Page 26 of Combust (Everyday Heroes 2)
No. It’s Drew.
“Huh. That’s weird. I don’t know any Andrews.” I stand abruptly. “I’ve gotta get to the station.”
After I take a few steps, she calls my name. When I turn around, there is a sympathetic look in her eyes and concern on her face. “Don’t think I don’t notice how you always change the subject when it circles back to you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” With that, I turn and walk to my truck without looking back.
I’m frozen.
Smoke billows out of the old warehouse, and all I can do is stand and stare. And remember. The crackle of the beams and the whooshing sound they made as they fell from above. The panic in Drew’s screams. The smell of the burning wood and plastic . . . and flesh.
“Goddamn it, Malone!” Dempsey rips the line out of my hands and glares at me as if I’ve lost my mind. The problem is, I fear I have. And it isn’t the first time. “We need you. Either engage or get out of the fucking way,” he growls.
But I don’t move. I feel like I don’t even breathe. The smoke is gray and thick and ashes rain down on everything around us. Embers. Papers, half charred and glowing against the darkened sky, float around me like a ticker tape parade of disaster.
The guys from our engine and Swift City’s are laying down pipe and breaching the building from the west side. A crew is on the front, breaking the windows to control the fire’s fuel. Another crew is putting on their air packs to prepare for a second entry.
And I still stand here, frozen in memory, hearing the PASS sirens going off in my head when there are none sounding off around me. Everyone is moving. No one is stuck in the fire. No one is trapped.
No one is dying.
“Malone! Malone!” I’m yanked from my trance, and Bowman is in my face demanding my attention. “Take command, until the chief comes, will ya?”
“What?” I shake my head, trying to figure out why he’s giving up his command.
“Get to it, Malone.”
And then I get it. He doesn’t trust me. I’m out here, and they’re in there, and he knows I still can’t bring myself to step foot into the beast and get over the past. The fear. The bullshit weighing me down.
He looks at me, eyebrows raised, impatience in his expression. The figurative helping hand extended, yet again.
“Yeah. Sure. I’ve got it.” I jog over to where he stands, momentarily snapped from the living hell in my memory and into the present one. I grab the clipboard and radio from him. “Two-in. Two-out,” I murmur without thinking.
His body jars from the words. From hearing the phrase Drew and I twisted to make our own.
Christ. I just proved his hunch right. That I’m thinking about Drew and what happened instead of the here and now. Instead of doing my job. That the memories are in fact what is holding me back.
He meets my eyes and nods as a slight smile curls his lips. “Two-in. Two-out,” he repeats before jogging toward danger, and as I start the personal accountability record for the guys on scene, I can’t help but think of the last time I went in it was two-in. One-out.
Hours pass.
Each one marked by the charred contents of the building being gone over and over to make sure no hot spots flare up. The scene preserved for the arson detective to investigate the cause of the blaze.
“You want to tell me what happened earlier?”
I look to where Dixon stands with his fire hook prodding something, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. He just keeps looking down, letting me at least keep my pride.
“Nothing did. I froze. It was no big deal.”
“Sounds like burnout to me.”
I don’t flinch at the term now that I know his eyes are studying me. Waiting. Expecting. Questioning. “Nah. I’m good.”
“You think I don’t realize that you haven’t actively participated in a fire since the accident?”
“What do you mean?” Fucking Christ. I roll my shoulders and turn my back to him to investigate a pretend stream of smoke that needs to be stomped out.
“I mean, there’s always a reason, an excuse, or something keeping you from going into the flames. It’s kind of hard to be a firefighter when you’re afraid of fire, don’t you think?”
