Page 74 of Reckless
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Zoe stood in the eerily silent hallway at Station Eight for what could’ve been a minute or an hour. Hell, it might’ve been a day, except that no firefighters or paramedics had come back through the door.
Not that there was any sort of guarantee that they would.
Something twisted in her chest, dangerously close to her heart. Between the blow of not getting the Collingsworth Grant and the showdown with her father, this night had already destroyed both her confidence and her faith. The numb shock of losing the grant had quickly worn away after the phone call with the director, leaving streaks of sadness in its wake. Hope House was so in need, its residents so deserving of the money to make their temporary home a better, safer place, with warm food and a chance for more. Zoe had worked for months on end to make it happen, throwing not only her heart and soul into the effort, but asking everyone around her for a piece of theirs as well.
She’d believed beyond the shadow of a doubt that she would get that money so she could finally make a real difference at Hope House. To the point that she’d risked everything.
Andlost.
With her nerves feeling like they’d been scorched over high heat and left to stick to the bottom of a frying pan, Zoe blinked herself back to the firehouse, where fresh waves of dread stuck into her like needles. Her breath trembled in her lungs, her chest rising and falling in shaky bursts. The black-framed photos marching down the wall in front of her slid back into focus, and tears re-formed in her eyes as she looked at them again. Oz and Andersen, their faces creased in concentration as they hung from harnesses off the side of the practice tower, a dizzying four stories above the ground. O’Keefe at the back of the ambulance, arms outstretched as he helped a woman huddled helplessly on the gurney in front of him. Alex and her father, arms slung over each other’s shoulders with smiles they might not ever wear around each other again. And Brennan and Mason Watts, hamming it up for the camera in the engine bay, both of them blissfully unaware of the tragic consequences that would wreck the career of one and take the life of the other.
Alex had promised her he’d be okay, thateverythingwould be okay. But clearly, risks failed. Hell, she hadn’t even made it to the final selection round for the Collingsworth Grant before her leap of faith had fallen spectacularly flat. How the hell could he make a promise so enormous and expect to keep it when every single time he went to work, his life was literally on the line?
Like right now.
Choking back the sob squeezing the back of her throat, Zoe forced herself down the hallway. She needed to focus, to breathe, to take the panic rising in her chest and get rid of it.
She headed for the kitchen.
The grocery bags she’d handed off when she’d arrived stood in a precise row on the stainless steel counter next to the refrigerator, and she emptied them one by one. Jones had put the trays of mac and cheese in the fridge, but pulling them out to get them in the oven seemed kind of pointless since she didn’t know when everyone would be back.
Or if.
“Stop it,” she chided, and fabulous, now she was talking to herself. She turned toward the pantry—there had to be something in there she could chop, mix, or bake—when the flash of the muted TV caught her eye from across the common room.
Everyone had hauled out to respond to that fire call so fast, they must’ve forgotten to turn the thing off. Zoe crossed over to the pair of couches arranged in an L shape in front of the television, where a quick pat-through of the cushions yielded the remote.
But the image on the screen turned her blood to ice water, and instead of hitting the power button to turn the television off, she jammed her finger over the volume, cranking it loud enough to vibrate in her ears.
“Breaking news at the scene of a fire in the one hundred block of Windsor Avenue, where firefighters have made dramatic attempts to put out the massive blaze now taking over four units of a row home. Moments ago, our very own KTV crew witnessed a breathtaking rescue that left at least one person critically injured…”
“No, no, no, no, no,” Zoe gasped, fear slamming through her with enough force to knock the air from her rib cage with a cry.
In the background, over the reporter’s shoulder, O’Keefe and Rachel scrambled to take care of the lifeless figure strapped to the gurney, their faces as ash-white and serious as she’d ever seen them. The man stretched out between them, prone and unmoving, was fully decked out in turnout gear, with one exception.
His helmet was missing, and Zoe would know that sun-kissed blond head anywhere on the planet.
The remote had barely hit the floor before she tore out of the fire station with her keys in her hand and her heart shattering into a million pieces in her chest.
* * *
By the timeZoe had made the ten-minute drive to Fairview Hospital, her panic had grown six rows of razor-wire teeth and sunk them all the way into her bones. Barging past the hiss of the automatic double doors, she flung herself over the linoleum toward the information desk. Her breath hitched at an unnatural pace, tumbling her words together in a rushed mess.
“The man…the firefighter hurt at the fire on Windsor. Please. I need…I need…” Absolute terror clotted the rest of her request, and the woman behind the desk leaned forward with obvious concern.
“Are you a family member?” she asked, and Zoe froze.
“I, uh…I…”
“She’s with us,” came a familiar voice from her left. Her heart vaulted into her windpipe as she swung around to see Cole walking toward the desk, his face streaked with sweat and soot and seriousness as he came to a stop beside her.
“Oh, my God, Cole.” Zoe threw her arms around him, choking on the pervasive stench of smoke clinging to his turnout gear. “What’s going on? I saw the fire on the news and they said?—”
“Come on. Let me take you to the waiting room down the hall, okay?”
A wave of nausea roiled in the pit of her belly. “Please just tell me,” she whispered, wiping away the tears wobbling on her lashes.
