If it hadn’t already…
“Get these lines hooked up!” I ordered the team. “Concentrate on the left side where the fire’s the biggest and open me up a spot at the front door! Don’t let that fire move any further!”
Porter and Alden stepped up beside me as a man came rushing towards us.
“She’s still in there!” he cried wildly, panic in his eyes as he pointed. “I called you as soon as I saw it. I haven’t seen her come out!”
“Is there anyone else in there?” Alden asked the man.
“No. Just her. I live next door and saw the fire from my bedroom window.”
Swiftly, the three of us pulled on our masks and grabbed some things off the truck. Thankfully, the front door wasn’t entirely on fire on the outside, so they were able to quickly give us a way in. “Time to bust in, boys,” I told my brother and Porter once the area was saturated with water. Without wasting any time, we ran to the door. Porter got ahead of us and brought the battering ram forward. He quickly began beating on the door, busting it open with two big swings—the fastest I’d ever seen him do it.
With running leaps, the three of us took turns jumping over the small wall of flames that still took up the front entrance inside the home. It only took a second of searching to find Sophia laying in the center of the living room area, flames rapidly getting closer and closer to her. She was sprawled out face down in nothing but a bra and underwear with a shirt wrapped around her face. I could see her legs were burned pretty badly and her body was covered in black ash.
“Fuck.” I rushed over and rolled her over, feeling for a pulse. It was faint, but it was there. Alden threw the fire retardant blanket he’d grabbed over her, protecting her from more damage as the ceiling dropped burning embers around us.
“Hang on Sophia. We got you.” I told her, putting my arm beneath her upper back and under her legs to pick her up. Holding her tightly to me, I stepped back before taking another running leap over the flames that had begun to grow across the entrance. Alden and Porter came after and another of my guys came rushing forward with an oxygen mask and tank in tow. He met me and secured it over her face, handing the tank over to Porter as we walked her to the ambulance. The aid crew tried taking her from me, but I shook them off and stepped up into the rig without their help.
I set her down on the stretcher inside and noticed her chest wasn’t rising or falling, meaning she wasn’t breathing. I tore off my mask and respirator then removed the oxygen mask that had been secured over her mouth and leaned down to listen for any breaths, even faint ones. There was nothing. Without hesitation, I began doing CPR, completely ignoring the paramedics as they tried taking over while I compressed her chest. I was just as qualified as them to do this. They instead chose to start tending to her burnt legs, beginning the process of getting them wrapped. In my mind though, this girl wasn’t their responsibility. She probably wasn’t mine either. But something in me became fiercely protective over her the moment I remembered her name and those golden locks she still had. I just had to be the one to make sure she would make it out of this alive.
“Come on, Sophia. Breathe for me,” I grunted, moving faster and compressing harder. After another minute of pumping her chest, she finally let out a hard, rattling gasp. I sighed with relief as she began to cough up the leftover smoke in her lungs. Her eyelids fluttered open between coughs and her forest green eyes peered up at me, tears beginning to form in them.
“You’re okay. You’re safe,” I consoled her, squeezing her forearm softly. Her left hand reached around and clasped onto the fabric of my suit. Her eyes blinked at me for a bit, staring at me with what I could only think of as gratitude. Then, she passed out once again. Her chest still rose and fell, giving me at least a bit of hope that she would continue breathing until they got her to the hospital. I finally stood, gently pulling my arm from her grasp and hopped out of the aid car. I looked sternly at the two aid crew members and pointed at Sophia.
“Make sure she keeps breathing, or neither of you will be on rig duty again.” Even though I’d probably pissed them off for taking over their job instead of doing mine by putting out the fire, they still nodded in understanding. Not that they couldn’t follow my orders anyway since I was their lieutenant.
I closed the doors of the car and slapped the back twice, signaling for them to go. I watched it as it drove off, hoping to God that Sophia made it to the hospital alive.
“You good?” my brother asked, slapping a hand down on my shoulder. “I’ve never seen you take over for the medics.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Something told me I needed to be the one to make sure she breathed again.”
“Well, good job,” Porter added, a smile on his face. “Chief Harding would be proud you saved his daughter.”
“We saved her. But yeah. How about we go help the boys put this fire out?” I told them, turning back towards the truck. I couldn’t help taking one last glance in the direction the aid car had gone as I unwound one of the lines, having this gut feeling that this wasn’t the last time I’d see her again.
At least, I hoped it wasn’t.
Sophia
Iwoke up to my chest feeling heavy and head pounding. It took forever to force my eyes open and figure out what the hell was going on. Why did I feel so much pain, specifically in my legs?
When I finally managed to get them to do what I wanted, my eyes surveyed my surroundings. Without a doubt, I was in a hospital room, lying in one of the beds. The light in the room was dimmed and the shades were drawn on the windows. Confusion filled me as I tried putting the pieces together. All at once, the memories came flooding back.
The smell of smoke. The heat. The fire that took over and destroyed my beautiful home. The three silhouettes. The voice that told me to hang on. And finally, the man who comforted me. His face was a blur, but I remembered the feeling of his warm hand on my arm, letting me know I was safe. I didn’t know who he was, but he saved my life.
Tears burned at the corner of my eyes at how close I’d come to perishing there on the floor. At the loss of the home I loved so deeply that was now probably nothing more than a pile of ash and charred debris. My heart cried from the hurt of it all.
I took a few small breaths to calm myself, then began to assess my body. The hand I’d grabbed the dumbbells with was bandaged and stung a bit, but it was tolerable. Gently with my unhurt hand, I grabbed the edge of the blanket covering me and lifted it to glance at my legs. I let out a shaky breath at seeing them both also bandaged, though they were much more heavily so, and the pain was creeping in the more I looked at them.
I set the blanket down and relaxed back into my pillows. My nurse mind went over the possibilities. I hadn’t been under that burning beam long, so chances were these could only be second degree burns. I could handle that. No skin grafts possibly and only a few weeks of healing time. A small price to pay for making it out alive.
But I still couldn’t grasp how the fire had started, or why my fire alarm hadn’t gone off. I regularly serviced it and never failed to change the batteries out. Even in my most forgetful moments, I never forgot to do that. My dad had instilled so many different safe practices growing up in case Kaden or myself found ourselves victim to a fire. IknewI’d changed those batteries not even a few weeks ago and tested it to make sure it was in working order.
Then there was the fire.
I couldn’t get to the extinguisher that I knew was in the kitchen, but something about the fire and how fast it had spread made me think it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Was an accelerant used? Maybe I was overthinking this. Scott had been burning stuff in his backyard. I hadn’t cleaned the gutters out in God knows how long because of my work schedule. It’s entirely possible some embers caught the leaves on fire and I was just too exhausted to notice the fire without my alarm.
