Fire & Dark (The Night Horde SoCal Book 3)

by Susan Fanetti

  “Because you’re jealous of Moore.”

  He shook his head.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Pretty high opinion of yourself, puss.”

  She pushed his chin away and dropped the washcloth. As she rifled for an antiseptic wipe, she snarled, “I fucking hate it when you call me that. I could tell the first time I heard it that you call all the women you don’t care about that—and the waitress at dinner proved me right. It’s just short for ‘pussy,’ isn’t it? Because that’s how you see all women.” She was wiping his lacerations with the antiseptic, and this time, as she dug at the cut over his eye, he winced and pulled back.

  “Not all women, no.”

  Guessing what he meant, she rolled her eyes. “All women but your mother, then.”

  “What does it matter? Why do you care?”

  She shied away from that answer and instead asked another question. “Why did you come home with me?”

  “What? You invited me.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away from his face.

  “Yeah, but you got your fuck, and we’re pissed at each other. Why’d you come?”

  He stared. “I’m not pissed.”

  “Well, I am.” She set the wipe aside and got a butterfly bandage from her kit. As she affixed it over his eyebrow, she asked, “What are we doing, Connor?”

  Again he stared, but this time his eyes moved, scanning back and forth over Pilar’s face, as if he were looking for something she was hiding. But that was the point of her questions—she didn’t want to hide. She’d decided she wanted something—someone. Him. And not just for fun. She could feel their chemistry, their connection, and it fed something inside her. Maybe a guy like this would get her and would give her room for the life she lived.

  Then a mask seemed to slide over his face, and he answered her latest question. “I thought I was here to fuck you.”

  That hurt. As at dinner, when just at the moment she’d been feeling most connected, he’d said something cavalier and a little bit shitty, she felt almost like he’d literally pushed her away.

  There was going for what you wanted, and there was throwing yourself into an emotional blender, and Pilar knew that the line between the two was coming up fast. But she was just figuring all this out herself, and she knew she was changing the terms, terms she’d been the first to set up. It had been her pushing him back until tonight.

  She brushed her fingertips over a cheek that was swollen but not cut, and his eyes fluttered closed for a second. “You don’t want more than that?”

  His hands grabbed her hips, and for a second, Pilar thought he was going to pull her onto his lap. Instead, he pushed her backward and stood up.

  “I told you. I don’t like complications. I like you. I like hanging out, and I love fucking you. But no. I don’t want more than that.”

  She knew that was bullshit. She knew it, could feel the truth of it. But she didn’t call him on it. He was going to leave. When he buttoned his shirt and pulled his kutte off the back of the chair, she simply watched.

  She wasn’t surprised when he said, “I’m going. I’m sorry about the parking lot. I don’t make a habit of fucking women in ways they don’t want.”

  “I wanted it.”

  He chuckled without humor. “Okay, then. Thanks for the medical attention. I’ll see you around.”

  I’ll see you around. He was done. Fuck, Pilar did not want that. She wanted to explore what they were feeling, why they were feeling it. There was something between them. There was, damn it! “Connor, wait.”

  She reached out, but he grabbed her hand before she could touch him. “I thought we understood each other, Cordero.”

  For the first time, her last name sounded wrong in his voice. “We do. That’s my point. I think we understand each other.”

  “Not what I meant.” He dropped her hand and turned from her, and he headed straight to her front door. She followed him to the doorway between the kitchen and her living room and saw that he didn’t even pause before he opened the door and went away.

  She was still standing in the same spot, gripping the jamb with one hand, when she heard his big Harley chopper roar and then fade away.

  There’d been a window somewhere in the little time they’d known each other. Maybe it had been the morning here, after he’d spent the night, when he’d said he wanted to see her again. Maybe if she’d done something other than back away from him, the window between them would have stayed open.

  But she hadn’t. What she was feeling had surprised her, and that morning had been too early to see what she really wanted. She’d let the window close.

  Fuck.

  ~oOo~

  “Station 76 on two-story stucco residence, heavy fire and smoke, multiple exposures, heavy brush twenty feet. Report of two missing, assumed at risk. Using super booster, next company in bring a line.”

  Pilar heard Guzman’s call for backup in her headset and filed it away in her head. It was nothing she didn’t already know. She and Moore prepared to enter the structure, a house at the end of a cul de sac. Off to the side of the scene were a mother and two children, getting medical assistance from Nguyen and Perez. They were distraught. The father was in the house; he’d been trapped by the fire while trying to get their third child out.

  This was a hot one, but unless it was fully involved, a fire could usually be navigated by someone who understood it and had the right gear. The mother had reported that the little boy had been in the kids’ bathroom upstairs. Her husband had gone for him.

  Now, the staircase and hallway were engaged. And that was the puzzle. Every rescue had one; the thing that kept a citizen trapped was the thing that the rescue team had to solve. In this case, it was getting to an interior room on the second floor when the only staircase was already involved. They’d tried a ladder into a second-floor window, but the involvement blocked that option completely. They had to climb.

  And there was no human sound coming from above, no sign that anyone was hoping for help. That could be a good thing—the father could have had them on the floor away from the heat, knowing to save their oxygen.

  Or they could have been incapable of calling for help.

  While Moore called for a line, Pilar stood at the foot of the stairs and watched the fire. She put her hand on the wall; her gloves had sensors in the fingertips and palm that read out information onto her face shield about the environment—temperature, oxygen content, etc. The data glowed green and seemed to float over the wavering reds and yellows and whites in the fire.

  “I see it. I’m going up.” She tightened her grip around her Halligan and put her boot on the first step, right against the wall.

  “Cordero, fuck! Let’s get it wet down.”

  That would turn smoke and vapor into dense fog. “I won’t be able to see, then. I got it.”

  “Fuck. I’m right behind you.” He hit his mic. “We need a unit on the line in here. Rescue going hot to the second floor.”

  “Belay that. Line coming in.”

  Pilar heard the order and ignored it. Fire moved fast. She saw the way through, but it wouldn’t be there long.

  She could hear Moore huff into his mic. “No go. We’re up already.”

  Then he was right behind her, following her path. When they got to the top, the blaze looked impassable, but Pilar had seen the break in it. She crossed just as water spumed up from below, and smoke and vapor filled the air.

  They moved into the hallway, where flames were burning straight up the walls but staying close to the baseboards on the floor. Fire was a lazy bastard and always took the easiest path; Pilar turned and met Moore’s face shield, the best they could do for a meaningful look. Investigation wasn’t their field, but they both thought this looked like accelerant. On the second floor.

  That was somebody else’s problem; they were on a rescue mission. Half the doors on the hallway were open. They checked each room, Pilar laying her hand on the closed doors and reading the stats before kno
cking them in. They found fire licking up the walls, blocking the windows, creeping onto the floor space in an oddly controlled way.

  Toward the end of the hallway, on the interior side, Pilar laid her hand on a closed door and found a temperature read that suggested no fire—probably because the oxygen content was so low. Smoke must have filled the room. Nothing about this fire made sense.

  With so little oxygen, there was little danger of backdraft, so she tried the knob. It turned, but the door didn’t give. It was blocked, and Pilar he thought she knew why. She rapped on the hollow, interior door, high, then moved downward, getting a sense of the block. It was low and thick. A body, then.

  She turned and gestured to Moore, signaling what she intended. Then she raised her Halligan, meaning to hit high and rip the door in half. She could grab the kid, and Moore could get the dad. With luck, they were just unconscious.

  He nodded.

  And then the ceiling collapsed behind him. As fire fell from above, he lunged forward, into Pilar, and they tumbled to the floor. They were surrounded by flames.

  Still lying on top of her, Moore yelled into his mic, “Structural collapse. Repeat, structural collapse. The ceiling is down, second floor. Full involvement. We are flanked.” He looked around and then rolled off her. They had about six feet clear around them. If help didn’t come from below soon, they were fucked.

  “We need to get in there.”

  Pilar nodded. “Aim high.”

  Moore stood and swung his irons at the door. When he pulled out and took another swing, the water arrived and settled the fire.

  Scalding fog filled the space, bringing the temperature up to brimstone intensity. Moore ripped the door open. Father and son were on the floor on the other side, unconscious. Moore reached over what was left of the door and grabbed the father, muscling him over his shoulders. Then Pilar grabbed the boy. They picked their way through the debris and headed to the staircase.

  Outside, three engines and a tanker were now on the scene. And, joy of joys, a satellite news truck. The brush at the back was involved now, and that was a potential crisis, a wildfire waiting to break control. Moore and Pilar met paramedics at the edge of the safe zone and handed over their rescues.

  Reyes ran up to them. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Pilar answered. “Lucky break.”

  Moore laughed and pushed at her shoulder. “Only you could call that a lucky break.”

  “We’re whole. That’s lucky.”

  He nodded, and they went back to work.

  ~oOo~

  It was daylight by the time they got back to the barn. They were on a thirty-six watch, so they still had several hours on the clock. After they ran their checks, some grabbed a bite, but most hit the showers and then their bunks.

  Perez was one who’d headed to the kitchen, so Pilar had the tiny women’s bathroom to herself. She stood under the cool shower and let the fire wash away.

  Father and son were alive. They were in bad shape, but they were alive.

  They’d killed the brush fire in a few hours and had kept further exposure contained. And she and Moore had escaped that collapse alive.

  All in all, it had been a good call.

  But that fire had been weird. It hadn’t behaved like it should have, not entirely. But it had been familiar to her, too.

  She hadn’t been completely honest with Connor when he’d asked why she’d wanted to be a firefighter; there was more to the story. When she was eight, she’d been staying overnight at a friend’s house. There’d been a fire in the middle of the night, and she and Mia hadn’t been able to get out. They’d been rescued by firefighters, carried out bundled up in strong arms, and she’d known her first heroes. She could still vividly recall that night, the way she’d felt waiting in a room filling with heat and smoke, the way the firefighter’s arms had felt.

  They’d learned fire safety in school, and they’d remembered to stay low, so they’d been lying on the floor in Mia’s room, holding hands and waiting. Pilar had watched the flames, the way they’d danced, the way they’d seemed to follow a path they knew.

  At the time, of course, she hadn’t known how fire ate a food it loved, an accelerant. Now she did.

  Somebody had set the blaze when she was eight, and somebody had set the one tonight. They’d gone through the whole house, top to bottom, to douse it in fire food. While the family had slept.

  The way tonight’s fire resounded in her memory, that must have been the reason she cared so much, felt so rocked—she’d done her job, gotten the victims out, delivered them alive to paramedics. She and Moore had come through their excitement unscathed. It had been a good call.

  But she felt lonely. So fucking lonely. She wanted someone to give a shit that she could have died tonight. She wanted someone to bundle her up in strong arms and let her feel rescued for a little while.

  It was stupid, and she didn’t understand how an ancient childhood memory and a weird fire tonight had tangled up and made her lonely. But that was the feeling she felt most strongly.

  Connor had turned and left her house more than a week earlier. She missed him. They’d barely gotten to know each other, but she felt keenly that something important had been lost. That he was somebody who might get her, might get her life, might make room for it, since his own was outside convention, too.

  But he didn’t want to try.

  She should already have called Doug or Charlie, her fuck buddies, and fucked herself straight, but she hadn’t had an appetite for either of them, or for a random hookup. Ironically, sex without strings felt too complicated. Or she was already gone for the biker who only wanted to play. Either way, she was lonely.

  When Perez came in, Pilar shut off the water and grabbed her towel.

  “You leave me any hot?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t want hot tonight. Already had plenty.” She dried off and pulled the clothes she wore here to sleep—loose sweatpants and an old t-shirt—on, then braided her unmanageable thicket of hair. She didn’t feel like undertaking the fuss to get it dried decently. “I’m gonna try to crash for a few.”

  In the bunkroom, at the corner between the men’s bunks and the little nook they’d made for the women, Moore was waiting. He, too, was freshly showered and dressed in sweats. The blackout shades on the windows were drawn against the morning sun, and the room had the eerie blue glow of midnight.

  “You okay, chica?” He reached out and picked up the braid lying over her shoulder. His face had healed some since the fight with Connor and now was mottled in faint, aged-looking pastels of yellow and green.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Your force field is up.” That was what he called it when she was in a difficult mood.

  She pulled her braid out of his hand. “Just tired. I’ll catch a couple, then I’ll be fine.”

  He squinted at her, then nodded. “Yeah, me too. Assuming we stay quiet, I’m on the grill for lunch.”

  “Cool.” She patted his bare belly and moved past him, then dropped to her bunk. She really was exhausted.

  And so fucking lonely.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Connor walked out of the dorm, escorting a little twenty-year old education major to the front door. Mingling aromas of coffee and bacon filled the air, and Connor’s stomach rumbled. He needed to get…Kristy…out of here and get some grub before he showered and headed to the shop.

  He’d already called her a cab. She had the wide-eyed look of a girl who was regretting some recent decisions. As she scanned the Hall, though, she settled a little. It was a Wednesday. The Hall was just a room, and as clean as it ever got. A couple of girls in the kitchen, and Trick slouched in a chair, dressed in his shop coverall, rubbing a hand over his newly-shorn head and holding some tattered paperback in his other hand. But he wasn’t reading; the giant television on the wall was showing the morning news, and Trick was focused there.

  Connor opened the front door and led her into the early-morning sunshine, and the cab
was just pulling up. “Okay, Kristy. You have a good day now.” He leaned in to kiss her cheek, but she jerked back.

  “It’s KEARsty. I totally told you like a million times.”

  He was losing his appetite for young chicks. Jesus, they were insipid. No pussy was tight enough to compensate for that whiny way so many of them had of talking, the way they turned up the last syllable of every sentence so that it sounded uncertain. “Okay, puss. Okay. Get on back to your life now.” He opened the cab door and guided her in, then leaned in the front window and paid the driver.

  Then he turned around and went inside.