Page 17 of Jump

“On my way.” He glances back the way we came, dogged by flames and shaking his head as the floor groans beneath his feet. “They told the truth this time, Lieutenant. No one inside.”

“Still had to look.”

I head toward the picture window on the other side of the room and catch sight of the mustard yellow turnouts of one of my crew on the other side. Opening the heavy glass pane as flames dance closer, I wave Rizz forward and snarl when, at the top of the ladder, it’s Ivy’s face I see through her helmet.

“Patrick!” I shove Rizz toward the window and growl, “I ordered you to remain at the aerial operations unit.”

“I got it in place, Lieutenant.” She reaches out and grabs Rizz’s shoulder to pull him onto the ladder. She’s strong, though small. Hard-working, despite her sex and my animosity toward her.

“Sloane and I are out,” Axel announces. From the corner of my eye, I catch sight of him on the lawn below. His uniform smoldering, his helmet tossed carelessly aside. “Your turn, Lieutenant.”

I reach for my radio and crush the button on the side. “Ivy, you’re going down with Rizz. Primary search is complete.”

“Oh no!” a lady screams. It’s a belly-stabbing, heart-wrenching, sobbing shriek that stops my blood cold.

I search outside the window and catch sight of a young woman crying by my chief.

“We forgot Beau!”

“Beau?” I snap straight and spin in place to renew my search. “Chief!” I shout into my radio. “Get me information.”

“Beau is three years old,” Rosa barks. “Two feet tall. Weighs approximately forty-four pounds. Black hair. Blue eyes.”

Motherfucker! How do you forget your child?

I charge toward the massive, canopied bed and flip the mattress, but the base is solid. There’s no hiding beneath. So I tear the drawers open and rip blankets out of them to make sure the kid isn’t hiding inside. Then I start toward the mirrored floor-to-ceiling closet and slide the doors open.

Gowns. Dresses. Yards and yards of fabric spill free and make my search impossible. But I tear the materials free of their hangers and toss them out of my way. “Beau?!” I pull out one drawer. Then a second. “Beau, are you in here?”

“Lieutenant?” Axel bounds in through the bedroom window, his helmet back in place, and his gait smooth, despite the fall he took last year that earned him a broken leg.

The injury that eventually led to my girlfriend dying in a fire a little like this one.

Two firefighters looking for a little boy. Thick smoke. A building going down, with or without them still inside.

“Check the bathroom!” I tear more clothes from the closet to clear the space and reveal anyone who might hide behind. Someone like a three-year-old child, too small for their age. “Check behind the toilet and inside the—”

“I’ve got it, Lieutenant.”

He dashes into the en-suite bathroom so the colors of his turnouts still flash in my vision for a beat after he’s gone. But he’s quick.

“Not behind the toilet. Not in the tub. Shower’s clear, and the single cabinet in here is…” As though he checks while he speaks, I catch the slam of the doors being shut again, “empty. He’s not in the bathroom.”

A deep, panicked woof makes me jump and jerk my head around. I stop on a pair of arctic blue eyes. Black hair. Two feet tall, but four fucking legs and a tag that says Beau.

“It’s a dog!” I sweep up the mutt and hold him like a football. He growls, but his tail whips my back, and his tongue comes out to lap along my arm. “It’s a fucking dog,” I grit out.

Shaking my head, I start toward the window and speak into my radio. “Chief, Beau’s a dog. We’ve got it and are heading out now.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Axel breathes out a sigh that is part relief, part frustration. But he follows me to the window and out. “Way to stress out a couple of guys. Jesus.”

“Soak it!” I climb down one-handed and feel no remorse when the pup’s legs hit the steel ladder as we descend. “Dump water on this bitch before the flames hit the basement and blow the whole structure.”

Arriving at the bottom of the ladder and passing Beau off to Sloane, I turn on Ivy. “I gave you an order, Patrick. You disobeyed it.”

“But, Lieutenant…” Her expression drops into one of fear. “I was doing my job.”

“No! Your job is to follow your lieutenant’s orders. When we’re out here, working a fire, it’s your responsibility to follow the rules and be where I put you. Jesus, Ivy. Listen!”

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