Page 33 of Embers of Love

This time, their team leader was Captain Jenna Carter. At thirty-eight, she already had fifteen years of experience on the job. Naturally, Ember deferred to her.

“What are we looking at this time, Captain?” Ember asked.

“Fire at an old construction site. It’s been abandoned for a while, but it’s been known to house junkies and some homeless folk.”

Ember missed being behind the wheel of a vehicle. She missed Joan. Her mind cleared somewhat as she drove to the site of the emergency. Fire had started right in the center of town, in the business district. The building was supposed to be a mall, but construction had been halted halfway.

Jenna radioed in, telling them they were going to need another team of firefighters to handle it. Ember could see why. The building was huge, their one fire engine wouldn’t be able to cover everything.

Ember brought the truck to a stop where they could easily access a fire hydrant. They’d already ran this drill multiple times. Jenna surveyed the building; it looked largely empty. The structure looked stable, but one could never tell with fires. The mall wasn’t complicated, chances of the fire eating through something important leading to a collapse was high.

“Is everybody out?!” Jenna asked the witnesses watching the mall go up in flames.

The ratty looking man shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t look very sober in Ember’s eyes. They focused on getting hoses down and started smothering the fire with high-pressure water. Immediately, the smoke thickened, obscuring most of the building. They kept the pressure on. Zara was the strongest on the team so it was her job to direct the hose. Ember observed the building, underneath the roar of the flames she could hear a creaking noise. It was toward the east end of the crescent-shaped building. Most of the flames had been put out, leaving a blackened, misshapen husk.

“Hey, Zara,” Ember called out. “Let’s back away a little bit.”

Zara snapped to attention, understanding the warning for what it was. She moved ten feet back. It might have seemed she wasn’t too close at first glance, but debris from a collapsing building could travel surprisingly far.

The creaking noise grew loud enough that the others heard it as well.

“It’s coming down!” Jenna yelled. “Back away!”

Sure enough, the top two floors on that side caved in on itself, producing a thunderous boom as it crashed. A large plume of smoke filled the air.

“Aaahh!”

Ember’s head snapped to the left.

“Did you hear that?!”

Jenna glanced at her. The look she gave Ember confirmed that she had heard it too. There was reluctance in her gaze. She didn’t admit it out loud. Ember knew what she was worried about. It wasn’t going to stop her. The urge to go into the building overcame her good sense. She rushed to the truck to grab her breathing apparatus and mask.

“Ember, the structure is unstable! Part of it just came down, for Pete’s sake!” Jenna cautioned.

“You heard it too, just like I did. There’s somebody in there!”

She pulled the mask on and rushed up to the building. The fire welcomed her. Almost like the warm embrace of a loved one. Most firefighters developed a healthy respect for flames. Some even feared it. For Ember, fire was many things, it was accepting, in a strange way. Fire would consume anything it could without discrimination. There was something to be said about that level of acceptance. Yes, that was the thing about fire. It would take you as you were, and all your worries and flaws would mean nothing in the face of its limitless hunger.

She rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, being more careless than usual. What use was her life if she couldn’t get to the people who needed her on time. Would she fail at this task too? No. She would not, even if it killed her.

The scream had come from the direction of the crash. Ember believed there’d been someone there when it came down. They could still be alive if they weren’t crushed. Now the problem was finding them on time. Most people thought fire was the most dangerous thing in a burning building. It was actually the smoke they needed to worry about first. It would get to them before the flames did.

Her eyes scanned the third floor. Checking for any form that vaguely resembled human. She had to go through the individual stores, which made progress even slower. As far as she could tell, no one else had entered the building behind her, that meant Jenna had done the right thing and kept everyone else who wasn’t suicidal out. There was no need to risk more lives than necessary for this rescue.

“Hello?! Is anybody there?!” she called out, hoping to get a response. She didn’t, but that didn’t stop her. She kept up her search until she was just on the edge of the section that had collapsed. If the victim was here, this was where she would find them. It was possible the collapse had knocked them out.

Or they could be buried under the rubble.

Ember went further down, lifting up and pushing away the rubble. The smoke engulfed her, blackening out her vision. She heard a cough. Coming from somewhere nearby.

“Ember!” the radio on her shoulder crackled. “That’s enough! Get out of there!”

“No!” Ember moved through the wrecked building, dodging low-hanging concrete from what was left of the floor above. “I heard someone!”

“Everybody’s already out,” came Jenna’s voice over the radio. “There’s nobody left in there! Get out!”

She was certain she heard someone cough. Somebody was still alive. She couldn’t leave without them. Ember couldn’t fail, not again. She’d failed too many times already. She’d failed Josephine, Joan had gotten wrecked, she and her mother were not talking. This was all she had left. She would not fail.

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