Page 78 of Single Mom's Firefighter SEALs
People first. Always.
I pull my shirt collar over my nose, round up the people in the cafeteria, and direct them down the hall toward the doors.
In the restroom, two girls are huddled together, and a third is on the floor by the sinks, coughing and crying.
“It’s okay.” I drop low and reach out to her. “I’ve got you. Everybody with me.”
One of the girls launches at me. I scoop the one on the floor up under my arm and get the others moving with my free hand, steering them out as we stay crouched beneath the thickest layer of smoke.
By the time I get them outside, the parking lot has turned into a scene from hell, with clusters of parents clinging to their terrified kids, fire trucks and police cruisers, and an ambulance pulling in as a disorderly line of cars rushes to pull out.
The alarm is still screaming, smoke is still pumping from the school’s roofline, and there’s blood on the asphalt ten yards from the side of the building.
Not much, but enough, and I hope like hell it’s Kozlov’s or one of his men.
I pass the girls off to a teacher I know and drop to my knees beside a little boy who’s sitting on the curb with his father. The child has a nasty laceration across his forehead and a dazed, unfocused look.
“What’s your name, buddy?”
“Eli.”
“Okay, Eli. I’m Weston. Stay with me.”
I move automatically, checking his pupils, airway, and bleeding as I ask questions. Shifting into EMT mode givesmy head something to do besides picture Elena and T.J. in this mess.
I get Eli stabilized, then move to a mother with smoke inhalation, and a woman with a broken ankle. I start building a triage line farther out near the edge of the lot, where the smoke is blowing past instead of over us. Through everything, my eyes keep going back to the school.
When I finally spot Elena, her face streaked with soot, relief hits me so hard my knees nearly go weak.
But T.J. isn’t with her.
I race over, heart pounding. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know!” The terrified edge to her voice hits me hard, straight in the chest. “We heard some first graders might be in the back hall, and I was going?—”
I don’t hear the rest. I’m already moving.
The back hall Buck marked on our walkthrough runs past the edge of the gym and down a narrower corridor near the maintenance and custodial rooms.
I hit the side entrance and shove inside. The smoke is thinner here, but the building is hotter. Water is hissing down from the sprinklers in uneven sheets, and somewhere in the distance, metal creaks and glass breaks in a fast cascade.
“T.J.!”
No answer.
I continue further in, and then I hear his voice. “Stay low! Holdonto each other!”
Jesus.I round the corner and see him, soot-streaked, brave as hell, shepherding four tiny kids toward the exit, one of them clinging to his sleeve.
He looks up when he sees me, and the wild flash in his eyes is so painfully Tyler’s, my aching chest nearly splits open.
“The front way’s bad,” he says. “This one goes out behind the dumpster.”
One of the little boys is sobbing so hard he’s hiccupping. Another’s eyes are alarmingly wide.
“You’re all doing a great job,” I tell them. “You’re almost there. Everybody keep holding on.”
T.J. lifts his chin. “I told them to stay low because smoke goes up.”
