Page 6 of Single Mom's Firemen

Chase climbs up behind him and grabs her, giving his brother enough momentum to reach out to Sammy and me. “Come on, honey,” I tell my boy and finally unglue him from my side.

“Mama, no!” he cries out but I manage to set him onto the roof.

Eric jumps up on the edge, his firefighter uniform a dirty yellow with reflective patches everywhere, his red helmet mirroring the monstrous flames that swell behind me. My heart is racing. My throat burns. The smoke swirls around me.

“Get him!” I manage before a coughing fit takes over.

I watch as Eric grabs Sammy and gingerly passes him down to Chase before turning his focus back on me. “Come on, Halle, your turn!”

“Watch out! It’s coming down!” Wyatt shouts from below, still shooting water at the diner while his colleagues take my children away from the fire. They’re safe. It’s all that matters.

Ambulances and police cars arrive.

Time slows down.

Then I hear it. The moan of a roof beam just before it breaks.

The crackling of the fire as it eats away at the wood.

“Halle!” Eric shouts.

Something heavy, big, and hot comes down. I gasp as it crashes into me, knocking the air out of my lungs. I’m pinned down. Boiling. My skin burns.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t see.

Darkness quickly swallows me whole.

2

Halle

It’s all a bitter haze.

I’m not dead.

I can hear Luna and Sammy crying out for me somewhere in the darkness. Eric calling out to Wyatt and Chase to help him. The sound of a wheeled gurney rushing across from the ambulance. The fire still burning as the diner caves in. Good grief, it sounds awful. Like the earth itself opened and ate it all up.

“I’ve got her,” Eric says.

“We need to get her to the hospital,” someone replies.

Their voices echo in my head while I swim in the darkness.

“Mama!” Luna screams.

My sweet baby Sammy keeps crying. The sound of his voice breaks me into thousands of little bits and pieces. I hate to hear him and Luna suffer like this. I know they’re terrified. But I can’t move. I’m not really conscious; I’m somewhere in-between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

I’m loaded onto the gurney.

I feel someone touching my wrist. Looking for a pulse.

“Is she breathing?” Eric asks.

“I need to intubate her.”

I feel a poke and everything fades away.

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