Feeding the Fire

by Amy Waeschle

  Feeding the Fire

  A Novel

  Amy Waeschle

  Feeding the Fire

  by Amy Waeschle

  For our brave first responders who sacrifice so much to keep us safe

  Chapter 1

  Zach

  The fire station tones sounded and Zach shoved away from the table, memorizing the details of the automated broadcast as he hurried toward the stairs with his crew.

  House fire. 667 Pugh Road. All units.

  Zach jogged down the steps to the truck bay and auto-piloted into his pants and coat from their hook along the wall. Engines rumbled to life and the garage filled with the smell of diesel exhaust. The station doors flew open and one by one the engines rolled out, their flashing lights penetrating the darkness. Zach’s partner Brody met him in the ambulance and they left the station, sirens wailing.

  They turned up Lincoln Hill then turned left at Kevos Pond to a narrow, paved road lined with cedars and tall pines. The red glow from the engine’s lights washed over the strip of ramblers and gravel driveways.

  Brody followed Engine 71 down a straightaway, horns blaring. They rounded a bend and Zach saw a blaze of light at the end of a cul-de-sac. The chief’s red SUV was in position just past the hydrant.

  “Hope I remember how to do this,” Brody joked as he pulled a one-eighty to park the rig at the edge of the cul-de-sac, back doors facing the fire. Most people were surprised to learn that fighting fire was a rare experience; for every fire they ran one hundred medical calls, and because Zach and Brody were also paramedics, they fought fire even less often.

  “Just try to keep the water on the fire this time, and not on the firefighters on the other side?” Zach teased.

  “Hey, they looked thirsty,” Brody replied.

  Zach and Brody grabbed their radio and joined the huddle of firefighters being assigned duties.

  The duty chief barked his orders, and the firefighters quickly dispersed, the reflective tape on their black suits flashing in the engine’s headlights. The house was definitely abandoned—boarded-up windows and peeling paint. Orange flames flashed from inside the second story windows. Zach and Brody finished suiting up then slid the regulator packs over their backs and pulled their protective gear over their necks and hands.

  “Stu’s gonna have a field day with this one,” Brody said, checking his mask.

  “You been watching Backdraft again?” Giving Brody shit was Zach’s favorite pastime. But Brody was right. It wouldn’t take the county Fire Marshall Stuart Green more than two seconds to label this as arson. With the recent uptick in fires—a Bremerton restaurant and last week, a barn out on Noll Road—looked like Stu was going to have his hands full for awhile.

  They grabbed their tools and walked with the crew towards the front door. The plan was to make entry and attack from inside in case anyone was trapped, though Zach doubted this.

  Brody scanned the distant woods. “Little turd is probably watching us right now.”

  Zach felt a jolt of emotion. He watched the dark space in the trees, knowing firsthand that Brody was spot-on. As a kid he’d been in woods like these plenty of times with his younger brother, Travis. Zach could trace the day it had started—4th of July. Travis was eight years old. They’d snuck away with a fistful of firecrackers stolen from their mom’s boyfriend and fired them off. One got loose and damaged the roof of the boyfriend’s car. They’d earned a serious licking but the man hadn’t stuck around. Travis had been hooked after that.

  At first Zach participated—lighting fires had felt so grown up, so powerful. Their mom’s boyfriends got meaner and tougher and Travis’s fires got more and more dangerous. Zach did everything he could to stop him, protect him but by then he was out of control. Zach would wake up to find Travis gone so he’d race from his bed to comb the neighborhood in a silent but frantic search until he found him.

  Until the time Zach failed to, and they’d taken Travis away.

  In front of him, a firefighter’s axe struck the door, snapping Zach’s attention back to the present. Two more blows and the door popped open. Black smoke billowed out, and Zach hurried through the passageway behind Brody, but not before he could shake the sensation that someone was watching them from the woods.

  Zach left Station 71 just after the morning shift change and drove the quiet streets to Dana’s house. Lately, she had been sleeping late on Saturdays, so he knew she would still be in bed. He pictured her long dark hair fanned out across her pillow and her breaths soft beneath the cloud-like comforter. Since her son Evan had disappeared, it was the only time she looked peaceful.

  The weak October sun had yet to burn away the fog and Dana’s little white house looked lonely. He coasted his truck to a stop next to the curb and turned off the engine. He smoothed the lid of the center console, his hand trembling at the thought of the ring nestled beneath a stale pack of gum and a dog-eared map for far too long, waiting for Dana’s answer.

  He had planned everything to be just right—even getting down on one knee. “You know I can’t answer that right now,” she had said, her soft brown eyes like endless tunnels.

  “Dana—” he tried, fighting back the humiliation.

  A flush climbed up her neck to color her cheeks. “Not until I know that Evan’s going to be okay,” she said, squeezing his hand.

  Of course, it had been about Dana’s alcoholic son, Evan, their biggest roadblock. But Zach believed that being together, as a real family once and for all, would help her get through this, make them both stronger. But he didn’t want to do it from the sidelines.

  Now he dreaded that the pressure of trying to make things work was tearing them apart.

  Fingers shaking, Zach removed the grey suede box. He checked that the ring was still inside and was again amazed at how out of place it looked in his rough hands. The idea of slipping it onto Dana’s delicate finger sent a nauseating tingle over his skin.

  Things between them could be good again. He remembered getting to know her bit by bit when the ambulance responded to calls at the rehab facility where she worked, and over time, the way they started flirting. Every time a call came in for Martha & Mary’s he’d immediately think: Dana. She looked good even in scrubs, her glossy brown hair pulled up in some kind of twist that exposed the delicate skin of her neck.

  “So, are you going to ask me out?” she’d teased him one time when they were alone at the nurse’s station, that mischievous twinkle giving her away. On their first date he’d taken her to a movie, but they ended up making out like teenagers in the back row.

  How he longed for her to look at him like that again, her smile sending his heart into freefall and her kisses nourishing him like rocket fuel.

  Zach placed the box back into its nest, exhaled hard but it didn’t help and his stomach lurched upwards. It happened so fast he barely made it out of the truck. He stood bent over, retching, the sound so alarming on such a quiet street this early in the day.

  After spitting into the gutter Zach took a drink from his water bottle, then rinsed the pavement. He watched the liquid disappear into the gutter.

  He remembered their first Halloween; Jessie had invited him to go trick-or-treating with them. Dana came to the door in an eight-foot tall T-Rex costume, complete with oversized cat eye glasses and a white tutu. He nearly fell off her porch in surprise.

  “Nice costume,” he said, after recovering from a fit of laughter.

  “Wait till you see what I’ve got on underneath,” she replied, her voice sultry. He imagined the sly smile she might wear to go with it.

  How he missed that part of her.

  The screen door clicked open and Zach tossed the empty water bottle into the cab just in time. Dana’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Jessie,
emerged from the house. Her thick dark hair was still mussed from sleep. Zach noted that she had slept in her clothes again.

  He wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve. “Mornin, L.T.,” he said, walking up the driveway. He’d nicknamed her “Little Tiger” after a scrap with a bully in fifth grade, but “lieutenant” worked just as well; Jessie was eternally bossy.

  They met at the gate. “What’s for dinner tonight?” Jessie asked, tucking her chin into the strap of her skate helmet and snapping the buckle.

  Zach resisted asking how Dana had been for the past twenty-four hours while he was on shift. Firefighters always played catch-up and he never stopped beating himself up for the things he missed. But Jessie had long since learned how to get along on her own, and Dana, despite what she was going through, didn’t need him the way he sometimes wished she would. “Carne asada tacos? Lasagna?” He waited for a reaction.

  Jessie plunked her skateboard onto the pavement. For the last few years she had fallen hard for skating, but since the trouble with Evan started, she had become obsessed. She skated to school every day with her perpetual sidekick, Cam, and could be found most afternoons and Saturdays at the skate park.

  “Tacos.” She put one foot onto her board. “Are we going to the house tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” he said, looking forward to their time together at the house he was building on Hood Canal. “Think your mom will want to come this time?” Zach pictured her pounding a few nails or walking the grass-lined path to the beach, the autumn sun shining on her pale cheeks. Zach’s stomach bounced again.

  The darkness behind Jessie’s eyes deepened, spreading into her posture like a stain. She shrugged.

  “Later,” she said, stepping onto her board.

  Zach watched her pump up Sixth Avenue’s gradual rise until he could no longer hear the grind of her skateboard’s wheels on the pavement.

  Zach made a cup of strong coffee and carried it to Dana’s bedroom, hoping the smell of it would help pull her out of her slumber. He wondered how late she had stayed awake with The Search, as Jessie was calling it.

  On her side beneath the pillowy comforter, Dana’s slender form rose and fell with easy breaths. Her window was open a few inches and he stood thinking about it. Dana liked the cool night air and hearing the sound of raindrops tip-tapping on the hydrangea leaves outside. But Dana hadn’t bothered with things like opening windows to feel the fresh air in a while. Zach’s brain chewed on this development, wanting to believe it meant something.

  He had showered at the station so he undressed like usual and slid into bed so he could hold her as she woke. The sheets were warm and carried her scent, a combination of pine bark and lavender. He curled his body to hers and listened to the dew drip from the eaves.

  A breath of wind clattered the leaves outside and he watched the morning’s soft rays play across the walls. Dana woke slowly, like a blossom opening. She laid her arm over his. He moved closer and her energy washed through him. He waited for more signs. Since Evan had disappeared their pattern of intimacy had changed so much he had stopped trying to predict what she wanted. Some days she was like a horny pole cat, others she lashed out at him for even looking at her.

  So when she rolled to him, he kissed her forehead and stroked her hair and waited. Her soft hands stroked his back; she wrapped her leg over his. He kissed her lips, her eyelids, her nose, until she smiled. Seeing that smile unlocked the passion he kept tucked away and he took her in his arms and kissed her until the bed was warm and they were both breathing differently. He made love to her slowly as the fresh October breeze filled the room and the birds called to each other from the trees. When it was over he held her and swore silently that he would never, ever let her go.

  Chapter 2

  Jessie

  After two bowls of Frosted Flakes at Cam’s, they took the trail behind his house to Raab Park. They crossed the broad field, the dew coating the tips of their skate shoes, then entered the skate park. Jessie blocked out the sounds of the other skaters doing ollies and stalling their trucks while readjusting her helmet and thinking through her 180.

  She was going to land it today if it killed her.

  Jessie went straight for the half-pipe and climbed the stairs to the drop-in. From the other side of the pool, she found Cam’s pale blue eyes. He tossed his long blonde bangs sideways and gave her a nod.

  Jessie exhaled a stiff breath then dropped into the half-pipe. She accelerated into the bowl then up the other side, the wind whistling past her ears. Rail to rail she went, each time gaining speed, practicing her stalls at the top.

  On her final arc, she raced up the ramp, eyeing the take-off. When the wall turned vertical, she exploded off the coping, her trailing hand grabbing the rail while her body spun. The ground suddenly looked far away. She released the deck, her legs ready to stomp the landing, but the back wheels landed wrong. She crashed on her side then slid all the way to the bottom of the ramp.

  “Fuck!” Jessie smacked the concrete in frustration.

  Someone caught her board, which was hurtling back toward them. Jessie looked up to see Jake Stefonacci’s blank face hovering over her. Surprised that he of all people would help her, she took his offered hand, grimacing at a sharp pain in her left hip. Her side burned from sliding. She hobbled to a bench.

  “Your nose is bleeding,” Stef said.

  Jessie clenched it, leaned forward the way Zach had taught her.

  Someone rolled up, and Jessie looked into the cruel eyes of Grady Baker. “Have a nice flight, Lassie?” He gave her body a slow scan that made her feel naked. She balled her fists and glared back.

  “Fuck off, Baker,” Stef said.

  Grady raised an eyebrow. “Since when are you her keeper? I thought she already had a new daddy.”

  Jessie’s face burned. She had never met her real father, not that it mattered. Zach was the only dad she had ever wanted.

  She knew about the ring. Zach had gone inside to pay for gas and she had only wanted to see if he had any gum. At first, she had been so excited—Zach was going to ask her mom!—but that was months ago. Had she said no?

  “Does he take you to the fire station so you can slide down the pole?” Grady’s white teeth flashed—like a wolf’s. “I’ll bet you like that,” he added, humping the air.

  Stef jabbed his shoulder, and Jessie could see the blow surprised him, but he recovered quickly. “I’m just messing with her, man, take it easy.” He stepped back, grinning like he’d won some kind of prize.

  Jessie watched him go, feeling Stef’s eyes turn to her.

  “He’s a firefighter?” Stef said, his expression shifting—as if this was something funny. “Does he know about the dumpster?”

  Jessie realized that Cam had rolled up.

  “Uh, what dumpster?” Jessie said, feeling the heat drain out of her face.

  But Cam’s cheeks had already turned beet-red and he pushed off, hard.

  “Cam!” Jessie called out, but he disappeared into the crowd.

  Jessie watched him go.

  “What?” Stef said.

  Jessie stepped past him. After hocking up a thick lugie of blood and spit, she wiped her nose on her sleeve, strapped on her helmet.

  She grabbed her board and marched over to the half-pipe, cutting in front of the kid about to drop in. “Hey!” he called out as her wheels accelerated down the ramp. She let the board roll until her body found the rhythm. Each time she caught a little bit more air until it felt right. Grabbing her rail, she launched and rotated, airborne, before falling back to earth. Her wheels cracked down and she accelerated down the ramp. Grinning, she carved a wide top turn.

  “That was sick!” someone said when she soared by.

  Jessie located Cam watching her, but instead of flashing her his trademark sideways grin, his full lips were flat, unreadable.

  “There’s another hill bomb on Friday night,” Jessie said as they cut through Peabody’s field. At the last hill bomb, her first, she and Cam had sk
ated down the curvy hill behind the high school with Teagan, Kris, and Jasper, the cold wind in her ears while her heart shot prickly blood into her temples. After, she had shown Cam the dumpster and the lighter she had started carrying in her pocket.

  “This one’s on my street. You totally cannot say no.” They would meet at the bus shelter at the top of Sixth then skate down her long, wide street like howling fighter jets streaking through the night. Last time she’d borrowed a longboard but this time, she hoped to use Evan’s old one. If she could dig it up.

  The tall yellow grass stood as high as their waists. “I’m not sneaking out again.” Cam still had not looked at her.

  “Come on, it’s gonna start raining soon so we won’t be able to do it again until, like next summer,” she said. Plus, Zach was working overtime so wouldn’t be home, and Fridays were her mom’s worst days. She would come home from her job at Martha & Mary where she took care of geezers and be too tired to stay up late, even for The Search.

  “Easy for you to say. You didn’t get caught.”

  “It was only because of May May,” she replied, picturing Cam’s mom in her bathrobe cradling Cam’s baby sister. “She’s sleeping through the night now, right?”

  Cam’s shoulders shrugged.

  The long walk was making her hip ache. The side of her face burned a little, too. She hoped it didn’t look bad.

  “Did you hear he got kicked out of science?”

  The edge in his voice confused her. “Who?”

  “Jake Stefonacci.” A breeze rustled the parched weeds and faded wildflowers. “He tried to blow up a science lab.”

  “No shibby?” she said.

  Jessie and Cam had grown up with Stef but they weren’t exactly friends. Today was the first time he had offered her a hand like that, let alone take on Grady Baker. Now that Stef was in high school, she only saw him at the skatepark. He always got the biggest air and was the only one who could do a nightmare flip. Rumor was that his dad was a drug dealer. Some people said Stef sold pills for him, but Jessie didn’t believe it. Especially after today.