When he turns back to the fire, I can’t stop myself from calling after him, needing to have his eyes on me again. “And Ames?”
“Yeah?” He glances over his shoulder.
I freeze. Words bubble up in my throat—none of them thought out, none of them relevant.
“Stay safe,” I manage, and he nods.
I move away and spend some time coordinating with James and Porto on the eastern exposure, and checking in with the new arrivals from Mabel. But part of my attention is on Ames the whole time. Tracking where he is, making sure he’s safe. It’s something I do all the time, but it feels different today. More… intense or something.
I tell myself not to be ridiculous. To focus on the big picture. To do my damn job, like I told Lissa I would. Butwhen I’m talking to the deputy chief from Mabel, I hear Ames yelling, and I tune back in immediately.
“Greene!” he yells. “Stay exactly where you are, you hear me?”
I hold up a hand and step away from the conversation. “What’s going on? Axford, Hugh, report,” I demand into my radio.
“Hugh’s out. Taking a breather. I have eyes on Greene,” Ames says, “but?—”
Across the scene, I see Greene shouting and pointing at the building. I can’t see Ames or Hugh anywhere.
“It’s abandoned! Hugh said the first team cleared it! You heard him. Whatever that noise was, it wasn’t a person.” I can barely make out the words because I’m too focused on the fear in Ames’s voice. “Hold the line!”
As I watch, though, Greene drops the hose and runs toward the structure until he disappears around a corner of the building.
“Firefighter Greene approaching the structure.” Ames’s voice is tight and tense, and I’m already moving in his direction before I see him emerge from the shadows on the other side of the building. “Repeat, firefighter approaching—no,fuck, entering the goddamn structure on the western side.”
“Donotenter,” I order. “Greene! Axford!No oneenters that goddamn building. Do you hear me?”
I’m just a couple dozen yards behind Ames as he approaches the entrance to the building. The door’s already hanging wide, and Greene’s nowhere to be seen. Inside the building, flames lick across the empty holes where the upstairs windows used to be, and it’s clear this side of the building is being destroyed from the inside out.
Ames pauses and turns like he somehow knows I’m there. I shake my headnoand beg him to listen. For a second, I swear he hears me. I think he might obey.
Then both of us seem to remember at the same time that Ames will never take orders that contradict what he thinks is right. Especially letting a probie get hurt on his watch.
As I watch in horror, Ames runs into the building, and my whole world narrows to that single point.
“Hugh! Hugh?” I shout into the radio, but there’s no response. “Fuck. James! You have command now. Acknowledge!”
“Yeah, Robbie. Okay. What’s?—?”
“Get another crew on that hose line! Axford and Greene are inside the structure. Repeat?—”
I’m built for endurance more than speed, but apparently, the laws of physics don’t apply to people who’ve just watched their best friend throw himself into danger because it only takes me a fraction of a second to reach the door.
“Chief,” James yells. “Robbie! You can’t. Let’s organize?—”
“No time,” I tell him. This structure will not be fully standing in the five minutes it’ll take to organize a rescue.
And even though it’s against protocol, against procedure, against everything I lectured Greene about and every kind of training I’ve ever had, I run into the burning fucking building becauseAmesis in there, and nothing else matters.
I hit the entrance at a dead run. The heat is incredible. The smoke is solid and writhes like a living thing. Without my mask, I’d be toast. All around me, joints and supportsheave and sigh and crack like they’re ready to give up the fight and yield to gravity.
“Ames!” I yell. “Status!”
Ames yells, “Everyone, out! It’s coming down!”
I’m twenty feet in when there’s a splintering crack and the shriek of metal giving way?—
Then Ames screams.
