Page 16 of Jump

When Axel and Sloane disappear one way, I start the other with Rizz close on my heels. “Primary search of the main floor, Chief,” I relay. “Living room. Kitchen. Open plan. Old building materials lay scattered around, and one of the walls isn’t complete.”

“Kinda makes me think they’re mid-renovation,” Rizz adds through his radio. “They’ve got flammables in here. Tins of paint. Stacks of woods.”

“Keep your wits about you,” Rosa rumbles back to us. “Get in, search the place, then get the hell out. Ivy?”

“Aerial is waiting at the second-story window, bravo side. I’m ready to breach when needed.”

“Stay at the controls,” I command.

Using my Halligan bar, I flip a fancy new couch smoldering from the heat of the fire blazing around it, and breathe a little easier when I don’t find a kid holed up beneath.

It’s always an intrusive thought for me: wanting to find victims, while simultaneously hoping to never again see a dead body curled up on itself.

I want to believe a man when he says his building is empty. But we’ve been caught out too many times. There’s been too much death. Too many souls forgotten until it’s too late.

“First floor is clear,” Rizz announces. “I’m gonna go up the stairs. They’re flimsy,” he calls back a moment later. “Step easy, Lieutenant.”

“Hold up.”

I come from behind him and take his position before he sets a single foot on a stair, then I start up and grit my teeth at the groan of DIY ‘fancy’ steps. The aesthetically pleasing bullshit, no doubt hidden from an engineer’s eye.

This family is the social media kind, the type that prides themselves on ‘my place looks good’, and doesn’t give a single fuck that it offers zero functionality or safety.

And today, their home is gonna burn to the ground.

“This is the fire department!” I swing my Halligan forward and slam it against the next step before continuing up. “Call out if you can hear me.”

“Basement is empty,” Axel’s voice crackles through my radio and washes a metric ton of anxiety from my shoulders.

I don’t even like the kid. I fucking swear, I can’t stand him. But I care that he lives. I care that he comes to work on a standard Tuesday morning, and goes home again, in one piece, to the sweet-as-pie Hannah.

“Make your way out,” I command over the radio. “Rizz and I are heading to the second floor. Once we ascertain the place is empty, we’ll dump buckets of water on top and stop the flames from jumping to the nearby trees. Chief,” I wait a beat, “how are we looking from out there?”

“Like Charlie’s about to collapse,” he growls. “Let me guess, they took out a load-bearing wall to make that open-plan living space?”

“Sounds about right.” I shake my head and trudge into the thick smoke. “Idiots.”

“Uh… Lieutenant?”

Axel’s wary tone brings me to a standstill. I literally stop on the top landing and turn back, like I’ll somehow be able to see him through two floors and a bunch of flames.

“The basement’s full to the asshole with flammables,” he reports. “It’s time to bail.”

“Let’s go, Ruiz!” Rosa’s tone changes from businesslike to commanding in a single beat of my heart. “Finish your climb and get the hell out. Axel and Sloane, tell me what’s down there. But I want you to walk while you talk. You’re done in there.”

“I count seven gas bottles,” Sloane answers. His breath comes heavier as he climbs stairs. While he moves, I turn off the landing and start right. “About two dozen tins of paint,” he adds. “I didn’t check if they were full or empty.”

“I caught sight of a gas can,” Axel inserts. “Small one, but big enough to go boom.”

“Is the dragon down there yet?” I head into what appears to be a guest bedroom and check inside the closet. No kids. No adults. No pets. “Feeney? Is it hot down there?”

“Not yet. But the ceiling’s gonna give soon, and once it does, we’ve got ourselves a bottle rocket. Where are you at, Lieutenant?”

“Heading to the main bedroom, eastern side. Is my aerial in place?”

“I’m ready for you, Lieutenant.” Ivy’s voice is like nails on a chalkboard as I move through thick smoke. Like curdled fucking milk in fresh coffee.

She bothers me more than anyone else on my crew, and the reasons for that… shame me. So I push into the master bedroom with flames licking at my back. “Rizz. Let’s go. There’s no one in here.”

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