Page 107 of Burning for Alexander
KINCAID
Judd:I got the job in Montana. I think I’m gonna take it.
Max:Damn, brother. I’m gonna miss the fuck out of you. But maybe a fresh start is what you need.
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I’d been onlya few blocks from Timber when the dispatch call had come over the radio.
All units, respond to a reported structure fire at Timber on Founder’s Row. Witness reports smoke and flame visible from the roof. Repeat, smoke and flame.
Over the years, I’d heard thousands upon thousands of calls like that one, and each time—whether it was a hangar fire on a base overseas, or an office building back in Philly, or a wildfire here in Legacy—my stomach would drop. For just a heartbeat, I’d feel the panicked helplessness of a twelve-year-old who’d watched as his whole world was burned to ash.
It only ever lasted a second before my years of training would kick in. Before the haze of panic would recede in a wash of cool logic. I’d remember I wasn’t a helpless kid anymore and that I knew what to do: follow the rules, stick to the procedures that had become second nature.
Rely on protocol.
But tonight was different.
I’d texted Tavo this morning to ask how Alex was, and he’d said Alex was glad Timber was closed tonight so he could get to bed early. It was already ten thirty, which meant they were probably both in bed by now.
Right under the roof that was now engulfed in flame.
As I wheeled my truck toward Founder’s Row, my stomach dropped and kept dropping. Panic gripped me with long claws and stuck. And once again, it felt like my whole world might burn to ash…
Because somehow, Alex Marian had become my world.
Though I was already close to Timber, I felt like I lived a hundred lifetimes in the time it took me to get there. A hundred lives without Alex Marian’s sweet smile, without his laughter, without his stubborn affection, without his pleasured cries ringing in my ear. A hundred lifetimes I had no interest in experiencing.
So when I saw the fire licking out from under the eaves, a living thing crawling fast through the attic toward the room where Alex was sleeping, I didn’t stop to assess. I didn’t set up a command. I didn’t wait for my crew to run line, or handle the scene like the damn textbook rules I’d drilled into rookies a hundred times—two in, two out. Wait for backup. Don’t risk collapse with attic fire.
What did the rules matter if Alex was up there burning alive?
I took off running for the building as soon as my feet hit theground. My crew shouted after me, but I was already inside, smoke wafting down the hall and out the door I’d opened.
“Alex!” My panicked voice cracked in the thick smoke, nothing like the calm command I usually kept on scene. I swept my light hard across the ceiling, up the narrow stairs, heart hammering.
Every instinct screamed that this was wrong.Reckless. The kind of choice that could cost me my life. But I didn’t want my life if Alex wasn’t in it, plain and simple.
I battled my way up the stairs one at a time, through air so thick it choked me. It was so dense, I knew it was more burn-off than flame, but smoke was the killer in most house fires. And if Alex and Tavo were up there with no gear, dammit, I had to reach them.
I heard a scream from outside and a radio crackle behind me. I reached for the handset on my turnout coat to respond—but I wasn’t wearing my turnouts, so of course it wasn’t there.
Suddenly, I felt a hand clamp on my shoulder and yank me back.
Sujo was in full gear with his SCBA mask in place until he peeled it away. “Get the fuck out right now,” he shouted. “Alex is outside. Says the building is empty. Tavo isn’t home.”
It was too good to be true. “Are you sure?” I croaked through the billowing haze.
The roar of the flames above us and the sound of debris falling made Sujo yank me down the stairs toward the door. “I’ll clear it. Save us both by going now!”
I did as he said, realizing he was right. I was putting his life and the lives of the rest of my crew in jeopardy by staying there without the proper gear. After quickly making my way out, I passed McMasters going in.
I stumbled down the stairs, lightheaded from the smoke. My eyes burned, and my nostrils stung.
But the pain faded when Alex tackled me outside, nearly knocking me over.
“Judd! Oh, fuck, Judd. Why? Why did you run in there?” he shouted and cried, all while practically strangling me with his arms wrapped tightly around my neck. “Why would you do that, you asshole! I can’t believe you! Don’t you care about me at all?”
