Hot Shot

by Karina Halle

  The only problem is, this fire is hot and getting hotter and completely unpredictable. With the wind picking up, the embers could be thrown in any direction. What happened with Roy is fresh on my mind.

  “I don’t think we have enough people,” I gasp, as I pull down my mask to talk to Mad Dog who is right beside me, getting the drip-torch ready. “We need back up.”

  He nods grimly. “Go tell the chief over there by the garage.”

  I jog over around the house to the garage where a small outpost has been set up. I see the fire chief as well as some of his crew, plus some medics on hand. Beyond them is police tape and news crews filming the action.

  I wait for the chief to stop talking before I say. “Mad Dog from NRHS says we need more men.”

  “All right,” he says, giving a curt nod to the crew he was standing with who scamper off. “What’s your name?”

  “Nelson. Fox Nelson,” I tell him.

  “You look like you need a drink,” he says, reaching into the cooler beside him and pulling out a bottle of water from the ice. “Hydrate yourself or else you’re no good to anyone out there.”

  I nod and take the water, my heart racing all over the place, adrenaline fueling my cells.

  “Take a moment,” he goes on as I drink the water down. “Rest. Clear your head. Then get back out there.”

  And at that, he grabs an axe, slips on his mask, and goes around the corner to join everyone else.

  I take my phone out of my pocket to glance at the time, not expecting to see a million missed calls and texts. I’m so used to fighting fires where there’s no reception, the sight is jarring. And frightening.

  I bring the phone close to my eyes and squint at it. I can’t scroll with my big gloved hand but what I see on the lock screen strikes terror in my very soul.

  Text from Shane: You need to come back Del is in the hospital it’s serious

  Text from Maverick: I know ur out there in the fires but pls come back ASAP

  Text from Rachel: Del went into early labor, there’s a complication with the baby, she needs you, do what you can to leave

  I can’t breathe at all now and it’s got nothing to do with the smoke.

  Panic floods me as I rip off my glove and start scrolling through the messages, aware that there’s a fire raging at my back and not caring.

  I can barely read them but I understand them.

  That this isn’t good.

  I call Maverick and my phone gets put to voice mail.

  I call Shane and it just rings. He doesn’t even have voice mail.

  I call Rachel and she picks up on the fourth ring.

  “Fox!” she cries out. “Oh, thank god you got this.”

  “What’s happening? Is she okay?”

  “No, she’s not okay,” she says tearfully. “She was in labor, they’re doing what they can. It’s called preeclampsia, it has something to do with her blood pressure.”

  “The baby? How is the baby?”

  The seconds between my asking that question and Rachel answering are scarier than that fire behind me burning me to the ground.

  Rachel sobs. “I don’t know, I don’t know. Del lost a lot of blood, the baby is going to be premature and normally that’s not too dangerous but with this thing, I don’t know. I don’t know, we’re all freaking out and the doctors are working on her.”

  “Okay, I’m coming back now, okay? I’m leaving right now.”

  “Okay. Please hurry Fox. I don’t know what’s happening. You need to be here for them. Just get here as quick as you can.”

  I hang up.

  And now I have to make the biggest decision of my life.

  Choosing one love over another.

  This fire, this job, my hot shots.

  Over Del and the baby.

  Maybe once it would have been a tough choice to make.

  It’s not a tough choice anymore.

  I’m about to head over to the fireline to tell Mad Dog but I don’t want to distract him, not now when so much is at stake, so I see Davis and pull him aside.

  “Hey man,” I’m practically yelling over the roar of the flames. “I have to go.”

  “Go?” he says. “Where?”

  “North Ridge. Del is in the hospital. Something’s really wrong.”

  “Oh shit. Sorry man. Yeah go, I got your back.”

  I glance at the fire and I swear the flames are waving at me goodbye. “We need more crew. I’m going to be needed here.”

  “I know,” he says. “But you’re needed more out there. We will be fine.”

  “I could get fired.”

  “You could. But you know what you’re doing, don’t you Foxy?”

  I give him a shaky grin. “You’re a good man Davis. I hope you remember I said that when I steal the truck and you don’t have a ride home after this.”

  Before I can wait for his reaction, I turn and run toward the truck, away from the flames.

  22

  Delilah

  Pain.

  I know nothing but pain.

  Pain is a mistress and my master and my world seems to be condensed to a black space with a chair that I’m chained to and there’s no escape. There’s only pain.

  Pain and crying.

  Somewhere beyond the black space there is crying.

  A baby’s cry.

  My baby.

  I gasp, trying to scream. “My baby, please don’t hurt my baby!”

  Then there is silence.

  Hands on me.

  “She’s not responsive,” someone says.

  “Delilah? Delilah listen to me. You have to push.”

  I find words in my mouth and they spill out into the darkness. “No. It’s too early.”

  “Delilah, you have to deliver your baby now, do you understand? You need to push, okay?”

  “She needs more time.”

  “She has a better chance out here than in your womb. Push now, push.”

  I try.

  I scream.

  The pain takes over.

  I’m yelling words that make no sense. They’re rushing out of me on red rivers of pain.

  Someone yells, “She’s hemorrhaging! We need a transfusion!”

  I wonder who they’re talking about.

  I hope she’s okay, whoever she is.

  Then it all goes back to black.

  White walls.

  I was in a black, black world, cold and wet and fathomless. A place where things go to die, swallowed by the dark.

  I lived in that world. I became that world.

  And now I’m here.

  I don’t know where I am.

  White walls.

  I blink slowly, willing them into focus.

  There are machines around me, also white, maybe cream. Lights. Beeping. The sound is comforting.

  I close my eyes.

  “She was awake a moment ago,” someone says, a familiar voice. Excited. Worried.

  My mother.

  It’s my mother’s voice.

  Why is she here in this place with the white walls?

  “Delilah,” she says. I feel familiar skin against mine. Warm. Soft. “Del, it’s your mommy here. Can you hear me?”

  I can hear her.

  I try to tell her that.

  But there’s too much peace pulling me back down.

  I surrender to it.

  I have a dream about a little girl.

  Beautiful green eyes.

  Blonde hair that shines like the sun.

  The girl is my daughter.

  We walk along the river bank and she holds my hand and squeezes it and she says to me, “I miss you, mommy. I miss you and daddy. I wish we had time together.”

  I say to her, “We have all the time in the world, little one. Just you and me.”

  “But where’s daddy?”

  My heart swells with sadness. “I don’t know, little one. But I know he loves you very, very much.”

  “I wish we had more time together,” she s
ays again.

  “But I’m right here, sweetheart.” I crouch down at her level and smooth the hair from her face. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”

  “But you’re not here,” she says and then she gestures to the river. It becomes a golden shimmering thread. “And I’m over there.”

  I frown. “Where?”

  “Where I’ve always been,” she says.

  She lets go of my hand suddenly and runs for the river, her shoes kicking up tiny pebbles from the river bank that shine like glass.

  “No!” I yell, but I’m unable to move or go after her.

  She reaches the river and dives in.

  The water absorbs her for a moment.

  In that moment everything around me stills, even the flowing water.

  She’s gone.

  She’s gone.

  She’s…

  She reappears on the other side, waving at me, translucent and shimmering like a mirage.

  “This is where I’ve always been,” she shouts across the water. “And one day you’ll be here too.”

  Then everything on that side of the river starts to dissolve, fading into gold.

  She’s gone.

  She’s dead.

  She never even had a chance to live.

  I sit straight up and cough, still worried I’m in the dream, unable to scream what I need to scream.

  Which is that my daughter is dead.

  I gave birth to her and she died.

  I almost died.

  I should have died with her.

  “Delilah.”

  I hear voices but I can’t see them. I just see unfamiliar faces staring at me, their features blurred like masks, I can’t make out who they are, who is talking.

  I’m in a room somewhere, the white walls have returned.

  I cry out, my throat garbling the words.

  “My daughter.”

  “It’s okay, you’re okay,” someone says and they take my hand and squeeze it.

  “No, no my daughter. Oh please, she’s gone. She’s gone.”

  “She’s confused, give her some space and time to make sense of it,” says someone else in a strange accent.

  The person holding my hand says, “You almost died, Del sweetheart. You lost a lot of blood. You were white as a sheet, they had to give you a blood transfusion.”

  “My daughter,” I croak. “What happened to my daughter?”

  “She was delivered premature,” the unfamiliar voice says. “You gave birth to her; do you remember that? She’s in the intensive care unit now.”

  “My daughter,” I gasp again, tears springing to my eyes. “My baby.”

  Oh god, my poor baby.

  “Shhh,” my mother says.

  My mother.

  My mother is here.

  My eyes finally see her for who she is.

  My mother, staring at me with watering eyes, holding onto my hand as tight as she’s able to. “There’s no need to worry,” she says gently. “She’s in good hands and she’s strong. She’s a fighter, just like you.”

  “Can I see her?” says a strong male voice from across the room. I look up to see Fox standing by the door. Fox is here. Fox. I’m in a hospital bed and Fox is here.

  “She needs rest but yes, if you’re quick,” the voice says and in my woozy state my head lolls to the side to see a nurse with bleached blonde hair.

  The nurse and my mother leave.

  Fox approaches me quietly, moving like his feet aren’t touching the ground. Like he’s in a dream.

  Is this a dream still?

  “No,” he says and I must have wondered it out loud. “This isn’t a dream, Del. You’re alive. You’re awake. You’re here with me.”

  I stare at him, taking him all in.

  “You’re here,” I whisper.

  He nods, grabbing my hand and holding it tight, his jaw muscle twitching. “I came as soon as I heard what happened.”

  “You were fighting a fire.”

  “I left the fire.”

  “They’ll fire you.”

  He gives me a sad smile. “That was a pretty good pun, considering you just gained consciousness.”

  I lick my lips; my mouth is so dry. “Can I get some water?”

  He reaches over and grabs a cup of ice off the stand beside me. “I think you can have ice chips,” he says. He nods his head at all the IVs and tubes and drips going into me. “You’re being taken care of otherwise.”

  “Have you seen her?” I whisper, because I’m afraid that everyone else was lying to me to make me feel better. “Have you seen our daughter?”

  Another smile, soft and sweet. “I have. Through the glass. She’s in one of those incubator things. Has your nose. I bet she has your smile too. She’s going to be a heartbreaker, just like you.”

  I’d laugh if I wasn’t so weak. “Heartbreaker. Right.”

  His features fall. Clears his throat. “Del, I didn’t…I don’t…”

  I don’t know what he’s trying to say but right now, here, I can barely keep my head up. “Whatever you’re saying, it’s okay. You’re here now. I can’t believe you did that. You left in the middle of a fire.”

  He pulls up a chair right beside me and sits down, his elbows on the edge of the bed, still holding onto my hands. “There was never any doubt. I knew what I was doing. I was an idiot for leaving you in the first place. I knew it was a mistake to go.”

  “But it’s your job,” I say weakly.

  “Was my job, probably.”

  “It was everything to you.”

  “No,” he says, voice choking up, eyes going red. “You’re everything to me. There was no questioning what I would do. Del, I don’t want to be brave for anyone else anymore. I only want to be brave for you.”

  Something inside me melts.

  My heart, I think.

  I still love this man.

  I love him with a fierceness that burns even when the rest of me is lying here two shades away from death. I love him with an energy I’ve barely been able to contain.

  “I’ll never leave your side again,” he says, kissing my hands over and over. “Not you, not the baby. I’m with the two of you forever, if only you’ll have me in your life again.” The last kiss he places on the back of my hand is a long one, a firm one, and his eyes stare at me with so much intensity I feel like I’m being healed from the inside out. “Take me back. Let me love you. Because I’m in love with you.”

  For the first time in my life, Fox is telling me he’s in love with me.

  And I believe him.

  More than that, I need him with every labored breath and weakened cell in my body. I need him like I’ve always needed him, the way we seek out the pulse of another in the dark.

  “I love you,” I whisper back.

  “I know,” he says and grins at me.

  I laugh. Trying to do a Han Solo impression always puts a smile on my face, even when it hurts.

  “You really need to let her rest,” the nurse says as she pops her head in the door.

  “When can I see the baby?” I ask her, trying to sit up straighter.

  “When you get some rest,” she says.

  “Okay,” Fox says as he gets to his feet.

  “Please don’t go,” I ask him.

  “But you want to see her, don’t you?” He shakes his head as he stares down at me. “God, you’re incredible. Do you know that? You almost died there and you were still able to give birth. You gave our daughter a fighting chance. I’ll forever be in awe of you Del.”

  “Our daughter,” I repeat. “We have to give her a name.”

  “Whatever you’d like,” he says but I can tell he has something specific in mind.

  “What about Emily?” His mother’s name.

  “Are you sure?” he asks.

  I try to nod but end up yawning instead, my head feeling too heavy to keep up. “Yes. Emily. It’s perfect.”

  “She’s perfect,” he says. “Just like you.”

  Then he lea
ns over and kisses me on the forehead and I’m whisked off to a most blissful sleep.

  23

  Delilah

  “Good morning Delilah,” the nurse Irene, my favorite nurse because of her lilting Swedish accent, says to me as she brings Emily bundled up in her arms. "Do you know what day it is?"

  "Saturday," I say, my heart beginning to bloom at the sight of Emily.

  "Oh, I'm going to miss you Delilah," she says as I sit up and she places Emily in my arms. "You have an answer for everything."

  "I try," I say. "Hello little muffin," I coo to Emily, though she's sleeping. She's always sleeping. I suppose I should be thankful for that because I have a feeling it won't last.

  "It's also the day you leave the hospital," she says.

  I can't believe it's been ten days already.

  After the complications with the preeclampsia, the doctors wanted me to stay on so they could monitor me, which worked out well since Emily was being monitored in the intensive care unit.

  Those first few days were rough. There wasn’t a moment where I wasn’t thinking about her, fretting over her. Since I was still recovering from the hemorrhaging and some of the damage to my kidneys from the preeclampsia, which is basically my blood pressure going on a rampage, I wasn’t able to be with her as often as I liked.

  I remember the first time I touched her through the incubator, my hand so big against her body, and she grasped onto my pinky finger and I nearly lost it.

  Okay, I did lose it.

  I burst into tears and even Fox couldn’t console me.

  Probably because he was crying too.

  It had just been so rough to not even remember delivering Emily, then being unconscious for the first few days after almost dying, that I was so scared to be without her. I wanted to bond with her immediately, I wanted to feed her, I wanted the reassurance that she was alive and was going to be okay. I wanted to take care of her.

  But I could barely take care of myself.

  Eventually I just had to trust the doctors that they were doing the best that they could to take care of her.

  And Fox.

  Fox was always here. If he wasn’t with me, he was bugging the doctors in the ICU to see her. He was my lifeline, the bond between Emily and me, the one keeping us connected.