by Olivia Rush
“Then we’re splitting into two teams,” he said. “I’ll lead the guys here in getting this under control, and you go over to the school and make sure that this shit doesn’t get out of hand!”
I was in charge—in charge of men once again, their lives in my hands. The task felt daunting, but I knew I could handle it.
“First thing’s first, though!” he shouted. “Get this civvie out of here!”
I nodded, and Chloe moved close to my side.
“Stone, you and Mike are with me—let’s do it!”
They nodded and formed up at my side. The four of us rushed out of the basement as the chief and the rest of his team went to work getting the fire under control. Minutes later, we were back outside, the cool, smokeless air a relief like nothing else. Both fire trucks were outside, their lights flashing in the dark of the night. The rest of the station crew was busy getting the hoses ready to douse the buildings.
But I knew that if we didn’t get the flammable materials taken care of we’d need all the water in the damn East River to get this fire under control. Knowing that I didn’t have a second to waste, I ran over to one of the trucks, geared up, and led the team over to the school.
“Through the basement?” asked Stone.
“No,” I said. “Won’t be able to see what we’re getting into. Gotta go in through the front.”
The men and I hurried up to the front doors and pried them open. As soon as we had access to the main hall, I turned just in time to see a fleet of NYPD cruisers pull up to the street in front of the school. The block was becoming packed with cars and pedestrians—it was a scene of chaos unlike any of the other fires.
And I could even see the rippling orange of the flames through the basement of the adjoining building. Chief and the rest of the men were busy at work evacuating people out of the apartments. But I knew that if we didn’t get the fire in the school under control, it’d all be for nothing.
“Get in there and lead out anyone inside!” I shouted to the cops.
Normally, barking orders at the NYPD like this would’ve gone over like a damn lead balloon, but I didn’t have time to screw around—lives were at stake. The nearest NYPD officers nodded in agreement and hurried into the school after me. The men and I turned in the direction of the basement and the police turned toward the classrooms.
“Wait!” called out a familiar voice behind me.
I turned and saw that it was Chloe. She stood in the entryway of the main doors of the school, her frame backlit by the wild strobe of the red and blue lights behind her.
“Chloe!” I called out. “What the hell are you doing?”
“These guys are gonna need to know where the kids are, and I’m the girl to help!”
I glanced over at the cops, who seemed to be waiting to hear my answer. It was risky, but she was right—she did work here, after all.
“Do it!” I shouted out.
Chloe didn’t waste any time. She joined the cops and started giving directions right away, letting them know the fastest way to get to the upper floors.
I couldn’t help but smirk at how confidently she took command of New York’s finest.
But we had a job to do.
“Let’s go!” I called out to the men.
They formed up around me and we all made our way to the basement doors. With a grunt and a heave, I pulled them open, revealing a large set of stairs. The men took my flanks as we moved down slowly and carefully.
“You smell that?” said Stone, sniffing the air.
I did. It was the smell of something on fire. And I could tell that it wasn’t from next door.
“Fuck,” said Mike. “The fire’s already jumped over.”
He was right.
“We gotta move, and right fucking now,” I said.
The boys nodded in agreement—I didn’t need to repeat myself.
The three of us hurried down the stairs, the smell growing stronger and more acrid with each step down. Soon, we were in the massive basement of the school, which made the network of rooms under the building next door look quaint and easy to manage.
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to remember where I’d been before.
“This way!” I said, leading the men to the right.
I wasn’t positive this was the direction, but the smell was strong from there and, more than that, I had a gut instinct. Sometimes that was all you had to go on.
The three of us made our way down the stone-walled hallways, eventually arriving in an area that looked very familiar to me. Sure enough, down at the end was the small window I’d used to get into the school the first time.
But right at the moment I made the realization, a massive burst of flame shot from the door at the opposite end of the hall.
“Shit!” shouted Mike. “Fire’s made the jump!”
“We gotta get the material out of the storage room!” I shouted. “Get it out that window and the boys outside can put out the fire!”
Stone and Mike nodded, and we set to work. They followed my lead down to the door to the storage room. Just before ducking in, I took one last look at the fire at the end of the hallway, the blaze moving closer and closer to us by the second. I guessed that we had about two minutes before the flames reached the storage room. And if they did before we got the flammable material out, we were done for.
The three of us rushed into the supply room where the material sat waiting for us.
“Let’s move, move!” I shouted.
The men didn’t waste any time in getting to work. Together, the three of us carried every last can out of the room, handing it to a pair of other firemen from one of the nearby stations who waited for us on the other side of the window.
Over the course of a tense minute, we managed to clear the room. Or so I thought.
“We got one left, Ethan!” shouted Mike. “I’m going in for it!”
But the flames had already reached us—he didn’t have any time.
“Mike, we gotta get out now!” I called out.
But he didn’t listen. Headstrong as ever, Mike rushed into the supply room through the encroaching flames.
“Stone! Get out through the window and be ready to pull us out as fast as fucking possible!”
“You got it!” he shouted.
Stone hurried back through the window, and I was left alone, the roaring flames in front of me blocking off more and more of the room with each passing second. I prepared to rush in, but before I could even take a step, the wood doorframe cracked and broke, collapsing and blocking the entrance to the supply room.
Mike was stuck.
“Ethan!” shouted Mike over the flames. “You gotta help!”
I took one glance back toward the window, Stone already on the other side, a worried expression on his face.
There wasn’t even a question of whether or not I was going in for Mike—there was not a chance I was going to leave one of my men behind. Taking a deep breath, my face slick with sweat from the flames, I covered my face with my arm and broke through the flaming wood.
“Let’s go!” I shouted to Mike.
Sure enough, he had the last remaining tin of material in his hands. And just one would be enough to take this fire to the next level. I stuck out my hand, and he took it, his other arm holding the material under the safety of his fire-retardant coat.
With a firm pull, I yanked Mike through the fire and out back into the hallway. I winced as he moved through the flames as I hoped against hope that his jacket would be enough protection. Sure enough, it was.
“Go, go!” I yelled.
Mike didn’t need another command. He flew toward Stone, handing him the material before Stone helped him out. I was the last man to leave, and that was just how it ought to be.
The night air was so cool compared to the fire that it felt as though I’d stepped out into a blizzard. The men and I hurried out of the way as the rest of the crew turned the hose onto the roaring fire under the school. Within minutes they
had it under control. The story was the same over at the business—thanks to the quick work of the crew, the fire had been put out before it could spread to any of the other apartments.
I took a quick scan of the crew and saw that just about everyone was accounted for.
“Chloe!” I shouted, spotting her back near the fire trucks, a couple dozen dazed-looking kids gathered around her, along with the truck’s crew and the NYPD officers with whom she’d gone into the school.
She ran toward me as soon as she saw that it was me. I stripped off my helmet and fire jacket, dropping them to the ground as the two of us embraced. The kids let out a cheer as we kissed.
I didn’t think there was anything that could’ve made me happier at that moment than holding Chloe in my arms, knowing she was safe.
“I was so damn worried,” she said, looking me over as if making sure I was real. “You ran into that basement like a lunatic.”
“Someone had to do it,” I said. “I guess a lunatic was just the man for the job.”
Chloe and I kissed again, her lips just the kind of warmth I wanted. But there was still a job to be done. I turned to Stone, who was standing nearby.
“What’s the story?” I said, letting Chloe go and turning my attention back to the school.
“Looks like you were right—with that flammable shit out of there, we were able to get the rest of the fire under control nice and quick,” said Stone.
I glanced over at Mike, seeing that he was being treated by some EMTs for possible smoke inhalation symptoms. Everything seemed to be under control.
Rick rushed over to me with a worried look on his face made it clear that not all was A-OK.
“What is it?” I asked, knowing instantly that something was very, very wrong.
“It’s the chief, Ethan,” he said.
“What about him?”
“He got hurt. Bad.”
“Where is he?”
Rick pointed toward an ambulance a little further down the road, the lights on top flashing white and red. I turned toward Chloe who’d been close enough to hear everything.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll be here with the kids. Go see what’s wrong.”
I nodded and was off, Stone following me close behind. We soon arrived at the ambulance and were greeted with the sight of Chief Swift being carted on a stretcher, the EMTs hurrying him into the back to the ambulance. He looked to be unconscious, and a swath of blood was smeared his wrinkled face.
“What the hell happened?” I asked, turning to one of the men from a nearby station, a redheaded kid I didn’t recognize.
“Some kid was trapped on the top floor of the apartment. We told Chief that we could handle it, but he didn’t want to hear another word about it. He went up and grabbed the kid, but some falling beam or something hit him on the way down. The kid’s fine, but the chief…”
His unsure tone told me everything I needed to know. I ran back over to Chief and took his hand.
“You stubborn old bastard,” I said, fear stinging my heart. “Is he going to be OK?” I asked one of the EMTs.
“It’s hard to say now,” he said. “But we need to get him to the hospital right now.”
I nodded, letting go of Chief’s hand. The EMTs wheeled his stretcher into the back of the ambulance, climbed in with him, and shut the doors. And just like that, he was gone.
“You the man in charge around here?” spoke a Brooklyn-accented voice from behind me.
I turned around and was face-to-face with a uniformed NYPD officer. My first instinct was to say “no,” that he was looking for the chief. But with Chief out of commission, I supposed that I was the man he wanted to talk to.
“That’s me,” I said. “Ethan Stokes.”
“Sargent Grimes,” he said.
We shook.
“We hear that you’re the guy who saw these firebugs up close. You mind letting us know what they look like so we can track these bastards down?”
Part of me wanted to give this officer a piece of my mind for not listening to me earlier, to tell him that I’d warned them, to tear him a new one for letting things get this far.
Instead, I realized that none of that would do any good.
“Three guys,” I said. “One with a scar…”
I told him everything I could, the officer jotting it all down and nodding along. When I was done, he slipped the notebook into his pocket.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll have these guys before the night’s out.” And then he was off without another word.
“Better late than never,” said Chloe.
She stepped to my side, wrapped her arm around my waist, and leaned her head on my shoulder.
“It’s over,” she said.
“Not over yet,” I was quick to add. “The arsonists are still on the loose, and Chief…”
She turned her head, her eyes filled with a steely resolve.
“They’ll get them. Don’t you worry. I heard the cops talking, and they’ve got just about the entire force looking for them. Turns out when you try to burn down an elementary school, that’s enough to get even the NYPD to pay attention.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“And there’s nothing you can do about the chief now,” she continued. “But no matter what happens, I’m still alive because of you. If you hadn’t been there…”
As I looked at her, I knew I didn’t even want to consider how things might’ve gone.
“And not just me—you led your men into an inferno and brought them both out alive. The kids are OK, and the school’s still standing, all because of you. You’re a damn hero, Ethan.”
The smallest of smiles formed on my face. I took Chloe’s chin into my hand, leaned in, and kissed her deeply. When I finally let her go, she laughed a little and rubbed her thumb across my face.
“You’re gonna get me all sooty,” she said.
I let out a dry laugh.
“I love you, Chloe,” I said, the words coming out as though on their own.
Chloe formed her mouth into a line, tears forming in her eyes.
“I love you too, Ethan.”
“And sooty or not, I’m gonna kiss you again.”
She nodded and stood on her tiptoes. I brought my lips to hers and kissed her hard.
For now, everything was all right. I didn’t know what was going to shake down over the next few days, but with Chloe by my side, I knew I could handle anything.
24
ETHAN
“Goddammit, I can be a real stupid asshole sometimes. Why doesn’t anyone tell me that?” Chief lay on his back in the hospital bed, his face covered in bruises, his right arm in a cast, and his right leg in traction.
“I try to,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Problem is, you’re a stubborn asshole, too. A trait like that tends to make constructive criticism a little more on the difficult side.”
Chief sighed and shook his head.
“We did it, though,” he said. “We saved everyone in that building, we saved all those kids in that school, and we didn’t lose a single man. Hell of a job.”
“That’s because we have a hell of a chief,” I said. “We wouldn’t be the team we are without you, boss.”
A resigned expression formed on Chief’s weathered face as he nodded.
“Had,” he said, after a few moments of silence.
I furrowed my brow.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ethan, I’m done.”
These words coming out of the mouth of a man like Chief Swift were like hearing a dog meow—it just didn’t seem right, or normal.
“I hope you don’t mean what I think you mean by that.”
“What else could I mean?” asked Chief.
“But…you saved that kid,” I said. “That’s gotta count for something, gotta show that you’re not totally out of the game.”
“I barely saved that kid. I mean, look at me—I’m gonna be laid up in bed for t
he next month, and I’m damn lucky I didn’t get my back broke. A younger man would’ve been out of that building with that kid before the wood even had a chance to break. I’m lying in this damn bed because I’m old and stubborn. And I’m not gonna hear a damn word otherwise.”
I said nothing, instead letting the chief speak.
“What I’m gonna say now I should’ve said a year ago if I’d had any damn bit of sense. Ethan, I’m retiring as chief. And you know what that means about your job position.”
The words hit me like a cannonball. Sure, the chief and I had discussed it briefly, so I’d known it was coming. But hearing it out of his mouth like this, knowing it was going to come to pass… That was something else entirely.
“And if there was any bit of doubt in my mind about your ability to be a leader of men, it went out the window when you went down into the basement of that school with Mike and Stone. You risked your life for Mike and brought both of you out of there still standing. That was one of the most impressive displays I’ve ever seen in my time with the FDNY. I’m more than confident in you, son. And you should feel the same way.”
Part of me felt that objecting was the thing to do, to tell the chief that his words were too much. But instead, I said nothing.
“So,” he said, adjusting in his bed. “There’s still some paperwork and all that crap to deal with, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re the acting chief of Ladder 128. Congratulations, Ethan—couldn’t imagine a better man for the job.”
“Thanks, Chief.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I mean, thanks…Mr. Swift?” I laughed. “That’s gonna be hard to get used to saying.”
“And me hearing,” he said.
Before either of us had a chance to say anything else, the door to the hospital room flew open. Chief and I both turned our attention to whoever’d just burst it.
Sure enough, it was Chloe.
“Hey, guys,” she said hurriedly as she rushed into the room. “Hope I’m not barging in on anything important.”
“Nah,” said Chief. “Just discussing some staffing concerns.”