“I have to go now.” Ellis pats my shoulder. “You okay on your own? Can you make it home?”
I nod and stumble to the locker room. I change out of my scrubs in a daze. Outside, the ambulance bay is a beehive of activity: rigs coming and going, the air hot, the winds strong. The sky is still blue overhead, but in the distance, it has that strange orange glow that means the fires are getting closer to the city.
I walk to my car and fumble with the keys, my hands shaking so badly I nearly drop them. Once inside, I sit motionless, gripping the steering wheel, the only solid thing in a world gone liquid with fear.
I should go home. Pick up Penny at her after-school program. Pretend everything’s normal. But I can’t. Not when every cell in my body is screaming that something’s wrong.
I grab my phone and call Josie.
“Hey,” she answers on the second ring, her voice cheerful.
“Josie,” I manage, and something in my tone must alert her because she drops the lighthearted greeting.
“What’s wrong?” she demands. “Are you okay?”
“I need you to pick up Penny.” My voice cracks. “I can’t do it. I’m losing it, Josie. I can’t—please, can you take her?”
“Of course,” she says without hesitation. “But Lily, what’s going on?”
I swallow back tears. “The wildfires. The ER was overwhelmed with burn victims and injured firefighters, and I can’t—I just can’t right now.”
“Okay. I’ll get Penny. But Lily, you shouldn’t be alone. Let me come get you too.”
I shake my head even though she can’t see me. “No. Just take care of Penny, please. I need to be by myself.”
I hang up before she can argue. My hands are still trembling as I start the car, but instead of heading home, I drive straight to Station 27.
I park haphazardly and stumble toward the entrance. The garage bay doors stand open, eerily empty without the massive fire engines that normally fill the space. The station is nearly deserted.
Inside, an administrator is sitting alone behind a desk—an older man with salt-and-pepper hair who looks up in surprise as I enter.
“Can I help you?” he asks, rising from his chair.
“Are the squad back?” I ask, aware of the note of desperation in my voice.
Recognition flickers in the man’s eyes. “You’re Daniel Finnigan’s widow, aren’t you?”
I nod, unsure what to say. He must be wondering what I’m doing here, but I’m well past the point of shame. So I prompt him, “The squad? Are they okay?”
His face falls, and my heart plummets with it. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Last we heard, they were in the worst of it near La Cañada. Communications have been spotty, but the report is that they and several other crews had to deploy fire shelters when the wind shifted.”
Fire shelters. The last resort when firefighters have no way out, when they’ve nowhere left to run, when the fire is about to overtake them. They are trapped in thin foil cocoons that might buy them a few precious minutes if the fire passes fast enough. Or become their final resting place if it doesn’t.
I thank the clerk, the words hollow and meaningless, and somehow make it back to my car. I drive home on pure instinct, seeing nothing of the road, hearing nothing but the roar of my pulse in my ears.
My apartment is silent when I enter. The sound of my ragged breathing echoes off the walls as I collapse onto the floor, my back against the front door, knees pulled to my chest.
The tears come in waves, hot and unstoppable. My body shakes with them, with the weight of memories of the past and uncertainty for the future pressing me flat against the tiles.
Josh might be hurt. He might be?—
I can’t bear to form the word, even in my mind. Instead, I curl tighter into myself and let the tears fall, waiting for news I’m terrified to receive.
26
JOSH
The fire passes over us like a living nightmare, a beast with hot breath and claws made of flame. I stay frozen beneath my shelter, counting seconds that stretch into eternities, until the roar fades and the ground stops shaking. I wait until the hellish heat diminishes from unbearable to scorching. With trembling fingers, I peel back the edge of my cocoon and squint into a transformed world, the surrounding landscape blackened and smoking.
