Page 27 of Big Timber

Next, I try to remember each story I ever heard from guys who got in and out of warehouse fires, trying to give myself a quick refresher even as I’m jumping out of our engine and running to get my assignment.Forewarned is forearmed.

Like many communities in recent years, the homeless population has expanded, which creates further issues in situations like this. Now there’s always the possibility that people are in a building that would typically be empty at this time of day. In this case, Donny, Greyson and I get sent around to the back of the building in search of the rear exit.

Tapping Donny’s shoulder, I no sooner indicate the regulation fire door that we’re looking for when a window next to it is broken outward and we hear people screaming. No fewer than three people press their faces forward, gasping for fresh air as they realize that the metal bars on the outside of it still have them trapped.

“Please! Please!” a woman who looks to be a few years younger than Tanner cries out as I put down the heavy hose that I’ve been carrying. She pushes her body against the metal as if her emaciated frame has a chance of breaking them.

“You have to move back!” Greyson yells, brandishes a crowbar as he attempts to pry open the lock that is holding the bars in place.

“No, we can’t breathe in here!”

Donny starts swinging the blunt edge of the axe against the hinges of the door and I step forward to reason with the warehouse’s uninvited guests.

“If you don’t move back, he can’t get an angle to pop the lock,” I instruct them, but the panic I see in their eyes is overriding their judgment.

“I got this, get the pipes hooked up,” Greyson tells me, and I look back to the coiled hoses he and I carried back here. “Why the fuck aren’t there sprinklers in there?”

It’s hard to make out all her words over the roar of the fire and banging of Donny’s axe, but a chill shoots down my spine whenI piece together what the woman says next. “Those men turned some of them off before they left. Jo-Jo started snoring like a pig and they hauled ass out of here.”

Losing precious seconds as I process her words, I finally shake them off and get the pipes hooked up to the hydrants protruding from the back of the building.

About the time that Donny gets the door open, I’m realizing that the water to the exterior hydrants was also turned off.

The woman who let us know what happened is trying to run past me when I reach out and grab her arm.

“Hold on! I need this water turned back on,” I tell her, yelling over the noise as I try to get some information. “Where did you see those men you mentioned?”

“Uh, inside to the right. We were sleeping on a platform. They were just below us,” she begrudgingly answers when she realizes I won’t release her otherwise.

“Great, now you need to go around to the front. It’s important that you tell the cops what happened here tonight,” I tell her, instantly realizing she isn’t going to do that and I’m wasting more time.

Turning back to Greyson and Donny, I tell them to bring the pipe in while I go look for the valves she was talking about.

While others fight the fire from the front and sides of the building, my partners move to get our pipe into the best position and I quickly spot the platform she mentioned—on the left, not the right—but it’s the only one so I head for the machinery below it.

Greyson’s words from the ride over echo in my mind when I see over a dozen fucking valves with no clear indication of which areturned on or off. There’s nothing to do, but start turning each to the left.

The first few are already wide open, but the middle four have been turned off—in complete disregard of the bold letters above them, warning of Federal penalties if they’re tampered with.

Within seconds, the defunct sprinklers activate. Greyson turns from his position directly behind Donny to give me the thumbs up. Just as I’m reaching for the next valve, it feels like all the oxygen is sucked out of my body and I’m suddenly weightless.

Chapter 9

Talia

“She’s going to be fine.”

After all the whispering around me, I’m beyond relieved to make out an actual sentence. Even if it sounds distorted, like how you hear things when your head is underwater.

I can’t remember going swimming anytime recently.

That’s my first thought.

Then I sense Tarak, but even with him nuzzling my neck, it doesn’t make sense. This isn’t my bed. It’s not even my bed at the fire hall.

I want to tell him that he’s not talking loud enough. Except, I’m worried about talking if I’m underwater. That’s not safe at all.

Then I laugh, knowing that I can’t be underwater if I’m in a bed.

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