Page 51 of Burning For You

“Car fire,” crackled over the radio.

He clenched his jaw, barely holding back a groan.

Not fucking again.

Then the address came through. His heart slammed straight into his throat.

Not a dead end. Not a wide-open street with room to breathe.

A neighborhood.

Houses stacked close, porches nearly touching, shared driveways and cars lining both sides of the road. Old construction. Old wiring. Old everything. The kind of place where fire didn’t just burn—it ran.

No modern alarms. No interconnected smoke detectors. Just luck and whoever was awake.

The truck blasted through a red light, the intersection empty, sirens screaming into the night as he gripped the rail when the driver took the turn hard, his shoulder slamming into the side.

Then they were there.

The car sat in the shared driveway, fully engulfed, the flames rolling high, black smoke boiling into the sky. The fire had already climbed the front porch, licking up the siding and melting it like wax.

“Go, go, go!” he heard.

They were out before the truck had fully stopped.

The hoses hit pavement. The hydrant spun open. He dropped to one knee, the line jerking alive in his hands as water thundered toward the car. Another line was trained on the house, trying to hold the fire at the threshold while two firefighters smashed through the front door and disappeared inside.

The brutal and unrelenting heat slammed into him. The bright glow of the hungry beast looking for more.

Inside, the fire clawed through the entryway, thick smoke pouring out in choking waves. He could hear it now, the wood popping, glass cracking, the angry roar of something that wanted more.

Then his breath escaped when the figures raced through the smoke and out.

Two of them burst through, each firefighter carrying an elderly resident, limp but breathing, he hoped. They moved fast, boots skidding as they cleared the porch and handed them off to EMTs, then went back to battling the same monster.

A second later, a gray blur shot past Ash’s leg.

A cat.

It bolted into the night, fur singed but alive. He clung to that small win and let it anchor him.

Everyone was out. Everyone was alive. At least he was telling himself that.

Then the wind shifted.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he shouted, but no one heard him with his respirator on.

Flames caught the roof, the thing lighting up like a Christmas tree in the Big Apple.

The fire took off, racing along old, dry boards like it had been waiting for the chance to break free. The wind gusted harder, feeding it, pushing embers toward the neighboring house.

They were in it now. Backup would be called. Mutual aid. All hands. Everything and everybody to get this under control.

Twenty minutes later, more engines arrived, lights flashing with bodies pouring in. A punch-out had been ordered—every available firefighter working the perimeter, hammering the flames back, making damn sure it didn’t jump.

A window blew out with a violent bang, and his body jerked before he turned the hose in that direction, flames surging dangerously close to the house next door.

“Shift the line! Now!” he heard on his radio.