Sandy is huddled by the engine.
Davies . . . is tucked in behind him.
Fuck, gotta love my senior officers. They protect their own.
Rolling my jaw, I try to dissipate the ringing.
It doesn’t let up.
Schmiddy is cowering behind a small crowd of folks on the sidewalk who have all crouched, clutching their hands in front of them. Someone holds a shaking hand up, no doubt filming the entire thing.
One woman realizes he’s there and starts yelling at him to go help.
Don’t waste your breath, lady.
Owens and London check their surroundings before rising to their feet and closing the distance between them and the engine.
“Cap, if anyone was in there...” She’s shaking her head.
This scene just went from a rescue to a recovery.
Dammit.
We’re officially in defensive mode. I snap up the radio on my jacket. “53 to base, requesting NYPD for a hazmat scene, over.”
The radio crackles.
“Copy, 53, sending backup your way now. Hang tight. Over.”
This house fire has turned into a crime scene. Not one person goes near that house. The vapors of a meth lab are toxic as fuck.
“Nobody goes in. Fall back, 53!”
Owens and London lean on the engine, and I rub a hand down my face. That could have ended up much, much worse. If Owens and London had been a minute slower...
Tightness coils behind my ribs.
Schmiddy is striding for the engine when I sigh and meet his gaze.
“Call for hazmat, Hammond.” He’s waving at the destroyed building.
“Already done. We stay put, go update those folks.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” he snaps.
“Today you fucking do,” I send back, folding my arms.
“You are in so much fucking shit, you know that?” He’s pointing a finger at me as he walks back to the crowd.
And I have lost the will to care. I can only imagine the situation we’d find ourselves in had he been sending the crew around this scene.
The wind changes, and the air turns sour.
Fuck.
“Move downwind!” I yell to Schmiddy.
Sandy is already climbing up into 53, the crew filing into the back as I climb into shotgun as we check the wind angle and move the engine out of the airstream of the toxic fumes.
