But the morning rush had already come and gone, and there was no competition for the coveted curbside spot.
I had already decided to bypass the maze of orange traffic cones and pull straight up to the curb, when I was suddenly intercepted by a traffic guard in a bright orange vest.
He jumped in front of my bumper and I slammed on the brakes. The car immediately skidded to a stop, but the traffic guard still felt compelled to blow his whistle at me.
I had assumed that he was just reprimanding me for cutting across the empty carpool lane, but as his eyes glared at me through the windshield, I realized that he had already started sizing me up.
My matte black Dodge Challenger Hellcat wasn’t exactly a ‘dad car,’ and I didn’t exactly look like the kinda guy that you’d find hanging out in an elementary school parking lot.
I already knew what came next…
The traffic guard stomped around to the side of my car, then tapped his knuckles on the driver side window. I sighed and rolled the window down an inch.
“Is there a problem, officer?” I asked with a sardonic snarl.
“You tell me,” he snapped back, peering into my car through the cracked window. “What is your business here?”
There were a lot of ways that I would have liked to answer that question, but my daughter was in the backseat and I didn’t want her to see Prince Charming turn into the Big Bad Wolf. So instead, I slid off my sunglasses and glared up at the traffic guard.
“I’m dropping off my daughter,” I said.
On cue, Charlotte unbuckled herself from her booster seat in the back row and climbed over the center console. Her head popped up over my shoulder.
The traffic guard looked disappointed, but he backed away from the car and waved me towards the curbside.
Charlotte kissed me on the cheek, then she flung her Hello Kitty backpack over her shoulder and skipped towards the school.
I waited until she had disappeared through the doors, then I flicked my eyes back to the traffic guard.
I tightened my grip on the black leather steering wheel and revved the Hellcat’s Hemi V8 engine.
The traffic guard glared at me from across the parking lot, then he raised a walkie-talkie to his mouth.
“I’ll give you something to talk about…”
I shoved the drive stick into gear, then I dug my foot down on the gas and unleashed the full fury of the Hellcat’s 707 horsepower engine.
The car tore across the parking lot in the span of a split second, leaving the traffic guard in a cloud of black tire smoke.
Adrenaline was coursing through my veins like electric current, and my heart was pounding into my ribcage like a fucking jackhammer. The only sound I could hear was the rumble of the Hellcat’s Hemi ringing in my ears as I weaved through downtown Hartford.
When I saw the red brick firehouse, I eased up on the gas and let the car coast into the gravel parking lot.
As soon as I cut off the engine, I heard it, the sound of the fire alarm.
CHAPTER EIGHT | DESIREE
“Ray Bradbury. Ayn Rand. Anthony Burgess. George Orwell. Aldous Huxley….”
I recited each of the names out loud as I spelled them out on the whiteboard. When I had finished my list, I capped my Dry Erase marker and turned to face the classroom.
“Can anybody tell me what these authors all have in common?”
Silence.
“Nobody?”
My eyes darted around the room, surveying the students in my first period AP English class. They were all wearing the same bored expression, and none of them made a peep.
“Ok. Maybe this will help…”
I turned back to the list of authors on the whiteboard, then I uncapped my marker and raised it towards the first name on the list,
“Ray Bradbury wrote ‘Fahrenheit 451,’” I said, scribbling the book title next to the author’s name. “And Ayn Rand wrote ‘Atlas Shrugged’...”
I worked my way down the list, until I had scribbled a book title next to each of the names on the whiteboard. Then I capped my marker and turned back to the class.
“What about now?” I asked. “Anyone want to take a stab at it?
Someone cleared their throat. A few students shifted around in their seats, and a girl sitting in the front row smacked her gum loudly.
Seriously?! I had just about lost hope for my AP English class, when I saw a hand shoot up from the back of the room.
“Yes!” I pointed at the student eagerly. “Go ahead! What do you think all of these authors have in common?”
The poor kid looked like he instantly regretted raising his hand, and he slid down into his desk before he mumbled, “They were all on the summer reading list?”
My shoulders slumped, and I pressed my lips together firmly to hide my disappointment.
“That’s technically true,” I said gently. “But that’s not the connection that I’m looking for…”
There was a murmur of giggles, and the volunteer slid down further in his desk and buried his face. Across the classroom, I heard another student mutter under his breath, “What a fucking idiot…”
My eyes flicked towards the source of the insult, a kid with a bad Justin Bieber haircut and a Boston Bruins jersey.
“I didn’t catch that,” I glared at him pointedly, crossing my arms. “Could you say that again?”
“I didn’t say anything…” he mumbled.
“Are you sure about that? It sounded like you had an idea that you’d like to share with the rest of the class,” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Come on, let’s hear it. What do you think these authors all have in common?”
He glared at me, then glanced up at the whiteboard.
“Uhh….” he shook his head absently, drawing a blank. “They’re all dudes?”
“Not quite,” I said. “Actually, Ayn Rand is a female author.”
There was more snickering, and Cody Wyatt leaned back in his desk and mumbled,
“Even I knew that!”
I sighed and rubbed my forehead. This is going to be a loooong school year…
I was about to head back to my desk, when I saw Callie Watson hesitantly raise her hand.
“Callie!” I perked up. “What’s your guess?”
“Well…um…” she bit her lip nervously, “They’re all famous examples of dystopian literature?”
“YES!” I pumped my fists into the air enthusiastically. “EXACTLY!”
Callie slumped forward with relief, and I flashed her a grateful smile.
“Callie is absolutely right!” I told the class as I turned back to the whiteboard. “Above the list of authors and book titles, I wrote,
DYSTOPIAN LITERATURE
“We’re going to spend the next few weeks focusing on dystopian literature,” I announced to the class. “By the end of this unit, you should all be familiar with the authors on this list, as well as the themes and--”
I was cut off mid-sentence by the loud wailing scream of the fire alarm.
The classroom buzzed with a murmur of mixed responses, annoyance, amusement, and confusion. Some students laughed and cracked jokes; others clasped their hands over their ears and winced at the loud ringing sound…
“Is the school on fire?!” the gum-smacking girl in the front row squealed hysterically.
“Chill out, dude! It’s just a fire drill,” a male student bellowed behind her.
It was standard procedure to have a series of scheduled fire drills at the beginning of the school year… but I hadn’t gotten any notifications about a drill scheduled for today.
Either way, I knew the procedure by heart, and I jumped into action.
“Alright, listen up!” I shouted over the siren. “I need everybody to form a single-file line by the door!”
I heard a few annoyed groans, and then one by one the students began standing up and packing their bags.
I grabbed the attendance list from my desk and we
dged it under my arm, then I made my way towards the door.
“We’re going to exit the building together, then assemble at our designated meeting point!” I called out to the class. “It’s very important that you follow me, and that we all stick together. Understood?”
I heard an affirmative mumble, then I yanked open the classroom door.
“Alright, let’s go!” I gestured for the class to trail behind me as I stepped out into the hallway.
There didn’t seem to be any sense of urgency as my students meandered behind me, swapping jokes and complaints. We filed through a set of emergency exit doors, then crossed a stretch of grass to reach our designated meeting point in the student parking lot.
Other classes had already assembled in the lot, and as we got closer, it struck me that they were all staring back at the school.
They were all… silent.
Then I heard a voice from my group shout,
“HOLY SHIT! THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE!”
I froze in my tracks and spun around, and when I did, I felt my jaw drop open. Sure enough, a giant cloud of black smoke was billowing from the roof of the cafeteria.
The mood immediately changed. The snide remarks and carefree jokes were instantly replaced with a sense of somber urgency as we walked the rest of the distance towards the parking lot, then clustered together in a circle.
“Oh my God, Ms. Leduc!” one of my students sobbed frantically. “I left my purse in the classroom! I have to go back and get it--”
“Nobody is going anywhere!” I said firmly, gripping the clipboard under my arm.
“Bu-but it’s Tory Burch!” she stammered in protest.
“More like Tory Burns!” the student in the Bruins jersey cackled. I shot him a dark glare, and he immediately sulked away.
“I need to take attendance to make sure we all made it out of the building,” I announced, fixing my eyes on the clipboard. “Listen for your name!”
One by one, I read out the names of my students, and one by one, I checked them off the list. I worked my way down the roster quickly, until…
“Callie Watson?” I called out. I pressed the pen down over her name, ready to cross it off the list… but I heard nothing.
I glanced up, and my eyes scanned around the cluster of students that were assembled around me.
“Callie Watson?” I repeated, raising my voice. I stood up on my tip-toes, and I craned my neck to get a better look around.
“She’s not here!” someone called out.
“Where is she?!”
“I don’t know… but she’s not here!”
My heart started racing. Callie had been sitting in my classroom just before the fire alarm went off… she had to be here.
I dug my fingers into my hairline and clamped down as I stared back at the school, retracing the footsteps that we had made…
Could we have lost her somewhere along the way? Could she have gotten mixed up with another class? Could she still be inside?!
I didn’t want to consider that last possibility, but I knew that I didn’t have a choice. If Callie was still inside the building, she could be in danger; immediate danger.
If that was the case, she might not have time to wait until the fire crew arrived. It could be too late…
I was the only one who knew that she was missing; she was my student, and my responsibility. I had to do something.
Then a second wave of realization struck, and I felt my stomach turned into a bottomless sinkhole of dread.
Those boys…
I instantly played back the conversation that I had with Callie the other day, about the group of guys that liked to torment her.
What if they had found her in the halls? What if they had cornered her inside the building?!
The swirling sense of dread in my stomach stiffened into anger. That’s when I knew exactly what I had to do.
“Take this,” I said bluntly, shoving my clipboard into the nearest pair of hands. “Stay here and stay together.”
“Wait, what?!”
“Ms. Leduc, where are you--”
“You can’t go back!”
I could hear voices calling after me as I trudged back towards the burning building, but I tuned them all out.
I had to find Callie.
CHAPTER NINE | RORY
I’d be lying if I told you that I never fantasized about watching Hartford High School burn to the ground.
When I was a teenager I used to daydream about walking out to the street in front of my mother's house and dropping a lit match on the asphalt, then watching as the fire spread in all directions. I imagined the flames growing wider and taller as they consumed the entire city; every road, every street sign, every building… everything.
I imagined my mother’s house, the locker room at Hartford High, the old neighborhood park… every place that I had ever felt hurt or vulnerable or worthless. I watched them all go up in flames, burning and imploding until they simply ceased to exist.
Nowadays that kind of talk would earn me a spot on the FBI watch list… but the fantasies were never about hurting people or getting revenge. Believe it or not, I didn’t give a shit about either of those things.
When I imagined Hartford going up in flames, I wasn’t actually fantasizing about destroying the people or places that had hurt me. I was fantasizing about destroying the fragments of myself that had been hurt.
I wanted to drop that lit match on my past and ignite all of my weaknesses and vulnerabilities. I wanted the flames to burn through every painful memory or scar; to blaze through my body and consume me from the inside out, until there was nothing left.
As I got older, I came to terms with the fact that I couldn’t separate myself from my past. It would always live inside of me, like a cancer that couldn’t be cured. I would never be able to destroy that part of myself… so instead, I buried it.
I buried all of the pain and and insecurity underneath a slab of anger and resentment. I paved over my soft spots with rock-hard concrete. I covered my scars with tattoos, and I trained every muscle in my body so that I would never feel weak again.
I made myself into the man I am today to defy the boy I was back then. I thought I had put the past behind me; I thought that those fragments of my life would remain buried forever...
But when the fire truck wheeled around the corner and I saw the black plumes of smoke pouring out of Hartford High School, I was knocked straight back down to my knees.
I had imagined watching Hartford High burn to the ground hundreds of times… but the scene playing out in front of me now wasn’t just some fucked up fantasy or angst-filled teenage daydream.
This time, it was real life.
“Dispatch said the fire started in the cafeteria,” Walker barked from behind the wheel as he steered the fire truck absently through the school parking lot. “But... where the fuck is the cafeteria?!”
He squinted through the truck’s windshield, then he flicked his eyes towards the crew member in the passenger seat. Instead of offering guidance, Troy Hart responded with a defensive glare.
“Why are you asking me?!” he threw up his hands. “Do I look like the kind of guy who hangs around a high school in my spare time?!”
“Do you really want us to answer that?” Logan Ford teased from the backseat. He was already fully geared up, and he was balancing the handle of a long fire axe between his knees.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” Troy shot Logan a glare over his shoulder.
“I dunno,” Logan shrugged passively. “Maybe the girls at Rusty’s Tavern were a little too old for your liking? Maybe you set your sights on something a little bit… younger?”
“Pffft, yeah fucking right!” Troy scoffed with a disgusted smirk. “High school girls?! Really?!”
“Come on, Troy,” Duke Williams chimed in playfully. “I think we all know you have a type…”
“Yeah, my type is women,” Troy s
aid. “Adult women.” Then, with a suggestive thrust of his hips, he added, “You must be eighteen or older to ride this ride…”
“That narrows it down to the graduating class, then!” Logan teased. Troy retaliated by throwing his fist into the backseat.
“The high school is on fire!” Walker snapped from behind the wheel. “Can y’all stop thinking about your dicks for five fucking seconds so we can figure out where we’re going?!”
The cab went silent.
“Thank you,” Walker said. “Now… does anyone know where the cafeteria is?”
“It’s--” Logan started to say, but I spoke over him,
“It’s on the other side of the building,” I said. “Behind the auditorium.”
All eyes in the cab immediately flicked to me -- including Walker’s in the rear-view mirror. I got the impression that they had forgotten I was there; that they hadn’t even noticed me slipping into my gear back at the station, then following them onto the truck.
“Thank you, Rory,” Walker said. His eyes stayed locked on me in the rear-view mirror for a few seconds, then he followed my directions and drove us towards the opposite side of the building.
Crew members started to jump out onto the curb before the truck had even skidded to a full stop in front of the high school. As soon as their boots hit the pavement, they scattered. Everyone had a job to do or a task to accomplish; everyone moved with a sense of purpose and direction.
Logan and Troy unwound the truck’s thick firehouse and started dragging it across the parking lot. Duke jogged towards the fire hydrant, then squatted down and began to twist open the water supply valve with a pentagonal wrench.
I was the only crew member without a defined role or task, and I stood stupidly on the curb as everyone else scrambled purposefully around me.
My heart was roaring harder than the Hellcat’s V8 engine, and my shoulders were heavy under the weight of my brand new nomex turnout coat.
My custom-ordered turnout gear had finally arrived. I had found it waiting for me in my cubby in the locker room when I arrived at the firehouse that morning.
The Complete Firehouse 56 Series Page 64