Page 33 of Scorched Hearts

“Rodriguez.”

“Firefighter Maria Smith is unfit for this operation. She’s inexperienced in this type of a rescue operation.”

There was silence on the line. Perhaps Hunter was asking around who this firefighter Smith was. But just as Elle heard her radio fire up again, the worst of her fears came true in a terrifying instant.

Many sounds came to her seemingly at once. A slipping stone. A scream. A crash. Shouting from below. Hunter commanding them from the radio to come down at once and pause the mission. Elle’s head spun, trying to follow it all with a string of thought, to somehow tie together the hideous reality in a bow of understanding.

She was down on solid earth again but didn’t remember having come down. Everything happened around her so fast. There were thin streaks of dried blood on the pavement next to the building. The moon was showing its head from above the buildings, and the cold sheets of moonlight rendered everything in Elle’s surroundings even more absurd.

“Rodriguez.” Captain Hunter wanted to continue, but the sentence seemed to lump in her throat. She came up to Elle and embraced her. “Our department will have to take over completely now, Smith’s--” she stumbled, “Smith’s department will have to take care of…the death.”

Death echoed around Elle’s mind. “What death?”

Hunter looked at Elle in concerned. “You’re in shock.”

“Did Maria die?” Elle knew someone had fallen, but she didn’t know where that had led, or at least her mind was shutting it away.

“Yes. She slipped and unfortunately died on the spot.”

A wave of something that could only be described as unreality overcame Elle. The you should go home for now, Elle, sounded as if from behind a thick wall—distant, irrelevant. What a terrible thought that a firefighter was actually dead on this mission. Her feet felt glued to the ground. That had never happened to her before. No firefighter she knew had ever died, and definitely not right in front of her. Everyone around her moved hurriedly from place to place, arranging another rescue operation or talking about letting the proper offices know about the death. Elle didn’t know what to do with herself. She wanted to be close to the other ones who’d been on the roof, but she realized they were from the other department—the one which was now in mourning.

After some time passed, she couldn’t tell how much, she realized Hunter had dismissed her for the day. She felt strange being treated this way, as if she had the right to mourn a firefighter from another department who she had known for half an hour before the death. She was in shock. She knew it. She ordered an uber, which took time to go around the blockades. She had to run up to him from a long distance due to the police barricading the scene.

She still had her firefighter’s jacket on, everything besides the helmet and tools, in fact. She looked ridiculous inside the small car.

“Is everything all right, ma’am?” The driver smiled shyly in the rearview mirror.

She nodded, not knowing what to say Elle was nauseated and was focusing all her strength on not vomiting inside the car. The task surprisingly helped her calm down, the singular thought only of do not vomit kept her mind in a unified stream.

She got out of the car in front of her house, weak-legged and feeling as if everything around her was unreal. Standing there for some time, she realized she had no keys with her. Her bag was still at the station. This completely overwhelmed her. The station seemed so far gone she diddn’t even know where to begin.

Her phone rang, dragging her out of the daze.

“Elle?” Maya’s voice was gentle.

“Mhmm.” Elle nodded.

“Are you okay? Where are you?” Slight worry rose in Maya’s tone, but it remained steady and calm, and Elle wished she would just keep talking, keep the flow of her words like the steady rise and fall of the sea.

“I’m standing in front of my house.”

“Why not inside of it, Darling?”

“I don’t have my keys.” Elle’s own voice sounded to her as if from a deep well in the ground, abstract and wobbly.

“..Can I drive up to get you? I’m just finished for today, and I feel as if something bad has happened to you.”

“Something bad has happened.” Elle nodded. Something very bad has happened.

“I’m on my way. Wait for me. All right? I’m coming.”

Elle heard the sound of the call ending, and she simply nodded at the night air all around her. Tired, she sat down on the lawn in front of her house. The dewy grass wet her pants, but they were so thick that she didn’t notice. She probably wouldn’t have no matter what. The moon appeared gigantic, as unreal as the whole evening. A car parked right in front of her, and its light had a blinding harshness to it.

Elle sat at the corner of Maya’s couch wearing Maya’s t-shirt and her underwear. Maya had thrown all Elle’s clothes besides the thick, outer uniform into her washing machine, which was now spinning them in endless circles, bubbly and moist.

Elle was holding a cup of chamomile tea with milk, and through the thick fog she hadn’t managed to get rid of, bubbles of nostalgia kept showing their little heads and then disappearing again in the depths of anxiety.

“Can I help you?” Maya sat at the other end of the couch, worried but compassionate.

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