Page 2 of Set Me On Fire

Get out, that’s what my heart was telling me, thumping too hard and too fast in my chest.Run.But I didn’t have that kind of luxury, forced to ignore my steadily panicking hindbrain as flames raced up the walls of the kitchen.

“Everyone outside, now!”

My shout was almost deafened by the scream of the fire alarms, the bloody sprinkler system kicking in, but that wasn’t helping anything. My nice blouse stuck to my skin as I marched forward, snatching up the deep fryer covers from where they were stored and using the metal lids as a shield before I slammed them down on top of the fryer. Geoff got a damn clue, smashing his hand down on the red button and stopping the gas supply, but that didn’t change the situation we were in. I heard the shouts and screams of the customers as they all tried to get the hell out of the pub at the same time, but I could only stare.

Fire, licking paper safety notices stuck to the wall, eating into the painted walls above the stainless steel splashback, melting the polystyrene ceiling panels.Now.That came almost as an afterthought, a whisper said in another room.Run, now.My feet didn’t move, but a hand grabbed mine, and that broke the spell the fire had cast over me. Raj’s panicked eyes met mine as he tugged me out of the kitchen and then out the front door.

“I’ve called 000—”

“Fuck, look at those flames!”

“The firies are coming?—”

“Do we need to call Jim?—?”

Everyone was talking at once, but for quite a different reason now. Not to get another beer, but to work out what the hell to do about this disaster.

Disaster.

How could it go up so fast?I thought dimly, watching the pub go up in flames from the safety of the car park.How could it burn so quickly?I had smothered the source, turned off the gas…

Gas.

My eyes jerked sideways to the other end of the building where the gas bottles stood, then shifted again, taking in the darkened shops, the houses nearby. People were coming out of their homes to look at the fire, but that just put them closer… I remembered what the old firie had said about gas bottles and fires. The gas was highly pressurised inside, and when that got heated up, they would explode like a massive grenade, sending shrapnel everywhere.

I don’t know why I went marching towards a fire, especially when I heard the wail of a fire engine’s siren. What the hell could I do? I was still formulating that plan as I walked, then ran, across the asphalt. But I was here, I was in charge, and right now that meant removing one last threat to public safety. One of my heels gave out from underneath me, twisting my ankle painfully, but I just kicked them off.

“Get back!” I shouted, but I was all out of mum voice. People just stood by the side of the road and stared. “Get…! Bloody hell.” The rough surface of the car park bit into my feet as I began to sprint towards the gas bottles.

And so did the fire.

It was like a living thing, eating up the building in great big gulps, and I was trying to snatch the gas bottles from its jaws. My chest was tight, smoke smothering me. I coughed and coughed, then was forced to put my arm across my mouth to try and keep it out of my lungs. It didn’t work. The closer I got, the more stupid I realised I’d been. My eyes were streaming like they used to in the bad old days when people were allowedto smoke inside pubs and clubs. What the hell was I thinking getting closer to this mess?

Heapparently thought the same thing.

“What the hell…?”

All little boys want to grow up to be firefighters, and grown up girls? They just want a big, muscular man in a uniform rushing in to save the day. All my experiences with firies in the past had been disappointing, not giving me one fella to add to my spank bank, but apparently my luck was changing. Tall, with broad shoulders, the smoke was forced to part around him as he strode closer. He stared at me with eyes the most perfect shade of grey, my brain somehow fixated on that, the colour of the sky after a massive storm.

Oh. My. Lanta.

Knox Ryan, read the badge on his uniform.

I didn’t feel the heat of the fire when the kitchen was burning down, my brain not able to deal with that information, but I wondered if I’d been burned. My cheeks stung, my hands moved restively, not sure what to do with them as his lips thinned down. He studied my face, really looked at it, closer than even my last few disastrous dates, and I soaked that attention in, right before a coughing fit hit me.

Big, hacking convulsions tried to eject smoke from my lungs, but there was nothing else to breathe. Instead, my lungs worked over time, whooping in clouds of smoke, only to cough them right back out again, and that’s when he moved. Like all my hottest firefighter fantasies, I was picked up like a doll, carried across the carpark, and held close to a chest that threatened to dwarf me until I was set down on the bonnet of a car.

“Are you OK?” Gloves were ripped off and massive hands cradled my face, forcing me to push my cheek into them. Warm, dry thumbs turned my head one way, then another, so very gently as he looked me over. “How’s your breathing?”

Chapter 2

Knox

“Fire at The Stafford Arms.”

Sometimes it felt that firefighters lived life at two speeds: idling along, barely moving as we dealt with paperwork, training, maintenance, and even cleaning, or this. As soon as the call came through, adrenaline started to pump through my veins, forcing me and my team to their feet.

“The Stafford?”

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