Before she could take another one, someone latched onto her and dragged her down the steps. Shaky hands unfastened her helmet and chucked it across the grass. They ripped her mask from her face, pulling her braided hair tangled in the straps. She winced as strands of her hair tore from her skull.
She heaved the smoke from her lungs and wiped her mouth. Soot stained the back of her hand. She turned, and Charlie blocked any remnants of the afternoon sun. His big umber eyes were wide with terror as he gaped at her.
“That was close,” she coughed.
§
After Charlie strippedAmaris of her SCBA and turnout coat, she fought him to the rehab area. He held tight to the collar of her drenched shirt, dragging her from the fire scene.
“I can walk on my own,” she grumbled, but he was silent.
Amaris could’ve smiled at how well Charlie recognized her desire tojump back in, but not after that disaster. He refused to release her from his iron grip until he shoved her into a camping chair. He wasn’t the biggest on the department, but he had an innate strength. It was the first reason her chief had thrown around the table when deciding whether to hire him two years back.
Her eyes were pinned to the front porch, her nails biting into the armrest. All her muscles tensed as she waited for her best friend to exit the house.
“Come on, Viv,” she mumbled.
A plume of smoke billowed as the front door flew open. Viv and her partner tore through the opening with the victims wrapped in webbing. The newly arrived crews flocked to them, getting the victims onto stretchers.
Amaris sank into her chair, relief overcoming her as her limbs grew heavy. A water bottle landed in her lap, and Charlie stepped back and sprawled into the grass, drenching his beet-red and sweaty face with an entire water bottle. Amaris burrowed deeper into her chair and drank half the bottle in a single chug.
What just happened?she thought before taking a breath that was immediately sucked back out as Chief stomped toward her. His helmet skimmed above his scrunched eyebrows and his hazel eyes narrowed in on her.
“What the hell was that,Lieutenant?” His words were sharp, and he shook his head as he stalked closer.
“Chief, I—”
“You stayed in well past your low air alarms, you didn’t exit after we sounded the evacuation signal, and you shouldn’t have been in there in the first place!”
Amaris’s stomach dropped as Chief’s eyes trailed to Charlie’s exhausted form taking root in the grass. “I know, but—”
“Nothing is more important than your safety! When you get back to the station, I want your ass in my office. Do you understand?”
She bit her tongue and her shame. “Yes, Chief,” she replied, trying not to let her frustration seep through.
He returned to the fire and marched toward Lartondale’s chief, likely to scream at him for sending Viv and her partner in. The house creaked, and the roof collapsed in on itself. Amaris leaned forward, pinching the bridge of her nose—fuck.
As she tore her hand away, Viv strode toward her. Wrapping her arms around Viv was all she wanted to do, but her body refused any notion of getting out of the chair.
Viv stripped herself of her gear, casting them aside in the yard as her ruby braid swished back and forth behind her. With Amaris’s boot clutched tightly in her pale fingers, she narrowed her teal eyes.
“Do you have a death wish?” Viv asked, dropping her boot. The smell of burnt rubber overpowered Viv’s rose-scented perfume.
“People were trapped,” Amaris said, hauling the clunky boot over her foot.
Viv was a fierce woman standing at six-foot with an immense amount of muscle and strength. Folding her freckled arms, she gave Amaris a flat look before plopping in a chair beside her. Viv tapped her black nails along the armrest, eyeing the house as flames engulfed the upper story and the new crews manned the hose lines.
She returned her attention back to Amaris, her braid falling over her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Amaris assured her, but she shifted her gaze to Chief, standing with a scowl lining his lips. Viv raised her brows. “Fine, I’m not. Why were you in there? The air horn—”
“You had a victim,” she said. “You weren’t going to evacuate.”
“You can’t risk your life like that.”
“You can, but I can’t?”
Amaris dropped her head in her hands. “That’s not what I meant. You went in knowing full well the roof would collapse.”
