Page 41 of Igniting Her

“Dead.”

The hallway door shook under another hit of fire. They could wait for the ladder to clear and take it out or reopen the door and trust the line back to the stairs. Neither choice improved with debate. Ellie leaned through the window. The girl was halfway down, held securely against the firefighter. A second ladder had been raised beside the first for egress.

“We’re going out,” Ellie said.

Jamie didn’t argue. She backed the nozzle to the window while Ellie kept the bedroom door shut. Then they traded positions. Ellie took the line and held it between herself and the door while Jamie climbed onto the clear ladder. Ellie stayed until Jamie called from below.

Only then did Ellie open the door one last inch and sweep water across the hall, buying the room what time she could. She shut the nozzle. Then she stepped onto the sill and went down through smoke breaking from the eaves. The yard met her boots. Hands caught the back of her coat and moved her clear.

Cassie stood ten feet away at the command post.

Ellie could not see her expression through the smoke and flashing light. She saw only that Cassie’s radio was raised and her other hand had gone flat against the command board hard enough to bend its edge.

“Engine 12 Attack exterior,” Jamie reported for both of them. “Two accounted for. Victim removed.”

Cassie lowered the radio. “Copy. Engine 12 Attack accounted for.” Her voice did not change. “Report to medical, then rehab.”

No name. No praise. Nothing.

Ellie obeyed.

The teenager sat on the rear step of a medic unit with oxygen under her nose and both parents pressed close enough to make one body out of three. She had no burns. By the time Priya finished the first assessment, the color had begun returning to her face. The mother had inhaled smoke but was alert. Both would go to the hospital for observation. The father wept into his daughter’s hair.

Teak struck Ellie once between the shoulder blades. “Window feed with a dying radio. Very understated.”

Jamie held up Ellie’s ruined microphone. “I’m mounting this in the day room.”

Mo arrived from the pump panel long enough to look Ellie over from helmet to boots. “You intact?”

“Mostly decorative damage.”

“Good. I hate paperwork.” He gripped the back of her neck once and left.

Relief came out as shoulder checks, bad jokes, and Priya ordering Ellie to sit while she remained standing. Even the Engine 7 firefighter found her afterward and tapped two fingers against her helmet.

Across the yard, Cassie said nothing at all.

She directed the second line, confirmed the primary search, then gave the arriving battalion chief a face-to-face report and formally transferred Harrow Command. She took Division Two without breaking cadence or letting her attention settle visibly on Ellie. At Pier Four, silence had been punishment. Tonight it appeared to cost Cassie something; Ellie saw that her hand stayed closed around the radio even after the fire was controlled. It looked like she was still waiting for an answer that had not come.

The house was saved below the second floor. The rear bedrooms would need to be rebuilt. Nobody died. That should have been enough.

They returned to Station 12 at 5:48. Nobody sat down. Contaminated gear went into bags. Cylinders were changed. The wet hose came off the quint, clean hose went on, the dead microphone was tagged out, and every tool returned to service before relief was allowed to exist. Ellie worked beside Jamie without looking toward the office.

She felt the moment Cassie entered the bay anyway. “Ridge. My office.”

The crew developed a sudden, collective interest in the hose bed.

Ellie followed. Cassie shut the office door and lowered the blind across the interior window. That was new. The room became four walls, one desk, and everything Cassie had refused to say on scene. “You want to tell me why your low-air alarm activated before the victim was on the ladder?” The words were quiet. Each one landed harder than a shout.

“Because I’d been working on air before we found her.”

“That was not the answer.”

“It’s the accurate one.”

Cassie stepped around the desk and stopped within arm’s reach. Smoke still clung to her hair and the seams of her station shirt. “You entered a deteriorating room with one exit becoming untenable, committed to a window removal before the exterior crew was in position, and made yourself the final point in that operation.”

“I stayed with my partner. We had a charged line, an isolated room, and a ladder assignment already coming to us.”