Page 53 of Keeping It Professional

“I think so. I hope.”

We got back and the fire wasn’t out but contained, driven back to the blown-out condo complex. The wind had picked up and the air was hot, damp, curtains of spray sweeping the scene. With the roads all closed off and the burnt shells of buildings, the place had the look of the end of the world. Saws whined from the wreckage, shooting off sparks. Firefighters black with soot strode from the mist, then vanished back into it like they’d never been. Even the sky was black overhead, stained with the smoke boiling up from below.

We grabbed our gear and jumped out, and a cold chill ran through me. FD had cleared out the worst of the pileup, and what remained was just twisted metal. The idea of anyone alive in that felt like a dream. Or like a nightmare, if they were still conscious.

Sophie stopped, shivered. Wiped at her goggles. I was about to ask her, was she all right, when a firefighter straightened andbeckoned us over. Behind him, his colleagues were sawing away, dragging a minivan off piece by piece. Sparks rained on a yellow car half-flattened beneath, half its back end crumpled like foil.

“We’ll need you in a minute here to check on the driver.”

Sophie peered through the sparks. “He’s still alive?”

“He was yelling out till a while ago. Wanting his kids.”

“Kids?” Sophie’s voice cracked. “He was driving his kids?”

“No, they were up there.” He pointed. “Tenth floor.”

I looked where he was pointing, and my heart sank. The tenth floor was a furnace, belching out flames. If his kids were still up there?—

“Miss? You all right?”

I turned, and Sophie had dropped to one knee. Now, she scrambled upright.

“I’m fine. I, uh, tripped.” She clenched her fists and her jaw, and I moved in behind her. That clenching was a reflex, to combat fainting — tightening up the extremities to route blood to the heart. But Sophie just stood there, breathing hard through her nose.

“Lift on three,” came a voice, out from the wreckage. “One… two…”

Two firefighters lifted a huge, crumpled door. They pushed it aside, out of the way. One of them looked at Sophie.

“I think she’ll fit now.”

Sophie crunched through the glass and stepped over a muffler, and peered through the gutted SUV.

“You want me to crawl through?”

“She can’t do that,” I said.

“We’ll thread a stretcher through first.”

“No way. No way.” I could see from my vantage point, the front seat was ruined, springs and pieces of dashboard and floor everywhere. If she tried to crawl through that, she’d tear herself up.

“I can make it,” Sophie said. “If you push those seats back.”

The firefighter leaned in and pushed the seats back. His partner laid a spine board across the mess. I watched through a spiderweb of shattered windshield as she inched forward as far as she could. The roof had buckled on the passenger side, and the seat had thrust up, leaving only a narrow gap for her to squeeze through. On the other side of that gap, and just below it, the yellow car had crashed into the SUV’s cab. The driver was half still in his car, half in the SUV, pinned by his dashboard and the SUV’s door. I couldn’t tell through the starred glass if he was breathing, or if his eyes were open or shut.

“Sir, uh…” Sophie’s voice cracked again. I heard her cough. “Sir, I’m going to need you to stay very still. If you can hear me, just blink your eyes.”

The man twitched. His head jerked. He let out a scream. Sophie tried to reach for him, but the space was too tight.

“Sir! Sir, calm down. I’m a paramedic. We’re working right now on getting you out, but I need you to?—”

He tried to scream again and only wheezed. He coughed, a wet sound, and then came a whimper. I couldn’t tell if that was the driver or Sophie.

“Breathe slowly,” she said. “This’ll just take a minute.”

“What— what…” The driver spluttered and choked.

“I’m just going to examine you. It’s not going to hurt.”

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