Page 145 of Set Me On Fire

“When are the other teams getting here?” Henry snapped, but the muffled sounds of sirens wailing answered his questions. “Finally, because… Oh, fuck.”

That was exactly the thing I didn’t want to hear. Nothing fazed Henry. He was a hardened veteran so nothing surprised him. It made him an excellent team member, because no matter what we dealt with, he’d already done so before and had useful advice on how to tackle it. Anything that had him swearing was bad, really bad. My head swung around, seeing what the issue was.

We needed to keep the fire away from the shed. Not only did it cut us off from the trucks and our water sources, but we’d be dealing with unknown fuel sources.

And all the risk therein.

“Roof, now!” Knox barked, but we were already moving.

It couldn’t have been built out of corrugated iron, could it? Instead, it was one of those old places built over a hundred years ago of solid, red brick.

And timber.

Bone dry and well-seasoned, the embers were like seeds sprinkled over fertile soil, and they took root instantly. Small points of red covered the roof, growing larger by the second. Streams of water, so many streams, wove across the roof, trying to douse it all, when we heard the one thing we didn’t want to hear.

“Get back to the trucks!” The voice wasn’t a familiar one, meaning it was someone from one of the other stations that had arrived to lend a hand. “There’s a heap of gas bottles stacked in the shed!”

We’d started this whole journey with Millie because of a gas bottle. I didn’t want to end it due to one. I was moving, so were the others, turning off the water and just running. The site would need to be cleared, onlookers would need to be pushed back as we tried to deal with this new challenge.

Every business was supposed to know where their gas bottles were, have protocols in place to protect the contents from fire, but by the look of this place, they wouldn’t know a WHS regulation if it came and bit them on the arse. I cursed the owner under my breath, over and over, as we ran towards the door.

But not fast enough.

I’ll always remember that sound. A roar that became elongated, stretching on and on, my own shout lost within it. I turned and looked behind me, always a mistake, just in time to see the corner of the shed was on fire and the shapes of the bottles were outlined by the flames, right before the explosion hit.

Being picked up and thrown like a doll, that’s what I remember. A bright point of pain, followed by a much bigger, duller one as I slammed into the ground.

“Noah…!”

I dimly heard her voice calling me, even though that wasn’t possible. Millie wasn’t, couldn’t, be here. I wished she was, though, with my entire heart, as I felt it beat faster and faster, sending blood and pain rushing through my body, right before a black heat swallowed me.

Chapter 63

Millie

Something was going down.

I heard shouting in the break room, but when I exited the toilets, all the firefighters were converging on the appliance bay in response to the alarm.

“Has a fire been called in?” I asked Brent as I walked into the office, but he just frowned.

“Millie, can we have a chat?”

“Yeah, of course. Should I grab my computer…?”

To take notes, that’s what I was going to ask, but I didn’t. This wasn’t that kind of talk, I could see that from the look on his face. I hurried inside, trying not to jump when the door was closed behind us. I sat down in one of the chairs on the opposite side of his desk and tried very hard not to feel like a teenager being called up to the principal’s office.

“So…” He sat down and clasped his hands in front of him, resting them on the desk. “I probably should’ve had this conversation beforehand. It was remiss of me really, but the fire service…” He sucked in a breath. “It doesn’t look kindly on office relationships.”

I went perfectly still, able to guess what the shouting was about. Dave had said something.

“Personally, I tend to turn a blind eye to these things.” His eyes flicked up to meet mine. “I figure you’re all adults. As long as it doesn’t become an issue at work, I’ve got no need to get involved.”

But something had made it an issue. I pulled my phone out, something I never would during a serious conversation with a boss, but this was different. I needed someone, any of the guys I shared a life with, to have left me a message, giving me a heads up about what had happened.

There was nothing in the group chat.

Brent’s lips thinned down, making clear that he knew exactly what I was doing and didn’t like it, didn’t like what he needed to do next.

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