Page 35 of Flashover

Radio static. Rotor wash. Bitterroot blazing too fast to stop. The last time I hesitated, they died.

Not this time.

"You remember fire triangles?" I grab his collar and repeat. “You remember fire triangles?”

He blinks, recites: “Heat, fuel, oxygen.”

“Good. I’m about to steal one.”

Apparently today’s the day I commit grand theft rescue—with a side of reckless combustion.

I charge uphill, boots sinking into heat-softened ash. The air's so hot it bites. Dust scorches my throat, and the sigil under my collarbone flares—no magic, just a warning, a biological alarm bell screaming that this is suicide.

“You can’t run into that!” Diaz shouts.

“Watch me.”

Ten paces from the wall of fire, I drop to one knee. The blast hits—scalding, dry, fast. My breath rasps like sandpaper across open wounds. Heat claws up my neck, rakes across my arms.The world narrows to fire, smoke, and the bodies behind me I refuse to let die.

I press both palms to the dirt.

It’s not about power. It’s physics. Pressure. Intuition.

I brace low, digging fingers into baked earth. The sigil doesn’t burn—it focuses. Reminds me to stay locked in. I drag in a breath and slam every ounce of fear into function.

Air currents swirl. Dust lifts. Tiny vortexes dance near my elbows. Heat streams past me in uneven bursts, drawn downward. Not magic. Thermodynamics. I’m nothing but a conduit—creating a low-pressure pocket in a system that needs a release valve.

The air howls around me, drawn downward by the sudden low-pressure zone I’ve intentionally created. My body position—low to the ground, knees pressed into the slope, palms anchoring me—funnels airflow into the heat pocket like a Venturi effect in overdrive, as if the inferno is gasping for equilibrium. At my knees, sand melts—fusing into glimmering veins of half-formed glass. The world seems to flinch. Just for a second. Just long enough.

The rookies cough behind me. Choked awe bleeds into the air.

I don’t look back.

I drop lower, palms flat, spine curled. Heat lashes my back, but I use it—let it drive the next breath deeper. If I can pull oxygen out of the firestorm, the flames will starve. If I can redirect the updraft—just enough—it’ll collapse the wall from within.

One breath.

The fire snarls, falters.

Another.

The air spins, a column collapsing inward like a throat choking shut. A narrow corridor forms—maybe two body-widths wide. Not safe. Not stable. But it’s a gap.

“Move!” I bark. “Single file. Gear tight. Run.”

Diaz grabs the first rookie and pushes hard. The others follow, ducking low, eyes wide. The heat claws at them, but the walls hold. Just barely. The last one stumbles through—and the fire surges, trying to reclaim the space.

I don’t give it the chance.

I shove forward, every tendon screaming, ribs cramping as I force myself upright. The sigil feels molten now—not supernatural, not mystical, just painful.A biofeedback loop feeding off my stress, my heartbeat, my refusal to let go.

I dive through the gap.

Fire snaps shut behind me like a steel trap, the pressure wave slapping my back with a roar like a slammed vault door. The sound rings in my ears—final, absolute—and the searing heat licks the edge of my gear, chasing but not catching.

We tumble into cleared ground—heaving, drenched in sweat. Coughs tear through the air. Visors rip off. Someone drops to their knees.

Ramirez pulls his mask and gasps. “What in holy hell was that?”

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