Page 49 of Wild Fires

“Helmet back on, Gracie. That's an order.”

“Something's wrong with my air line. I can't breathe in the thing.” I showed the chief the error my suit was reading.

“Fine, then stay back or get into the truck.”

We both knew that wasn't going to happen. I stood my ground, and he didn't say anything.

Soon Rodney stumbled out of the building and collapsed. We all ran to his side to assist and check on him.

“Where's Guffy?” I shouted.

“Beam came down on him. He's still inside.”

I didn't hesitate as I ran into the building despite the screams of protests at my back.

“Guffy!” I yelled. It was hard to see with the smoke burning my eyes. I coughed trying to clear my lungs. I knew the fire couldn't hurt me, but the smoke was still brutal. “Guffy!” I yelled out again.

Hearing what I thought was a response, I ran toward the noise to find him completely surrounded by dancing flames of fire as he struggled against the burning beam pinning him to the floor.

I pulled it off of him and then carefully tossed it to the side.

“Can you walk?" I asked.

“I don't know,” he replied.

I leaned down and took a quick inventory of any injuries. Finding nothing serious, I pulled him to his feet and allowed him to lean the bulk of his weight onto me.

“Gracie, your hair's on fire.”

“Shit. I gotta get you out of here quickly.”

I would have ran, but his weight was too much. I dragged him to the door and then shoved him outside. I already knew it was too late for me. I'd been here before enough times to know what was happening.

Stripping out of my suit, I tossed it to the side not wanting to ruin yet another one.

“Gracie, no!” Clarence yelled as my team looked on in horror.

I already knew my head was up in flames looking like a demon straight out of hell, or at least that's how Andrew always described it. With the suit gone, my body would soon follow.

There was quite the audience forming around me, so I turned to walk back inside but stopped suddenly when I heard Ryan screaming. It pierced through the noise of the fire and shook me to my core. He sounded a lot like a tormented animal and the look on his face wasn't disgust but agonizing pain.

“Gracie!”

He was running towards me while Dan and Big Dick physically held him back.

“It's okay,” I yelled back to him. “I'm going to be okay.”

I wanted to go to him, but I knew that I would just burn him.

His distraction was too late and I didn't have time to get back inside. The flames engulfed me quickly, and I looked down to see my flesh curling away from my skin. It wasn't painful. I actually didn't feel a thing. But I knew that I was seconds away from dying and couldn't explain to Ryan what was happening.

I'd never been through this with regrets before. It was an awful, helpless feeling. I'd done what I had to do to save Guffy, but I should have prepared Ryan better. He shouldn’t be here. He didn't need to watch me die.

With a final flash, everything went dark.

Ryan

Chapter 15

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