Then I started moving. I did what had to be done.
Pushed through the door, Liam and Owen behind me. The interior was an oven, visibility down to a few feet, everything glowing orange through the smoke. We stayed low, moved fast, checked rooms as we passed. Living room clear. Kitchen clear. Stairs still intact, flames chewing at the banister but the structure holding.
I went up first. The heat intensified with every step, pressing against my gear like hands trying to push me back. At the top, a hallway branched in two directions. Smoke pooled along the ceiling, rolling and churning.
"Fire department! Call out!"
Nothing. Then, faint, from the left: a cough. A small voice saying something I couldn't make out.
We found them in a back bedroom. Two kids, a boy around eight and a girl maybe five, huddled together beneath a window they were too small to reach. The boy had his arms wrapped around his sister, his body curved over hers. Protecting her.
"Hey." I crouched down, kept my voice calm. "We're going to get you out. Okay?"
The boy nodded. His sister just stared, eyes huge in her soot-streaked face.
I handed the girl to Owen. Lifted the boy myself, felt his arms lock around my neck. He was shaking hard enough that I could feel it through my coat.
"Close your eyes," I told him. "Keep them closed till I say."
We went back down the stairs, through the smoke, past the flames that had spread to the living room ceiling. Something groaned overhead, that deep structural sound that means a building's about to come down. We cleared the front door just as the first part of the roof came toppling down behind us.
The mother was already running toward us. I set the boy down and she grabbed both kids, pulling them against her, crying and saying their names over and over. The father limped up behind her, and for a moment the four of them just stood there, holding each other on the lawn while their house burned.
Paramedics moved in. We went back to work, knocking down the fire, protecting the neighboring houses, doing what we do. An hour later it was over. Structure was a loss, but everyone made it out.
Textbook rescue. No casualties.
No one died because I hesitated.
I kept them from ending up like Mateo. But it had come terrifyingly close to being the same tragedy.
Back at the station, I went through the motions.
The post-call routine was automatic by now. Fifteen years of muscle memory, of doing the same things in the same order so you didn't have to think about what just happened. Clean the gear. Check for damage. Hang it to dry. Restock the engine. Replace what you used. Log what you replaced. Write up the incident report while the details are still fresh.
I sat at the desk in the station office, pen in hand, staring at the form I'd filled out hundreds of times.
Time of arrival. Conditions on the scene. Actions taken.
The words blurred in front of me. My hand wouldn't stop shaking.
I put the pen down. Picked it up again. Forced myself to write.
Structure fully involved on arrival. Two victims located on second floor. Successful extraction.
No casualties.
I looked at what I had written down again.No casualties.Everyone made it out. That's what mattered. That's what I was supposed to focus on.
But I kept seeing the smoke curling toward me. Kept feeling my feet frozen to the porch. Kept hearing Liam's voice cutting through the fog:Clock's running, Cap.
I finished the report. Filed it. Went to the equipment room because I needed something to do with my hands, something that didn't require thinking.
The tanks were lined up on the rack, neat and orderly. I started checking them one by one. Pressure levels. Valve function. Things I'd already checked an hour ago. Things that didn't need checking again.
I was on the third tank when the door opened behind me.
"Got a minute, Cap?"
