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 said. “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.
&
nbsp; “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.
I didn’t have time to admire the gear… the fire alarm was ringing when I arrived at the station, and I had to rush to pull on the suit and follow the crew out to the truck that was waiting in the vehicle bay.
I didn’t hear the call from dispatch, and I didn’t even realize where we were headed until we pulled up in front of the high school.
I glanced up at the brick building tower over me, and my stomach twisted into knots as all of those long-buried memories and emotions came rushing back to the surface.
Then I felt somebody grab me by the arm of my jacket,
“There’s no time for sulking, lone wolf,” Walker grunted, dragging me towards the building. “We need to locate where the fire started.”
As soon as we pushed through the doors and stepped into the building, we were greeted by an almost-impenetrable wall of black smoke. I could barely see my own two hands in front of me, let alone the room around me.
All I had was my memory to guide me…
“This way,” I said, charging forward and taking the lead.
The only thing I could see in all directions was black smoke, but when I blinked my eyes I could see a clear vision of what the high school had looked like eleven years ago. I saw the hallways and the stairwells; every door and every window.
I trusted my memory and kept walking through the smoke, arms stretched out ahead of me and Walker holding onto the back of my coat. Finally I felt my hands hit a second set of doors.
We pushed through them and found ourselves in a hallway. It was considerably less smoky, and I got my first good look at my surroundings, the old yellow lockers that lined the wall, the red brick walls, the giant mural of Hartford High’s mascot.
Everything was exactly the way I remembered it. Underneath the heavy stench of smoke, it even smelled the same; like chlorine and glue and old library books.
“Rory, I need you to tell me where we’re going,” Walker barked urgently through his face shield.
“Right,” I said, forcing myself to focus. “The fire must have started in the kitchen. That would explain why this side of the building is already smoked out…”
“Is there any way to access the kitchen?” Walker asked.
I glanced grimly back in the direction that we had just come from. The glass doors were holding in the smoke, but they wouldn’t be able to for long; black tufts were already streaming through the crack at the bottom of the door.
Walker followed my gaze, then sighed and amended his question,
“Is there any way to access the kitchen besides the way we just came?”
I pinched my eyes shut as I tried to remember the school’s layout. I tried to focus, but my mental map was marked with red x’s, designating every fist fight and confrontation. I couldn’t separate the hallways and common areas from the memories of what had happened there.
“There’s a shortcut!” I remembered suddenly. “This way!”
I took off running down the hallway. My heavy boots thudded on the tile floor, and my breath made foggy circles on the transparent shield that hung down from my helmet and covered my face.
I knew that we were getting close to the fire again. The air was getting hot and thick, and every breath I took flooded my lungs with smoke. Still, I pushed forward.
I didn’t stop running until I reached a dead-end, where the hallway split in two directions.
“Left or right?!” Walker shouted, running up behind me.
I already knew that turning left would take us back towards the cafeteria… but for some reason, I still found myself glancing to the right.
And that’s when I saw a woman running towards us, frantically waving her arms over her head.
Not just any woman; it was her.
I recognized her immediately. Even though I was standing in a burning building and wearing fifty-plus pounds of turnout gear, I felt an ice-cold chill race through my spine.
At first I didn’t believe my eyes. I assumed that she just another memory, or another figment of my imagination… but then Walker saw her, too,
“What the--” he grunted. “I thought the building was evacuated? What the hell is she doing in here?!”
That’s a good question… I shook my head, speechless.
In that instant I forgot all about the black smoke and the fire burning in the cafeteria kitchen. I forgot about Walker, and I forgot about rest of the crew waiting for us back outside.
All I could focus on was her.
In my graveyard of painful memories, Desiree Leduc was the one I had buried the deepest. She was also the one memory that refused to stay buried. For eleven years, she had haunted me like a ghost from my past. And for eleven years, I had tried to forget.
But now, eleven years of suppressed anger and hurt suddenly dissolved into thin air.
Now, Desiree Leduc wasn’t just a buried memory or a ghost from the past...
Now she real, and she was running straight towards me.
I started walking towards her, and as I closed the distance between us I yanked off my helmet. My eyes burned from the smoke and the hot air stung my skin, but I barely noticed.
Without the shield over my eyes, I could see her clearly… and she could see me too.
“Des…”
She froze, and her big brown eyes widened around me.
Does she recognize me? Does she remember?
She took a small breath and opened her mouth to say something, but before she could form the words… she fainted.
CHAPTER TEN | DESIREE
I blinked open my eyes and was immediately blinded by a flash of bright light beaming down from the shiny chrome sky. I dragged my hand towards my face to shield my eyes, and that’s when I realized something was wrong.
Like, wrong wrong.
I was on my back, my entire body was stiff and numb, and my lungs felt like they had been filled with a gallon of sand.
My mind raced with questions, where the hell am I?! What happened, and how did I end up here?!
I forced my eyes open again, and this time I squinted through the bright light until the chrome sky came into focus.
Turns o
ut it wasn’t a sky at all; it was a ceiling. I could see the fuzzy shape of my reflection hovering directly above me. My eyes widened as they flicked around, taking note of my surroundings, the IV drip, the soft beep of a heart monitor, the sterile smell of bleach and isopropyl alcohol.
Am I in a… ambulance?!
I tried to push myself up, but a heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder and eased me back down onto the stretcher.
Once the back of my head touched down on the crunchy paper pillow, a face popped into view above me.
“Welcome back, sleeping beauty!” the female EMT grinned down at me. According to the name badge embroidered on her black shirt, her name was ‘OLIVIA BECK.’
“Wh-what--” I tried to mumble, but my throat was too dry. The words turned into a wheeze, and then the wheeze turned into a full-blown coughing fit.
Once I had recovered, the EMT offered me a water bottle and helped prop me up on the stretcher so I could take a sip.
“You inhaled a lot of smoke,” she said. “You’re probably going to be a little hoarse for the next few days.”
“Great,” I mumbled in a dry, raspy voice. “As if it wasn’t hard enough teaching a unit on dystopian literature to an AP English class that has apparently never picked up a book before, now I get to do it sounding like Kermit the freaking Frog.”
“Wow,” the EMT raised her eyebrows. “Well, that answers one of my questions.”
“Huh?”
“When someone comes back to consciousness after fainting, I ask them a series of questions to ensure that they’re fully cognizant and self aware,” she explained. “You just answered question number three, ‘describe your current profession.’”
“Oh,” I frowned. “I figured you’d just ask me what today’s date is, or to name the current president.”
“Eh,” the EMT shrugged with a smile, “I try to avoid questions that can elicit an emotional response.”
“Fair enough,” I said. Then I frowned, “Wait… did you say I fainted?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Which leads me to question 4, ‘what’s the last thing you remember?’”
April Embers_A Second Chance Single Daddy Firefighter Romance Page 7