Aiden didn’t have time to care. Trina didn’t have the time. He couldn’t handle another loss.
Chapter 7
* * *
Fortunately for everyone in the high-rise, Clarke’s assessment had proven correct. The second ignition had allowed the fire to burn itself out by consuming the rest of the combustibles. Haskell set up defensive operations that prevented the fire from extending upward and downward beyond the three floors they had already lost. Noah oversaw the evac with Leary on Sector 22 and signed out at last around 8 a.m. when relief arrived with three new battalion chiefs to run overhaul. The overhaul team checking for pockets of heat and fire would be hard at work today.
Noah’s phone pinged with a priority text message from one of his secretaries. Jacen Williams, ever decisive, had immediately faxed back a signed contract with a mid-September start date.
As per his tradition, he went to check on his injured firefighters. Fortunately, despite the severity, only McClunis made it to the ICU. It sounded like everyone else had minor burns, a few broken bones, and would be discharged within twenty-four hours. He didn’t have the stats on the civilians yet, but he had heard the teenager with whom Clarke had been trapped had expired shortly after arrival.
He ran into McClunis’s husband, Trevor, in the ICU. Trevor was an ex-NFL defensive end. Leslie and Trevor had met during an art class. McClunis had informed Trevor that they were going on a date afterward. In the first ten minutes of that second date, she told Trevor that he’d always be second to the department. Trevor had relished a challenge and couldn’t stay away. The story of their romance usually made Noah smile.
But not today. Today, Trevor looked terrible.
“You don’t have to tell me, but how is she?” Noah said. As Chief, he was allowed to know the general condition of his firefighters, but it was up to the families if they told him in real-time. Eventually, he’d find out for employment purposes.
“You know she wants me to tell you,” Trevor scoffed. “She had her spleen removed, a small abdominal bleed, two broken femurs, eight broken ribs, a pneumothorax, and she still wants to see you.”
“She wants an update on her battalion?” Noah guessed.
“She is who she is, my darling wife,” Trevor said without irony.
“What are the doctors saying?”
“Dr. Kandal said that she should recover from the spleen, and they’ll monitor the abdominal bleed. Orthopedics said it’ll be months before the leg fractures heal. Pulmonary critical care said she’ll only be in the ICU until the chest tube comes out from that pneumothorax.”
Noah had heard Doctor-Probationary-Firefighter Jacob Carver had performed the needle decompression procedure, temporarily reinflating Leslie’s lung in the parking lot. “You sure you want me to go in?”
“If you don’t, she’s going to bite a nurse,” Trevor said. “She might look like a kitten, but she’s a wildcat.”
Noah entered and washed his hands. Pulling up one of the chairs, he sat near the head of the bed. “Hey, Fireball. Wasn’t that cutting it close?”
“It didn’t get me this time. What happened? I remember talking to you and then nothing.” She sounded exhausted.
“There was the unlucky combination of a wannabe artist and another resident’s oxygen tanks. It was already in the floor and ceiling before the explosion. Half of Sector 26 and 25 collapsed down to 24, smashing you in the process. We dug you out.”
“The teams on the fire floor?”
“They bailed out of 25 out with some burns and breaks because they were on either side of the explosion and missed the collapse.”
“The team from Firehouse 15 on the floor above?”
Noah nodded. “We almost lost them. I had to leave some of them behind, and they self-extracted.” At least the ones that weren’t screaming at him and begging to go back in to save the team. The ones he hadn’t threatened to tackle.
“How?”
“The four left cut their way out around the collapse zone. Made it out bruised with some smoke inhalation.”
“Better to be lucky than good. Who was up there?”
“Clarke, Rodriguez, Knight, and Jones. Carver was running triage; he saved your life from that pneumo and rode with you here. Hudgens and Jefferson led a group of civilians to safety since they were by the evac stairs.”
“Never should have sent them up there. They’re too small and too emotionally unstable,” she said tiredly. “If they almost died, it will only worsen their problems. Did Williams sign?” She had been involved in his candidate selection.
Noah tried to reassure her. “Yes, my secretary got it this morning. He’ll be here in two weeks, maybe three.”
“That’s too long. They’ve been foundering, too used to doing things their way. Send Firehouse 15 a chief.”
