters, a crooked calendar—blistering into black. A single paper snowflake tumbles from the top corner and disintegrates before it hits the ground. There’s something about it that guts me. Innocence turned to ash.
“Water on!” Seb yells behind me.
We direct the line toward a vent that’s hissing smoke. The fire’s pushing hard—angry and fast. Seb and I sweep low, hitting the edge of the blaze as it tries to creep along the building’s outer wall.
“Pressure coming up!” someone shouts, and the hose line jumps in my hands. Steam explodes where water meets flame, turning the air into a thick, blinding fog.
Still, the fire climbs. Faster. Higher.
The smoke coming out of the vent pulses, like it’s being exhaled by something alive. It billows in waves, too heavy, too dark. Inside that smoke, for just a second, I swear I hear something.
A faint clatter? A soft, distant thud? Or maybe I imagined it.
“Cap, fire’s in the vents,” I radio. “We’re keeping it from breaching the corridor, but this things aggressive. Like…it’s looking for fuel.”
“Copy,” Nathan says. “Hold position. Don’t breach entry until interior crews give the green light.”
“Roger that,” I reply, but I can’t shake the itch in the back of my neck.
I glance at the lot. Empty. Snow untouched. A perfect sheet of white stretching from the sidewalk to the front doors, still and undisturbed like a painting. Not even the imprint of a bird or the scuff of a tire. Just blank, quiet stillness.
Too quiet. No janitor’s car. No delivery truck. No set of footprints leading toward the side entrance where the staff usually sneaks in early. Nothing but ash dancing across the snowbanks like burnt confetti.
And even though it’s Sunday, even though I know no one is ever here on a Sunday, that silence sits wrong in my ears. It hums behind the roar of flame and scream of sirens, a silence that doesn’t belong.
The building groans, a low, warping sound that vibrates through the ground beneath my boots. Somewhere to my left, glass shatters. The heat pulses outward again like a second heartbeat, like the fire’s alive and breathing. Every instinct I have flares, sharpand urgent.
I shift my weight and look up at the jagged window nearest us. Smoke is pouring out of it now in thick, heavy streams.
I blink hard, wipe my glove across the lens of my mask. Nothing but smoke. Still…I can’t shake this feeling.
Not with the way the windows are cracked wide like a scream frozen in place. Not with the way the wind carries the fire’s heat but not a single sound from inside. Not with this pressure in my chest, tight and crawling like something inside me knows before my brain does.
Because sometimes it’s not what you see. It’s what you feel. And right now, everything in me is screaming: Something inside that building is wrong.
Chapter Thirty-One
ANALYSE
Stay calm.
