“Kim’s got a level head, all the guys respect him. He was made to be a leader, and so were you. Rescue division of this squad needs a lieutenant eventually. Nobody’s as good at figuring out rescue missions as you. And I’ve been in this department for almost thirty years, I don’t hand out compliments lightly.”
I stared at the captain, letting his words sink in. He wasn’t just blowing smoke up my ass. I didn’t work with guys who did. If you didn’t cut it, they’d let you know. We didn’t have time to coddle feelings around here. Our calls were life or death, and in that environment, favoritism over quality did not fare very well.
“Take the fucking drug test, pass it, and keep doing the job you’ve been doing.”
I stared angrily at the piss cup in my hands. I didn’t have a choice. I’d fucked up and this was part of my penance. I nodded at the captain and went to the bathroom to relieve myself in the cup. I sealed the lid and brought it back to the captain’s office.
“You know, I’m not too keen on having to be this close to your piss either,” he joked.
A smirk broke out on my lips. “That’s grade A urine right there.”
He removed one of his testing strips from his desk and put on a pair of rubber gloves to unseal the cup. I watched as he inserted the testing strip.
“Five minutes and this’ll be over. Go on back to cleaning your equipment. We’ll be getting a call soon enough.” Captain almost had a sixth sense about when a call would come in.
I did as instructed, not worrying too heavily about the test results. Every one I’d taken since coming back had come out clean because I wasn’t on anything. I refused to even take ibuprofen when I had a headache. Save for a few beers down atCharlie’severy now and again, I didn’t mess with any sort of drug.
Sure enough, just as Captain predicted, I hadn’t been back to cleaning my equipment more than three minutes when the station’s alarm sounded and we got a call for a house fire.
“Let’s go!” Eric yelled as we all gathered our gear to head to the rig. This was going to be an interesting call. I could just feel it.
****
“Anyone inside?” I questioned the police officer who stood at the side of his car, trying to hold spectators back a distance from the flames. Eric was handing out directions to Don, and two other squad members who were in our rig. Captain Waverly was giving direction out to the other five members of our station who pulled up in a second truck from our station.
“One came out. Father. Says that his wife and two children are still inside.”
Fuck!I cursed in my head. I just knew this call was going to be fucked up.
“Harvard!” I yelled to Eric. “Cop says we’ve got a female and two children trapped inside. We’ve gotta contain this shit and get to them.”
Eric nodded and stared back at the house. From the outside it looked like a two story home that also had a basement. My guess was that the family was on the second floor, most likely where the bedrooms were. I began to map out a possible escape route in my head.
“We need to go in the backdoor,” I yelled to Eric.
He gave me a look, but eventually nodded.
“Captain and the others will bring in the hose once we’re out.”
I nodded and picked up my hatchet, tossed my helmet over my head, and began running to the back of the house. I was followed by Eric and Don.
“Locked!” Eric yelled of the back door.
“Got it!” I called, and as soon as he stepped out of the way, I swung my hatchet into the wooden door repeatedly until it broke open. The smoke was thick and we immediately covered our face with our oxygen masks.
“Family’s probably on the second floor in the bedrooms,” I yelled through my mask so my team could hear me.
“Don, check downstairs. Carter and I will check upstairs.”
“Roger that,” Don responded and we all followed our respective routes.
Eric and I passed through thick, black smoke to find the winding staircase. This was an older model home which was good and bad. It was good because these homes tended to be sturdier and they all had similar layouts. It was also bad since a lot of the stuff used to build the homes didn’t have the same protections as the more modern homes to prevent entire loss of the home.
“I got the door on the left,” Eric yelled in front of me.
“I got the right.”
I touched the handle of the right door and found it wasn’t warm. I hoped no one was inside. Pushing the door open I yelled out, “Fire department! Anyone in here! Call out!” I repeated this over and over and got no response. Thanks to the smoke, it was dark, but I was able to make my way over to the bed at the far corner, having noticed lumps on the bed that looked like human forms.
