Page 3 of Packed in the Fire house

Our gear was lined up, ready for us to easily step into and get into the truck in minimal time.

“Showtime!” my pack mate Blaze shouted as he pulled himself into one of the seats, buckling his seat belt as I took the seat opposite him. His dark curls were messy from sleep, but he had no time to tame them. Hair was the least of our problems when we had an emergency call. We all put on our headsets so we could hear each other over the sirens.

“Looks like an apartment building downtown is on fire,” Walker, my other pack mate and the captain of the house, explained from the passenger seat as we hurtled toward the scene, lights and sirens blaring.

“We’ll start evacuations as soon as we get there,” I shouted. It was hard to hear each other over the sirens, even with the headphones, but we had developed a knack for communicating.

“Rune, you and Gil take point on any evacs—Blaze, you’re on hoses,” Walker instructed.

Blaze chuckled loudly. “I’m good at handling my hose!” he declared, making us groan.

He made that joke anytime he was put on the hose and hydrant duty.

Which was far too often.

“Get some new material!” Gil laughed from the driver’s seat, his eyes never leaving the road.

Of the five people on the truck, only two of them were my pack mates—Blaze and Walker. Gil and Merrick were simply colleagues and friends.

I would run into fire for them, don’t misunderstand me, but there was a connection with my pack mates that went deeper than that.

Walker and I had known each other since childhood. Blaze had joined our pack later. Joined is probably too nice a way to say it. That idiot came crashing into our pack, and Walker and I didn’t do anything to stop it.

“Shit, it’s a bad one,” Walker hissed as the plume of smoke came into sight.

“Yeah, that building is going to be condemned, for sure,” Blaze agreed with a nod.

Walker sat up straighter, looking at all of us over his shoulder. “You guys know what you’re doing, be careful and stay in constant communication.”

A chorus of “yes, sir!” rang out in the truck as we pulled up outside the building at the same time several other emergency vehicles hurtled onto the scene.

Good, we are probably going to need those ambulances.

Gil and I pulled out our heavy-duty gear, oxygen masks, gloves, the whole nine yards. It was the type of equipment weneeded when we were going to be running toward the flames and not just fighting them from outside.

I checked my PASS alarm—which was arguably our most important bit of gear. If a firefighter was down and unresponsive for too long, the PASS alarm would go off so loudly that you could locate a fallen firefighter in a blaze.

With all my gear in check, I did the usual mental checklist, double-checking before heading into the building.

As far as fires go, it wasn’t a terrible one. Despite its large size, there didn’t appear to be any casualties. Voices were shouting throughout the building, mostly the residents as they left, and most people had evacuated before it had become too large to manage. It had started in the basement, so the biggest issue was smoke inhalation.

I circled the third floor twice; something didn’t quite feel right.

Usually I trusted my gut, so I didn’t leave, despite wading through the smoky corridors several times. The walls were turning black from the ash. The fire wasn’t on this floor, but that didn’t mean that the structural integrity of the building was okay. A fire on the lower floors could easily take down a skyscraper.

My team was chattering through the radio every few minutes, discussing hydrant access, where the fire was going, and the evacuation process.

“Rune, are you still on the third floor?” Walker’s voice crackled through my headset. He was probably concerned because I had been doing laps of the third floor for so long.

“Yeah, something feels off up here. I want to give it a more thorough check,” I said as I kicked my way through another abandoned apartment. Usually, I would be a touch more cautious while busting through doors, but half the units were vacant, and I already knew that the building was going to be condemned after this, so a few smashed doorframes were no big deal.

Frowning to myself, I turned around, trying to figure out what felt wrong.

Then the sound reached my ears.

It was faint, but unmistakable.

The sound of a child's cry.

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