Hearts on Fire

by Amber Thielman

  Tate

  I could barely drag myself out of bed on Tuesday morning for my next shift. Julia had been awake for hours primping in the bathroom and making breakfast noisily in the kitchen. She smiled at me as soon as I dressed and came out to join her, one plate of bacon, eggs, and toast hovering in her hand.

  “Good morning, my restless sweetheart,” she said, and stood on her tip-toes to kiss me. “Sit down and eat or you’ll be late for work. How’d you sleep?”

  “About as good as the night before,” I said, chewing dry toast. “And the night before that.”

  “I know it’s hard,” she sympathized. “Tanner is close to all of you. I couldn’t imagine having to go through that with him.”

  I nodded but said nothing. While the ongoing investigation into Tanner’s house fire had been on my mind often, it wasn’t the only thing keeping me awake at night. It wasn’t even the main thing.

  “I don’t know if I’ll have time to get into the station to see you tomorrow.” Julia whipped her long red hair into a ponytail at the nape of her neck and smiled. She had a beautiful smile, one of the things I’d always loved about her. But so did Hallie, and only Hallie’s smile made my knees weak. “We’ve been busy in our department.”

  “It’s okay. We’ve been busy too.”

  Julia looked at me then, and for a split second I saw something in her eyes that I couldn’t place; doubt, maybe. Annoyance.

  “How is that friend of yours? Hallie?”

  “Hallie is fine.” Her name caught slightly in my throat, and Julia seemed to notice it. Her green eyes searched my face, digging for the secret I thought I had buried down far enough, but apparently not. She opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it again. Relief blended with hurt rose in my throat. I hated this. I couldn’t do it much longer, not to the woman I had once loved. Besides, she was onto me. In all the years we’d spent together, I could tell that much. And Julia was like a hound with the scent of bloodstained clothing; she’d figure it out on her own if she had to, and that’s the last thing either of us would want.

  “I have to go.” Running a hand through my hair, I shrugged on my jacket and grabbed my bag, kissing Julia goodbye as I raced out the door, anxious to be free of the tense atmosphere that had suddenly fallen over the kitchen like an oppressive cloud of dread.

  Things were quiet when I walked into the station, and that was almost always bad news. Quiet meant that something bad was in the air, the calm before the storm. A few of my guys were helping themselves to a pot of coffee, and the rest were doing checks in the ambulance bay. I grabbed myself a cup of joe and tossed my bag into the office before heading back to the kitchen to do some paperwork. This time, Hallie was there, standing on her tip-toes in front of the message board, brown hair falling into her eyes. My fingers twitched as the urge to reach out and tuck her hair behind one ear overcame me.

  “What’s going on?” I approached her from behind, catching sight of the paper she was pinning on the bulletin board. She turned to look at me, cheeks flaring, and I squinted at the paper.

  “Roommate wanted,” I read. “Nice two-bedroom apartment near the University. Contact Hallie Harper for details.” Below that, her phone number was written neatly below the ad. I turned my attention back to Hallie and raised an eyebrow.

  “Jeremy and I...we broke up.” She looked down as she spoke, scuffing the floor with the toe of her boot. A warm flush had risen to her cheeks and her eyes looked everywhere but at me.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, resisting the urge to mention that she could have told me that last night, when I’d texted it. I’d stared at my phone for two hours before realizing that she wasn’t going to respond to my inquiry last night.

  “I’m sorry to say it.” She shrugged and glanced at the hanging paper, still avoiding me. “I hung a few up around campus, too, here and there. I just figured maybe one of the guys here knows of someone looking for a place.”

  I nodded, unsure of what else to say so I could keep this professional. The incident with Hallie from the other night was still firmly planted in the back of my mind. Every time I saw her around now, she looked embarrassed and shameful, which only made me feel worse. Little did she know that I wasn’t feeling much more confident than she was about the whole thing, although it didn’t stop me from wanting to kiss her, hold her, touch her.

  “Well, good luck,” I said. “And sorry again. That—that really sucks.”

  “Yeah...thanks.” She forced a dim smile and then started to step around me, just as I stepped to that side to let her by. We nearly collided and I reached out a hand to steady her, fingers wrapping around the bare skin of her lower arm. A tingling sensation shot up my spine as Hallie’s chin tilted up to meet my gaze in her own. She didn’t pull away, and my fingers hovered gently over the bare skin on her arm. I began to reach up, fingers itching towards her face to brush away a long strand of brown hair. As the tips of my fingers touched her face, the kitchen door swung open and one of my medics Ty came through the door, deep in conversation with Jake Finn. My hand dropped from Hallie’s face and we both turned away at the same time, as if we’d never even spoken.

  Hallie and I avoided each other for the rest of the morning until we simply couldn’t anymore. Tanner still hadn’t returned to work, and I couldn’t blame him. Things were weird around here, the knowledge of the house fire heavy on all our minds. Tanner was family; we were all a family. Anything that happened to him happened to all of us, and I knew we were all still waiting on the final verdict.

  Around noon, a call came in for an EMS and ladder to respond to a four-person multiple-vehicle accident. Hallie was first to the bus, and I joined her a moment later in the passenger’s seat as Kyle and some of his guys fired up the engine to Ladder One.

  The ride to the scene was silent. Hallie didn’t look at me, only kept her eyes trained on the GPS system that led us to the location. I opened my mouth once to say something, anything, that would put the two of us at ease, but nothing came to me, so I closed it.

  Police were already on the scene, standing over the body of a deceased male in his late forties. Hallie checked the man’s pulse and shook her head at me.

  “How long has he been down?”

  “DOA,” an officer answered. “There are three other victims. A mother and two children. She ran a red light and got blindsided by this poor fella. The mom is okay, but hysterical, and her toddler son is right over here with a few bumps and bruises. You’ll want to check him out.”

  Behind me, Kyle and two of his men were pulling on gloves. “So why did you need us here?” Kyle asked one of the cops. She looked at her partner, who looked at us.

  “You all better come with me.”

  Whatever I’d been expecting to find in this mess...this wasn’t it.

  “Her name is Ann-Marie Bayley,” the cop said, approaching the ruins of the second car. This one was flipped upside down, smashed to an almost unrecognizable heap of metal, and kneeling on the ground, ignoring the glass around them, were two more officers, both with their faces near the ground as they peered at something under the ruins of the car. Next to me, Hallie dropped to her knees next to the cop and angled her head so that she could see what they were looking at. From where I stood, I heard her breath catch her in throat.

  “Uh, Cap, you might want to see this.”

  Chapter 30

  Hallie

  She was no more than ten or eleven, her skin dark and beautiful. She hung upside down in her seat, still strapped in by the seatbelt, half of her body crushed between the concrete and the smashed roof of the upside-down SUV. With all the sides of the vehicle crushed, there was barely enough room to stick your hand in. I could see her, but barely. She was awake and alert, if not terrified and on the verge of a breakdown. I couldn’t blame her...this was something else.

  “Are you Ann-Marie?” I asked, and she nodded her head. “Hi, Ann-Marie, my name is Hallie and we’re here to help you, okay?”

&nbs
p; She nodded again, a tear rolling down her face. Dirt and blood speckled her skin, and crushed glass littered the area around her. But she was alive.

  For now.

  “Your mom and little brother are worried about you, yeah? But they’re waiting to hug you as soon as you’re out of here.”

  “Is Caleb okay?” she asked. Her breathing hitched with sobs and I wanted to be able to reach in and simply pull her out, hug her, put her back into the arms of her terrified mother.

  “We told her he’s okay, but she keeps asking,” one of the officers whispered low to me. He was on his hands and knees, stiff, looking as though he’d been down here for some time. Above us, I heard another of the officers quickly brief Tate on the girl.

  “Ann-Marie, wait here, okay? I’m going to go get your little brother so you can see for yourself.”

  The girl nodded and closed her eyes, and Tate helped me to my feet.

  “How does it look?” he asked. I glanced at the lady cop standing next to him, and then back at Tate.

  “It looks like I don’t know if that girl is lucky to be alive or not, Captain.”

  “There’s a trauma team from the hospital on their way,” Officer—Holloway—said. “It’s no secret she’s probably got internal injuries that are just waiting to bleed out.”

  “We don’t know anything for sure,” I said, a bit more forcefully than I’d intended. Officer Holloway raised her eyebrows at me but didn’t say anything. Behind us, Kyle stepped up, his eyes surveying the damage.

  “And you want us to simultaneously keep her alive while we lift the truck off her, don’t you?” Tate asked.

  “That’s your job, isn’t it?”

  “Damn right it is,” said Kyle. His guys behind him were already rummaging through the truck for any tools that might help.

  “Okay, we’ll need the trauma bags,” Tate said. I followed him, hands shaking slightly from the adrenaline coursing through my veins. I felt wired, like we could do anything in that moment, and all I wanted to do was save that little girl’s life, no matter what it took.

  As I grabbed the last of my bags and started to head towards the girl, Tate caught me by the arm, stopping me.

  “Hey, are you okay to do this?” he asked. I turned to look at him, noticing the way his eyes searched my face with nothing but concern. Stubble grew on his face, a dark five ‘o clock shadow that made him seem even more intense than he already was.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Well, you know, the breakup.”

  Anger flooded through me, threatening to spill over, and my fists clenched at my sides. “I don’t know about you, Captain, but I try not to let my personal issues get in the way of my work life.” I slammed one of the trauma bags into his chest and walked away to tend to Ann-Marie. He didn’t try to stop me.

  Until Kyle and his team got the SUV pulled up and away from her body, there was nothing Tate and I could do but try to keep her calm. Tate, seeming hesitant at the prospect of having to calm down a frightened, female child, gladly allowed me to crawl to my stomach and make conversation. I didn’t mind; my crew could be intimidating.

  “Ann-Marie, how old are you?” I asked. Above us, metal slammed as Kyle hooked a sturdy piece of the vehicle to the hook on his rope. The other end was secured safely to the straight ladder on the truck, which would hopefully give us just enough leeway that we could attempt to untangle her from this mess. At the sound of the clanking, Ann-Marie gasped, a sob stuck in her throat as she started to cry.

  “It’s okay, Ann-Marie,” I said. “It’s just the firemen securing the truck. You know all about firemen, don’t you?”

  Her chin turned as she looked at me, brown eyes bugging out of her skull in terror. “Y—yes,” she squeaked. “One of my friends brought his dad in for show and tell. He was a fireman.”

  “Is that so?” I forced a chuckle. “I probably know him, and he’s probably out there right now getting ready to help you. Do you remember his name?”

  She shook her head no and sniffed. Another loud creak of metal squealed above us, and Ann-Marie screwed her eyes shut. I wished I could reach her, scoot in close enough to take her hand in mine and squeeze it.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “They’re all such great guys. They’ll get you out of this.” She nodded, still sniffling, then finally opened her eyes and looked at me again.

  “Are you a fireman?” she asked. I laughed again, hoping it would ease her terror.

  “Of course not,” I said. “I’m a firewoman, Ann-Marie.” She giggled, if not painfully, but it was better than nothing. That was a good sound.

  “I didn’t know there were firewomen.”

  “There are now.”

  “Are you ready, Hal?” Tate asked, kneeling next to me. I nodded, not taking my eyes off the girl. Tate stationed himself on the other side of the car in case he had better access to her than I did.

  “Ann-Marie, there’s going to be a loud noise, and it will be scary, but it won’t hurt you, okay? We just have to get you out of there.” The confidence I forced from my voice sounded weak even to me, but the little girl didn’t seem to notice, and for that I was relieved.

  She nodded, mute, and I scooted myself as close as possible to the crack between the car and the ground. A moment later, the scream of the metal started, creaking and groaning as, inch-by-inch, the ladder lifted the car from the ground. Ann-Marie was crying now as the metal pressed against her trapped body, tightening around her. I felt as though I was suffocating, trying to grapple for air that wasn’t even there. I wanted to protect this girl, lay my body over hers and stay there until we were safe...until she was safe. In that very moment I know that I was willing to die for her, for this stranger that I’d just met, a brand-new life with so many years ahead. I refused to let it be cut short.

  “It’s okay, sweetie, we’re almost there.” I forced myself even further into the hole, praying that our quest to save her life wouldn’t end up taking it. If she were to go down today, so I would I.

  I still couldn’t see Tate on the other side, but as soon as there was enough room for me to squeeze in, I shoved my body under the car and reached for Ann-Marie, taking with me a c-spine to stabilize her neck before we moved her. Second by second the car climbed; now it hovered almost two feet off the ground, and I could see most of Ann-Marie’s body that wasn’t trapped by twisted metal. On the other side of the car, Tate made his appearance, going to work at once assessing the scene.

  “It h—hurts,” Ann-Marie sobbed, and without thinking twice about it, I grabbed her hand and squeezed.

  “I know it hurts,” I said, sliding the c-spine to Tate so he could wrap it around her neck.

  “Pain is good,” Tate said on the other side of Ann-Marie. “Pain means you’re alive.”

  I’m not sure that’s the phrase I would have used, but it seemed to ease her fear just a little bit.

  “We’ll have to pull her out on your side,” he said to me. “I just need to see if I can get her leg loose from the—”

  Above us, another scream of metal split through the air, and the car jolted, unsteady. Ann-Marie gasped, her hand tightening painfully around mine. Somewhere above us, someone shouted something I couldn’t make out. It sounded like Kyle.

  “What’s happening?” Ann-Marie sobbed. I caught Tate’s gaze from the other side of Ann-Marie, and he shook his head, just once.

  “Nothing is happening, honey. It’s okay.”

  “Hallie,” Tate said steadily. “We need to re-approach this, I think.”

  I knew what he meant. Something had gone wrong, and we had to get our asses out of there before the entire SUV came down on all of us.

  “Hallie,” he said again. “Now.” The look in his eyes made a tremor slither up my back. Ann-Marie continued to grip my hand like a lifeline, probably unaware that she was still holding it.

  “Ann-Marie,” I said, and her eyes popped open. Something in my voice set her off. Even children know when danger is lurking.
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br />   “Are you leaving?” she cried. “Are you going without me? Don’t leave me here. Please, don’t leave me here!” Hysterical tears streamed down her face as she gasped at air, fighting to breathe... fighting to live.

  “I’m not leaving,” I said quickly, unable to look at Tate. “I’m not leaving you. We’re in this together.”

  “Hallie, I—” Tate tried to interrupt.

  “Go find out what’s happening,” I said. “And fix it. Now.”

  Tate opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. Time was of the essence. There was no point arguing about it. This would end one of two ways, and one was preferable over the other.

  Tate slid carefully back out from under the SUV, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the roar of the fire engine and the twisting of the metal.

  “Ann-Marie, I need you to look at me,” I said firmly. “I need you to look at my eyes, right now.”

  After what seemed like an eternity, her little eyes popped open and she looked at me, but her attention was vacant. She was about to check out, protect herself from whatever was to come.

  “I need you to breathe with me, steady and deep, okay? Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in...” She did what I asked, closing her eyes all the while. By now, her hand shook in mine, her whole-body trembling with shock. She was on her sixth or seventh breath when the metal squealed again, and I think it was me who screamed piercingly loud as the SUV dropped another few inches, pressing us both back into the ground. I tasted dirt and gravel, maybe some shards of glass against my lips. I couldn’t look behind me, but I didn’t have to. I wasn’t getting back out; not anymore.

  “We’re going to die,” Ann-Marie sobbed. I tried to lick my lips clean and tasted blood instead. For a moment, I didn’t doubt her words...but I certainly couldn’t tell her that.

  “I forgot to bring your brother over to see you,” I said instead, trying to draw her back to reality. If I could keep her occupied, it might settle her down. And me too. “That was my fault, and I’m sorry. Just know that he’s happy to see you. He’s beautiful, too, I saw him standing with your mom by the ambulance. How old is he?”