I nod, already assessing the building. The roof is compromised—I can see it sagging in the middle. Best estimate is that we have maybe twenty minutes before the whole thing comes down.
“Austin, Scotty, James—with me. Hayes, stay with the engine.” I turn to the rookie. “And I mean stay. No heroics.”
“But—”
“That’s an order.”
We move in formation, the heat intensifying with every step. Inside, the smoke is thick enough to chew, visibility near zero. My in-helmet audio provides updates from the other teams—alpha side clear, bravo still conducting preliminary search.
“North side, moving to the main office area,” I report, voice muffled through my mask.
The fire roars around us like a living thing. Hungry, angry, awesome, and terrible all at once.
Fire is what my father faced. What killed him. I think about this at least once in situations like the one on Alpine Ridge, butit never came with another concern. Not returning to Winnie enters my mind, unbidden, and I push it away.
Focus on the job. Search the rooms. Find the guard.
We’re in what looks like a break area when movement interrupts the pattern in my periphery. We go still. I hear a low groan, barely audible over the fire’s roar.
“Southeast corner,” I signal to Scotty, who is built for going into danger, saving lives, whatever the cost.
We find a man slumped against a filing cabinet, his security uniform covered in soot, unconscious but breathing. Scotty and I work together—years of training make us move like one unit. We get him secured, ready for extraction.
Then, through the haze, something shifts, followed by a creaking sound that reminds me of a ship’s hull, away at sea, but we’re not battling water. This is fire, smoke, instability.
“Move!” I shout, but it’s already too late.
Part of the ceiling collapses between us and the exit—a cascade of burning timber and twisted metal dropping down like the end of the world. The impact throws me sideways, and for a moment, everything is uncertain.
But then the dust settles. I’m still breathing.
I call for Scotty.
“Here. Austin?”
“I’m good! Reese?”
“Got a pulse. James?”
“Still kicking,” we go down the line, confirming our status.
Meanwhile, I take stock that nothing is broken and that my gear is intact. The guard stirs, which is good. The fact that we’re cut off from our exit route, not so much. “We need another way out.”
“Copy that.” Austin’s voice is steady, but I detect an edge in it.
We’ve been in bad situations before and I trust my crew, butmy brain buzzes with thoughts of Winnie. She told me she loves me. I never said how I really feel because I was too scared of exactly this moment.
Austin’s voice comes through the radio. “Service corridor, north wall. Should connect to the loading dock.”
We move, supporting the guard between us, navigating by feel and instinct and the faint glow of James’s flashlight ahead. The heat is intense, sweat pours down my face inside the mask, every breath burning my lungs even through the filter.
If I die in here, Winnie will never know that I love her. That her smile is the first thing I think about when I wake up. That I want a future with her.
The fear of not telling her suddenly seems worse than any fire.
“Almost there,” James calls back.
Reese confirms, “Loading dock doors ahead.”
