Page 70 of Up In Smoke

Had he been trying to follow Luke?

Jesus, how many times had Carlos tagged after him as a kid, and he'd shaken his younger brother off because he was too little, a pain in the ass? Pieces were clicking into place, but the one piece needed wasn't here: Ivy.

They took the third corner as they heard sirens in the distance. Red lights appeared at the end of the street as the team raced toward the small house and the blaze.

At that moment, he thought he heard a voice.

Help!

Help!

But Taggert didn’t even falter. Had Luke merely wished to hear something?

Chapter Fifty-Two

Luke wasn't confident he'd heard anything.

But the third time he thought he might have heard a voice, the chief also stopped.

His hand coming out, he almost slapped Luke flat in the chest to shut him up.

“Hello!” he yelled to the burning house. “Redemption Fire Department!”

Then, Luke heard it!

“Help! Help!”

“Where are you?”

“I'm under the house!” The voice was tinny and rough all at the same time. Luke had never heard anything better. His heart soared. “Luke!?”

The glorious sound of her yelling back to him flipped his body from ice cold to blazing hot. “We’re coming.”

He was racing back to the truck as he yelled to the chief and watched as the light began to sweep along the foundation of the house. He scrambled in the bed as he watched the fire engine make its way down the long street. They wouldn’t get to the house before him.

Every firefighter knew to always put everything back in place. Each item was clean, it was repaired, it was inspected every shift, for exactly this purpose. So Luke put his hands on the Halligan quickly. Even as he grasped it, he felt hope surge as though it were a current that passed through the equipment he held.

He almost laughed with the relief. She was alive. But they’d have to keep her that way.

Racing back, he scanned the house, looking for the best point to break in. He calculated for the fire, the burning wood, and the accelerant that burned hot and fast at the base. But the clatter of cracking wood almost stopped him. Plywood had dropped off one of the front windows. The fire had burned it away enough that it was no longer held in place and it cracked and popped as it clattered to the porch.

He looked up where the flames raged now. Whatever was up in the attic seemed to blaze the hottest. Ivy had been smart to go low.

Closing the distance to where the chief stood, he stepped toward the house, Halligan ready. But, as he reached the heat of the fire, rough hands grabbed him and pulled him back.

“You're too close!” a voice yelled through the face mask.

Luke turned to look at Captain Kelly, this time in full turnout gear. On the other side of him, Patrick’s son Ronan also held Luke back from reaching Ivy.

For a moment, he thought about swinging. He had a heavy and deadly weapon in his hands and he was not going to be thwarted. But, as if they could read his mind, Ronan reached out and grabbed the Halligan from his hands. “I've got this. You step back.”

They pushed him until he stumbled, more hands grabbing him. Human fingers not thickly covered and gloved like the two firefighters had been. This time the chief held him tightly. “They're here now. Let them do the job.”

Luke fought. Ivy was there. Ivy was alive. He'd heard her yelling.

Only now, as the two other firefighters had taken over the job he heard her coughing, and then she went silent.

He watched as the Halligan swung hard into the vent, as the firefighters fought against the foundation, trying to open a hole big enough to pull Ivy through. But it wasn't working. Ivy was no longer yelling.

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