Prologue
Emanuel
There is a rhythm to fire.
A heartbeat.
A pace.
I match my breathing to the cadence of the fire. One deep pull through my nose from the flowing air of my mask. Hold it for five seconds. Then slowly let it out. Repeat. All the while forcing my eyes to remain open, circling the darkened room, pushing my ears to listen for the most minute sounds. Feeling the wooden floors underneath my boots for any slight tremors. A tremble could be an indication of a trapped person banging on a door or floor calling for help, or worse, a signal that the fire has finally burned through the floor’s foundation and collapse is inevitable.
I push the latter thought aside and continue my rhythmic breathing. In through my nose, hold for a count of five, and out slowly.
“Allende, get the hell out of there!” booms through the radio that’s clipped to my jacket. It would’ve been jarring if I hadn’t expected the command from my captain. Yet again, I ignore it.
There’s a fucking kid in here!My mind reels, reminding me why I opted to run back into this apartment fire after pulling out a mother with her newborn baby. Her five-year-old son was in bed with her according to the mother. But I didn’t see any indication of him in the master bedroom the first time around. He’s still in here.
Breathe,I tell myself. I can’t save anyone if I allow the panic from being surrounded by the nearly nine-foot high flames as they roll across the ceiling, and the dark black smoke billowing ahead of the flames, to take over.
I don’t think about the chances of my air tank running low or empty before I can make it out of here. All that matters is that a five-year-old boy is stuck in the center of hell. A helpless child. I can’t leave him.
“Allende, that’s an order from your captain!” Captain Rogers continues as if I didn’t fucking hear him the last dozen times.
Reaching my gloved hand for my radio, I turn the volume down.
“Fire department!” I yell out, hoping to get a response. The second floor of the apartment is dark and hot.
So fucking hot.
Bullets of sweat are running down my face, neck, and back, soaking the cotton Williamsport Fire Department polo shirt all firefighters are assigned. But none of that matters. These are the moments I train for. The layers of protective gear I have on will protect me from the flames—for a while—and my tank allows me to breathe unpolluted air. But not five-year-old Jackson.
“Jackson!” I shout, using the name his mother screamed as she frantically searched for her boy once she was safely deposited on the street outside of her burning home.
“Jackson! Are you in here?” Opting to get down on my hands and knees, I decide to re-enter the boy’s bedroom, which is all of the way down the hall. I already checked his room and was certain no one had been in here. But I searched everywhere else in the home. Everywhere. This is the last place he could be.
“Jackson!” I crawl on all fours into the room, barely able to see more than a few inches in front of me, due to the thick smoke blanketing everything.
“Shit!” I yell when my hand lands on something wooden to my right side. A door. I hadn’t registered it earlier. I feel up the length of the door and it’s hot.No! No! No!my mind starts calling out.
I find the small finger circle used to pull what I assume is the closet door open. Immediately, I reach inside and feel something hot. I can’t quite make out what it is due to the thick gloves covering my hands. But running my hands along the side and inching my body closer I make out strands of dark brown hair. My heart sinks at the sight of the charred skin.
“Jackson!”
A moan.
It’s faint but I hear it. He’s still alive.
Without much thought, I scoop the limp, nearly lifeless body of the boy into my arms and stand, crouching low to barrel my way through the flames. I push through the door I just entered and am met by a wall of flames. Through the fire is my only way out. There is no escape route behind me. The windows in Jackson’s bedroom have been barricaded with steel bars to prevent him from falling out.
“Okay, Jackson,” I begin talking to him, not knowing if he can hear me or not, “we have to go through the fire.” I start unbuttoning my flame-retardant jacket to wrap around his fragile body. The jacket stretches just enough to enfold most of his body. I look up at the flames and take a deep breath, deeper than any breath I’d taken in the last two hours. When my lungs feel as if they are about to explode from holding on too long, I exhale and without thinking, run and jump through the flame.
“Ugh!” I grunt as I come crashing down onto my backside but having successfully made it to the other side of the wall of fire. However, I don’t have time to rest. Flames are everywhere. My captain is still yelling into my radio along with my other teammates. I can hear the panic in their voices. They’re fearing the worst. And they should be. I’ve been incommunicado for some time now.
“Fuck!” I curse as something explodes behind the wall I’m running past, causing a huge hole to open up and flames to come shooting out. It’s really time to go. Just as I prepare to pick up my pace, there’s another explosion from the far end of the second floor hallway. This explosion is so loud and rumbling it sends me to my knees, but I don’t stop. I pick myself and Jackson up and stumble to the staircase only to find that it’s gone. Completely engulfed in flames and collapsed.
I look around before making an instant decision. I have to jump. I don’t have a choice.We don’t have a choice, I think as I glance down at the young, moaning boy in my grasp. Another deep inhale and a leap of faith later, I am landing ass first on the first floor. Thank god it hadn’t collapsed yet. But the fact that the stairs are gone tells me, the first floor is likely to go out soon. I reorient myself to figure out where the closest exit is to where I am. The front door is just around the wall behind me, but the back door is directly ahead, if I remember correctly. My team had set up a perimeter in the backyard of the apartment building.
Stumbling to my feet, ignoring the pain shooting down my hips and legs, I make my way to the back door, stepping on or over large beams of charred wood and debris. I encounter more flames in the kitchen, which is where the backdoor is located, but I don’t stop to think. The door is our only way out, and it’s aflame. The explosions I heard earlier were the glass from the windows breaking around the apartment; the inflow of oxygen has spurred the fire even more. The flames are getting hotter by the moment as they reach outside of the backdoor’s now busted out window.
