Page 144 of Set Me On Fire

Right before the need to tear his fucking head off won out.

My fist shot out, crossing the distance between us, my entire weight behind it. Rhys had trained me for hours on the bag, making sure I knew how to throw a punch. I put that to good use now, smacking the bastard in the face, his nose breaking with a satisfying crunch. I watched his hands snap up, his eyes going wide as he registered what had happened, obviously thinking I wouldn’t have the balls to belt him. Oh, I had more than enough to get this job done. I was on him, pushing past Rhett, everyone, clawing my way through my colleagues as they all swarmed. I’d kill him, I shouted, over and over, my hands raking through the air.

I’d beat Dave until there was nothing other than a bloody smear, because right when I had everything I’d ever wanted, he tried to step in and take it.

“What the fuck is going on?”

Knox walked in and took in the situation quickly, but before anyone could answer, a shrill bell rang. A fire. I shook my head, unable to believe the timing, but people didn’t have emergencies on our schedule.

“We’ve gotta go,” Gareth snapped. “Whatever the fuck this is, it can wait until we find out how big the job is.” Dave went to claw himself up, the thin whine that escaped him satisfying me on a cellular level. “You stay here. Rhett, you can lead Dave’s team.”

It was just as well, because we’d need all hands on deck.

“What happened?” Charlie hissed as we ran towards our truck, but when we grabbed our gear down from the wall, Henry stepped in.

“Head in the game.” He shot the two of us a dark look. “You can’t go into an emergency situation with your mind elsewhere. Get it together now, or stay here.”

Where Millie was, unaware of the drama. I swallowed hard, half tempted to take him up on his offer. I could shield her, gether out of this place and home where it was safe, but the people relying on us needed that too. I yanked my jerkin off the peg and started wrenching it on. Seconds later, we were all piling into the truck.

“Address?” Knox barked.

“Got it.” Charlie gave him directions right before the sirens were switched on and then our truck, all of the trucks, went rushing out of the station.

“Jesus fuck…”

Hearing Henry curse made clear just how bad this was. Smoke could be seen for kilometres before we got even close to the fire site, filling the air with an acrid stink. The windows were kept wound up tight, the air conditioning turned off as we prepared to walk into hell.

There was nothing we hated more than private recycling centres. Getting rid of rubbish cost builders and industry big bucks, so selling their waste onto recyclers made good sense. In theory, it meant resources were redirected from landfill and reused. In practise, we’d found too many businesses had taken over old sheds or compounds and piled them high with highly flammable items, creating massive fuel loads, ready to go up, and that’s what this looked like. Black smoke billowed everywhere, making visibility difficult.

“What have we got here?” Knox asked as we pulled up, the other trucks parking

“Supposed to be a paper and cardboard recycler,” Charlie replied.

“Doesn’t look like that to me.” I pressed my face closer to the window. “Black smoke, stink in the air.” I stared at the pedestrians as we pulled up, some fighting to catch a breath as the ambulance medics saw to them. “Some pretty bad smoke inhalation cases for people on the street.”

Then there were the workers.

A huddle of people wearing uniforms sporting the same logo as the plant sign were also being seen by ambulance staff.

This, unfortunately, was also something we’d seen before. Recyclers storing items that they weren’t licensed to store. If they were prepared to bend the rules on that, you could guarantee they weren’t following proper storage protocols either.

“There could be anything in there,” Henry snapped, staring at the windscreen, as if he could see past the smoke to the cause of it. “Chemicals, petrol.” He looked over at me. “Lithium batteries.”

“Calling in for more back up,” Knox said, jumping on the radio to do just that as we jumped out.

“This is bigger than us,” Rhett said as soon as we got close, “but we can put a dent in it for now. From what I can see, there’s a shed and it's the yard at the back that’s on fire.”

“So let's get a move on and try and put this out before it gets to the shed, because who the hell knows what’s in there,” Gareth said, nodding to Knox as he arrived.

We had our orders, so we all moved, jogging over to our trucks and unrolling hoses as Gareth’s team got the cherry picker moving, the crane lifting and then stretching out across the shed roof, disappearing into the smoke. Masks were shoved on, oxygen tanks engaged, hoses gripped as we prepared to do what we did best. All the issues, the news about our baby girl, even Millie and Dave disappeared, because Henry was right. The only way I was coming out of this, walking into her office and swinging her up into my arms, was if I focussed right now. Smoke billowed all around us as we walked into the shed, turning the junk stacked inside into ominous shadows. We walked past them and into the burning maw of this fire.

I played D&D with a group of friends, and this was the closest I’d ever come to understanding what a knight felt as he approached a dragon. The fire was a living, breathing thing, eating up the piled high junk in great gulps.

“Ready?” A voice came through the speakers into my helmet.

“Let’s do this,” I said, right as I pulled the bale back and unleashed a spray of water.

Puttingout a fire was always the best moment of the job, the start of one coming in second best, because you went in full of optimism, sure you’d be able to extinguish the blaze. This was the bit that sucked. My arms ached from holding the hose, from directing litres and litres of water at a fire that just seemed to burn on despite everything we did.

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