Embers

by Carina Alyce

  A loud rumble cut off the phone call, and the machine asked if they wanted to replay the message.

  “You had this all along?” Hank asked softly.

  “It's freshmen orientation, and they needed me on campus in Madison—it’s a forty-five-minute drive from home. I was in my office at my desk when the Admission’s secretary knocked on my door. We stood in the lobby watching the TV. No one knew what to do, so we called every parent or student associated with any study abroad program. Anyone who could have been in New York or near an airplane.”

  Abby scrubbed at her burning eyes with one hand and continued, “Then we waited. No one could work, so we closed the office early and went over to the student health center to help with the scared students. I got home in time for the President’s address. Then I listened to the message.”

  Hank sat, waiting.

  “I hoped it was a coincidence. I could have misheard it, and Noah could have been calling from a fire scene in Cleveland. My dad, of course, kept asking what movie we were watching or if there was an air show. And then he'd ask for Noah or think Noah was upstairs or that he just talked to Noah on the phone.”

  “You let me believe we were searching for Noah,” he stated with more puzzlement than accusation.

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t believe… not until today. The postcard he sent to his firehouse … World Trade 3 had a pool and running track on top. And it had a business conference going on.” She took out the printout she’d gotten off Noah’s desk for the NABE conference and the brochure from the chief - they were the same.

  Hank asked a question she hadn’t expected. “Why haven’t you talked about your mom?”

  A bitter tear ran down Abby’s face. “Because she’s worse off than Dad. She has secondary progressive multiple sclerosis. She’s only got a few years at best. If Noah’s gone, then I’m alone.”

  That one tear became two, and the floodgates opened.

  “I have you.” Hank held her the same way she’d done for every person she’d met this week. “It’s okay, Abby.”

  “It’s not. They’ll be gone soon, and then it’ll be just me.”

  “You're only as alone as you want to be. My parents were drug addicts,” he said. “My dad OD'd before I was ten, and my mom… well, AZT came the year after she died of HIV.”

  Abby's heart broke for the second time tonight. “That's why you don't have tattoos and why you wanted the condoms.”

  “I hate the sight of blood. I could barely look at Noah’s razor collection. And every time I go under the Pile, with all the sharp edges… it terrifies me.”

  “I’m sorry.” Abby hadn't realized what a brave act entering the voids was for him.

  “Don’t be. My grandmother was amazing. She loved me and left me everything. It was enough to start my company. Those are my people now. I’m not alone. You are not alone.” He leaned forward to give her the gentlest of kisses.

  That kiss led to another one, and one after that, and another. Their clothes landed on the floor as both of their walls fell. Without hesitation, Hank grabbed the string of condoms and walked her up to the loft.

  She laid down, staring at him as he approached. His eyes were bright as he sheathed his cock in latex. Hank kissed her on the mouth and asked, “Can I make love to you, Abigail Baker?”

  It wasn’t a simple question. They’d flirted with this before but held back. Were they ready to cross that final line and pull back the veil, the remaining barrier?

  Giving herself to the moment, and him, she located her voice. “Make love to me, Henry Finster.”

  He gave her another kiss, she opened for him, and he slowly pushed inside. They stared into each other's eyes the whole time as she stretched to fit him. Using unhurried movements, Hank carefully built her pleasure, stoking her, driving her, already familiar with the sounds of her passion. He held her through her orgasm before finding his own release.

  They kissed tenderly and fell asleep in their borrowed bed without further discussion. Three hours later, she woke up, and they did it again. And once more in the morning before they left.

  Sunday September 16, 2001

  New York City

  The Diary of the Chaplain at MetroGen

  Sunday September 16, 2001

  There are funerals. So many funerals.

  I feel a little bit like a dumbass with my Book of Common Prayer in hand trying to explain the unexplainable. How do we protect each other? How do we find love and hope in a world that is losing its mind?

  Can anyone have faith? I hope so. Someone has to be the faith.

  Chapter 11

  The next morning, Abby felt different. Unburdening herself to Hank was a fundamental shift in her coping mechanisms. She's been a psychology major and knew she internalized her problems by presenting a smiling ‘can do, take no prisoners’ attitude.

  Yet now she was closer to Hank than she had been to anyone in God knows how long. Perhaps she'd never taken a deep breath since Noah was born. And definitely none in the past two years. From the day Noah announced his application for the fire academy spot in Cleveland, the air had never gone back in.

  She had to trust Noah would have evacuated the hotel. Calling each the hospital in the Tri-State Area had revealed no one under his name. There had been an extremely low number of injuries, so there likely weren't any unidentified comatose patients fitting his description.

  Sure, they hadn't found anyone alive for four days now, but she’d somehow picked up the nicest, sexiest hitchhiker on the planet. Anything was possible.

  For places as large as The Pile, it was amazing how quickly rumors spread. Word on the street was tomorrow, they would require credentials to stay onsite. Abby, the Pink Lady, was likely to be sent away, though Hank, Finny/Pink Lady’s husband, had a good chance of remaining.

  She decided to keep going out on the gator. It increased her chances that she'd find Noah or Wills among the volunteers. As the rumors continued to grow of a takeover, he was more likely lying low, same as she was.

  In her capacity as the Pink Lady, she was given a huge amount of access. On one trip to the Pile, she picked up three chaplains and drove them to the Ground Zero Cross by World Trade 6. Letting them ride in the back might not have been OSHA compliant.

  The real trouble began in late afternoon. The construction workers running the grapplers needed water. A worker had explained over a granola bar at St. Paul's that the cranes were too heavy for the unstable ground of the Pile. Lighter grapplers were used to pull large pieces off the Pile, swing them around, and place them where they were accessible to the heavier equipment.

  The grapplers needed a relatively wide radius to make their swings of the gripping arm. Abby usually pulled up some distance away and waved to get their attention. They would come to a pause, signal her to approach, and then she would approach.

  That required coming right up onto the Pile.

  She had been cautioned, but she wasn't ready when it happened. Without warning, the ground shifted under her feet, and a spot fire broke though. It was a quick flare, feeding on the fresh air and an underground fuel reservoir.

  Trying to scramble out of the way, Abby got caught on the rough terrain as the fire grew beside her. Dimly, she heard an alarm calling for the firefighters on standby. Worse, the construction worker was startled, and he instinctively jerked his grappler toward her.

  The gripping arms didn't exactly stop on a dime, and she was inside its radius.

  She was totally screwed.

  "Got you, Pink Lady!" a man yelled. Someone sprinted across the uneven turf, ducked under the grappler arm, and scooped her up.

  He didn't slow, carrying her like she was nothing.

  Abby got a sense of height and a gas mask before she was deposited right by the sorting station.

  A group of medics descended on her, almost happy to have a patient. One of the EMT's addressed her rescuer. "Nice scoop, Jordan."

  "Always a pleasure," answered the man, a bald Black guy
in a dirty white T-shirt.

  "What the hell were you thinking!" an EMT admonished him. "Both of you. Inside the grappler arm! They crush ten tons!"

  Abby's attempts to see her rescuer were hampered by the flock of medical locusts shining a light in her eyes. "Did you hit your head? How many fingers am I holding up?"

  The EMT had more to say. "I don't care what your ball handling moves are, Jordan. Don't you freaking get near a grappler like that again. You think you’re invincible, cowboy!"

  "Danger is my middle name,'' the man laughed. "Besides, it was the Pink Lady. We gonna let her get brained?"

  "Damn, you're right. Get the fuck out of my sight before the officers start screaming their heads off at you. Run your ass out of here."

  "Abby!" a voice called, and her rescuer faded into the crowd of approaching firefighters with Hank in the lead. About half of the bucket brigade showed up to check on her. "What happened?

  "Everything's fine," Abby said.

  "Your boot soles started to melt," yet another EMT said, stripping off her boots.

  That explained why Abby had been stuck. "I fell by a fire."

  The first EMT wasn't going to spare her. "Pink Lady almost got set on fire and smashed by a grappler. "

  Hank looked ready to kill something. "Fire? Grappler?"

  The men behind him weren't much happier.

  Abby tried to reassure them. "I'm fine. Some guy named Jordan just ran me back over here. I'm not even injured."

  A third EMT, barely out of high school, checked over her feet and said, "Don't see any obvious burns."

  "See, fine. Even this teenager with his boy scout badge thinks so." She wiggled her toes.

  "You were lucky," the young EMT, whose badge read James, said.

  "Not helping," she growled and took her boots back from James the not-old-enough-to-drink EMT. "I'm fine."

  "You will go back to St Paul's and stay there." Hank's voice was dead serious.

  "Hank," she started to protest but ended in a coughing spell. Now that her body figured out it hadn't died, it noticed that it was breathing the contaminated air. The team of EMTs slapped her mask back on.

  "Back to St Paul's and stay there. If I have to carry you there myself, wife, I'll do it,” Hank hissed.

  He grabbed one of the radios and pulled down his mask to speak loudly into it. "This is Pink Lady's husband. Pink Lady is fine but almost got hit by a spot fire. Pink Lady is now forbidden to leave St. Paul's. Anyone who finds a lost Pink Lady should return her to the chapel."

  A chorus of relieved 'rogers,' 'copy that’s,' and 'aye-aye's' answered him.

  Abby glanced around for help and saw she wasn't going to get any. Time for a brief tactical retreat before heading back out. She wasn’t going to find Noah inside St. Paul’s. "I'll go back to the chapel."

  Of course, now Hank didn't trust her (rightly so) and went with her in the gator.

  The ride back was stopped by multiple well-wishers and concerned citizens checking on her health. The other volunteers at St. Paul's were equally attentive. Hank gave them a stern warning that she was not to leave the building. In fact, he instructed them to follow her to the bathroom.

  This was annoying. She had one small event, and everyone acted like it was the end of the world. Everyone was in on the conspiracy to keep her from leaving St. Paul's. Bethany from the Red Cross even forced her to surrender her vest. Unable to leave, she joined the hot meal service St. Paul’s started today. Four different sets of firefighters checked on her, including the Chief.

  Hank wasn't in a better mood when he came to collect her after ten. Abby lingered, trying to get in as many hugs as possible and play one last game of Twenty Questions. The last guy selected a Kraken and debated the nature of reality.

  Their walk home was silent, and not in a sexy way. Abby was the type who tended to argue in public, but she could tell it was not Hank’s way. Whatever he needed to say would be done in private.

  They made it into the apartment, and Abby took off her mask. Before she could speak, Hank spun her against the door into a long possessive kiss.

  He’d always been polite and solicitous before, carefully checking to make sure she was willing. This kiss had the taste of frustration, lust, and need.

  “I… Hank…” Abby panted.

  “Shower.” Hank grabbed a condom off the bottom step of the loft and stripped them naked in the living room.

  He checked her over from head to toe, making sure he didn't miss any possible injuries and trying to elicit as many gasps as he could. She matched him measure for measure, gripping his wide shoulders more forcefully than she had in the past. Though she dug her fingernails into his back and bit his shoulder, he didn’t even acknowledge the pain—he was that intent on feeling her.

  When her need was becoming too great, he hoisted her up, using the wall and his hips to support her. Then he let his cock give it to her in the best worst way ever. She screamed his name, kissing him and scratching him at the same time.

  They got dressed for bed and broke the wine rule a second time. Abby was going to owe Cousin Barry a case at this rate. And more laundry soap. And more sheets.

  “They took my Red Cross vest,” Abby said, sipping her glass slowly.

  “Did they?” he said quietly.

  “It's not fair. There are spot fires all the time,” she complained.

  “Abby.”

  “Could have happened to anyone. Nobody would have taken the vest away from a guy. The firefighters have close calls all the time. But me? I have one tiny situation once and—”

  “Abby,” he interrupted her. “It's for the best.”

  “For the best?”

  “I talked to incident command today,” he said. “The city is closing the site to most volunteers tomorrow. Anyone inside the perimeter has to be registered with one of four construction companies.”

  “I thought the cleanup was going well. It doesn't seem disorganized.”

  “That's because you don't know better,” he said. “This isn't how a construction site works. This is a mishmash of demo, rescue, hope, and despair.”

  “I don’t know better?”

  “No, you don’t. They are getting all the volunteers offsite to prevent what happened to you today from happening again,” Hank was vehement. Abby should have predicted that. The man took every possible safety precaution.

  “Nothing happened to me. I'm fine.”

  “This time. What about next time?”

  “Other people are risking their lives by going into the Pile. How is me delivering water a risk?” Abby didn’t get how anyone selected who got to take more chances than others.

  “Other people are trained for this. I didn't go to fancy college and get a psychology degree like you. I went to tech school, but I have certifications in heavy equipment and HazMat. In my expert opinion, this site is the most dangerous workplace on earth. Anybody who says otherwise is delusional.”

  “But you certainly know plenty of big words for not going to college,” Abby grumbled. She regretted it the second she said it. “I'm sorry, that wasn't fair.”

  He wasn’t fazed. “I think it's time.”

  “It's time for what?”

  “Time to leave. Don't you see? When they bring in construction companies, it's not search and rescue anymore. They're not going to find anyone else alive.”

  “No,” Abby denied hotly. “That is not true. There's a huge number of spaces and voids and—”

  “No. They haven't found anybody alive since Wednesday. This is Sunday. He should have called in by now.”

  “I don't believe you. Noah is out there.”

  “Abby, I've been in the voids. It’s worse than you can imagine. Down there… we… we bring up pieces of people, hoping they can be identified for families to get closure!” He struggled to compose himself. “We wanted the answering machine to be wrong. I wish it were, but it's not. He was in World Trade 3 and didn't escape.”

  “No. You're wrong. He had
to have gotten out!” Abby reared away from Hank.

  “He’s gone. I am so sorry.” Hank modulated his tone. “You have a family that loves you and needs you. They'll need you now more than ever.”

  “No, I'm not leaving. I'm going to find Noah. I promised I would.” Her voice shook.

  “It's a promise you can't keep. Noah wouldn't want you endangering yourself on a fruitless search!”

  “As if you ever met him! You don't know him. You don't know what we went through for him.” Abby felt like she was being pulled apart.

  “Then tell me.”

  “My mom stopped her MS meds during her pregnancy. They could have damaged him, and she didn’t want to risk it. She sacrificed her life for him, and not just then. Forty-nine-year-olds shouldn’t get pregnant because they try to bleed out during delivery. At fifteen, I was going to be his mother because she almost died!”

  “Abby.” He reached out for her.

  She drew back. “I'm not going back alone.”

  “You're not going back alone. I’ll come with you. We can—”

  “We can what? We've known each other for less than a week. Ride off into the sunset together? Forget about my supposedly dead brother? You think this is special?”

  “It is special,” he insisted.

  “Who are you kidding? You’re a hitchhiker I picked up on the side of the road and then fucked a couple days later. We’re stressed, and we needed an outlet. It doesn't make it special. It makes us stupid,” she lashed out.

  “So, according to you, none of this was real? The fingernail marks on my shoulder? You were asking me to make love to you last night? Was that my imagination?” he asked.

  “It's temporary madness.”

  “'Temporary madness'?” Hank pulled her to the kitchen window. He pointed to the panes thickly covered in dust. “This isn't temporary madness. This is the new reality. This is the world we live in now. The world we lived in last week is gone.”

  She stared out the window for a couple seconds and then turned back. “And four days is enough to know me?”