Page 84 of On Fire

I turn and go to a tool kit by the first bay.

McKinley walks over, and I raise my hand. Ten feet is close enough. “What are you two doing? Let the bomb people handle do this.”

“It’s wired to Bessie.”

He goes white. “You found it?”

The wire cutters in hand, I shift to go in.

“Chief!”

“This has to be done.”

The other men move uncomfortably. I know they’re worried. These guys deal with life and death situations all the time, but a bomb is out of their wheelhouse. It’s worse than a pharmacy fire or a tank fire. At least we can sometimes see the propane tank or whatever the hell the combustible is.

I move to the wall where Nic is standing. He’s off the chair but hasn’t dropped his gaze from the bomb. It’s as if he’s willing it to stay put.

“I’m not thinking straight. We can cut power to the bell first, then clip the electric wire.” He points to the two wires painted red that come up from the floor to the bell.

“What if that sets it off? You need to go out with the other guys.”

He drops his gaze and looks at me with a grin. “I’m not like the other guys.”

“Damn straight,” I say.

“Or not.”

I don’t know where the banter is coming from but I’m hanging on to it. Holding my breath, hoping this is the right thing to do, knowing this is the right thing to do, I set the snippers on one of two wires.

Then I stop. One at a time?

Nic’s voice is right near me. “Wait. We’re not thinking. Where’s the electrical panel?”

I point to the opposite wall.

“You want to flip the switch or cut wires?” He knows we’ll have to do both. We have four backup generators, and safety overrides for circuit breakers are in place.

“I’ll cut.”

He nods and makes his way across the wide hallway, still scanning the floor. I hold my breath when he opens the panel. It could be wired.

“Third switch on the right,” I say. “We’ll have about five seconds before one of the generators goes online.”

With the flick of a finger, he shuts down power to the bell, points to me, and I snip both electrical wires. The snip of the wire cutters is loud, amplified by adrenaline.

It’s done.

Sweat trickles down my back.

“Okay, we need to get out of here, there may be more, but this trip wire won’t trip now.”

I stay behind a beat.

We exit together. Nic has his hand on my shoulder and doesn’t drop it when we clear the building. My legs feel like water. I have to shake this off. The only time I was more scared and nervous was the day we found Nic.

That was the day I thought he was going to die, and I would lose a piece of myself forever.

The sun is setting, and the sky is pink.

There’s clapping that grows louder and then I see all my men and Devon standing, clapping in sync, and McKinley, the guy I thought would never cut me slack, gives me a fucking hug still wrapped in his fucking towel.