Eight

FEAR WAS a thief.

It stole a man’s confidence, took everything from him. Sometimes with whispers, undermining his ability to think and spreading thread-thin cracks in his truths. Other times it struck with the full force of a tsunami, pulling in a man’s strength to feed itself, then unleashing its fury on his mind, drowning all sense and reason until he couldn’t breathe.

Fear was Death’s companion, shortening a man’s life thread in looped pinches, a cat’s cradle made of bad decisions, panic, and despair.

It was kept back by ritual and rote, a hammering of discipline and training Rey kept at the front of his mind whenever he donned his bunker gear. Going through a door knowing a storm raged inside ate at a man’s resolve, opening the way for fear to dig its fingers in and rip his world out from under him.

Mason was at his left, working through the labyrinth of corridors and oddly shaped apartments in the old Chinatown building. The walls were right in spaces, then careened out, creating vortexes of heat and ash when the flames found a particularly tasty decades-old buildup of wallpaper and particle board furniture. Forcing himself to breathe normally, Rey worked around Mason’s side, his face mask bumping on a piece of door trim, its paint bubbling up from the encroaching flames. Their gear was cumbersome, a heavy weight distributed as evenly as possible, but it was better than dying, something Rey reminded Mace of every time they strapped on everything they needed to carry when clearing out a floor.

It was tricky following the hose crew during a sweep. The building was ancient and its sprinkler system spotty at best, according to one of the residents they’d dragged out of a first-floor studio. Fueled by a buffet of combustibles housed in the building’s outer brick walls, the fire raged around them, balls of sparks leaping from one wall to the next. The central staircase was unusable, having fallen first to the flames, and the outer escape platforms were impassable above a certain point.

They’d gone in before the second floor was fully engulfed, hoping to clear out any residents caught on the buildings’ upper three stories. A swinging basket hovered at the end of the broken hall window, ready to lower anyone they found. Murphy, their rookie, made the first catch of the day, hefting a frail, elderly woman and her three cats into the bucket after wrestling the felines into a pair of kennels. Her curses chased him back into the building, admonishing the freckle-faced young man for forcing her out before she was ready to go.

“We owe him a beer!” Mason shouted at Rey through their comm.

“Is he even old enough to drink?” Laughing, Rey continued to work the apartment. “Back room’s clear.”

“Crawford, Montenegro, report.” Their chief’s call crackled over the speaker, her voice booming through Rey’s eardrums. “How much do you have left to go?”

“Half done,” Mason replied, testing the floor near a crumbling piece of drywall. “Floor plan’s wonky. Suppression teams sweeping through. Got maybe three more apartments to check on our end. Do we need to—”

There was a noise, a reedy, thin sound creeping out through the cacophony around him, and Rey muted his comm, standing as still as he could to listen. The mask muffled some sounds and amplified others, sometimes throwing off directional echoes until he could orient himself. Standing in the silence of a crackling firestorm seemed… odd, but there was a graceful quietude in the ravenous flames, a gravitas beneath the racing clock and surging adrenaline in his blood. Fire was a fait accompli of sorts for most people, except the insane ones who broke through its defenses to beat it back into submission.

It came again, faint but strong enough to lure Rey toward the next door along the hall. They’d breached the building without much more than a glance at egresses and a quick prayer to whichever saint was on call that day in Heaven. The knob didn’t turn when Rey tested it, ducking when something flared up near his left side.

“Mace! Rey! We’re going to pull back!” Their lead, Stevens, shouted over the comm. “Are you clear?”

“Breaching door!” Rey grumbled back over the line. Turning, he slapped Mace on the shoulder before his friend got too far away. “I think I heard something. Need a door chock.”

“They’re pulling us… but… hold…. Stevens says to go in.” Mace’s voice echoed over the line, his lips moving under his mask’s clear guard. “I’ve got your back. We’ve got—”

Mace’s voice was buried beneath the burst of ceiling tiles giving away above them. Smoke billowed down into the hall, trapped by the lack of airflow, and the fire shifted, catching on a dangling piece of drywall. Fear walked between them, muttering its dirge, and Rey shoved it aside, reaching for the trust he had in Mace. There was no one better on their crew. If Mace promised to keep him safe, he would make the breach and go through the door.

Tuning out everything but the heavy hook tool he’d carried into the building, Rey lodged its end into the doorframe. The shushing of his breathing through the SCBA intensified, a rattling chorus of too-quick inhales. His muscles burned slightly when he put pressure on the tool until he shifted his weight, wrenching the edge into the lock. His shoulders clenched, and his hands threatened to slip free of the tool’s wrapped grip.

“We’re going to have to grab the bucket.” Mace cut through Rey’s breathing. “Ladder’s on the other side of the breach. They’re going to move it.”

“Almost got it,” Rey grunted. Bearing down on the tool, he shoved all of his weight at the bar, grinning behind his mask when the molding surrendered. The ache in his shoulders promised a bit of bruising, but a second wrench gave Rey enough room to shove the tool down so he could twist again.

The doorframe screamed, exposing a steel flashing as it gave, folding under Rey’s powerful thrust, its metal skin rippling and pulling away from the lock. A long, agonizing second later, the knob popped, flying off down the hall into the flames. Smoke poured out of the cracked-open portal, paler than the greasy black plumes billowing out of the ceiling. Mace hit the hinge with a door chock, wedging the heavy square piece into place. A blast of water shot down the hall behind them, Stevens stomping down the already sodden carpet with a bucking hose tucked against his side.

They’d drilled, practiced, and fought side by side for countless hours, a backbreaking, ball-busting plunge into exhaustion and danger. When the fire reached out to grab at Rey, he shut down as much of his own self-awareness as possible, focusing on the bit of mewling he’d caught on the rushing wind pulling up swirls of orange-yellow embers. Fear hounded him, nipping at his heels, but there wasn’t time to coddle it, not when the ash and smoke threatened to open the way for Death to slip in.

“Help!” The cry was weak, barely audible above crackling fire and shushing water, but Rey heard it. “Please.”

The room was a hot, windowless oven, its walls obscured by the banks of mottled smoke rolling out of the door, the heat seeking the cooler air, hoping to feed its hunger. From the looks of things, it was a living room or perhaps a studio, but Rey couldn’t make out much more than that. A bar-height island jutted out from the wall next to the door, and he moved farther into the space, keeping his breathing as even as possible while he hunted.

A gust of cooler air hit his back, and the fire surged, eating its way through the drywall at the other end of the space. Glancing to the right, he was shocked to find the kitchenette’s cabinets pulled down from their anchors, probably shaken loose by the boom of the first gas line igniting before the crew arrived to shut it down. An intake vent punched through the cinder block wall carving the tiny apartment from the chopped-up hall, its slats threaded with wisps of smoke. His mind grabbed at the probability the vent carried the cry he’d heard into the hall, but knowing that wasn’t helping him. Not until Rey waded into the jumbled mess and reached down to pull away the remains of a china cabinet, its heavy top section wedged against the bar counter and the wall.

A bit of pink caught his eye; then movement changed the shadows, yanking at Rey’s attention. Then the cry came again, weak, faint, and definitely female.

“Mace!” Rey moved closer, a stuffed animal squeaking under his foot when he stepped on it. Its wail was too much like a woman’s cry, but he hadn’t imagined the plea. She was there under the cabinets, and she moved again, flashing a peek of pale skin vibrant with a tattooed spray of ladybugs. “Found her! Need medical!”

He went in hard and fast, pulling at the debris until his fingers closed in on soft flesh. Yelling over the link to Mace, he dug, tossing aside silverware, dishes, and shattered cabinet doors. A shadow cut through the smoke, and Mason emerged from its silvery gray veil.

It took a forever of a minute, perhaps two, to find her. Bleeding from a gash across her temple, the woman gasped and choked when they fought to work her loose. She was dressed causally in yoga pants and a tank top revealing her tattooed arms. Her exposed skin was wet, seeping blood from cuts. When Rey began to lift a cabinet shell off her torso, she screamed, digging her fingers into his upper arm, her leg flopping loose at her hip. Coughing, she shook with tremors, and Rey shoved his arm under her shoulders, catching her weight when she went limp.

“Are they passing a board?” Rey called out.

“Here.” Mace reached over the counter, snagging the transport board from Stevens. “We’ve got to move. Third floor’s coming down. Hall’s clear. We’ve got a line to do a pass-down.”

They worked to get her to breathe, then into the board to take her down. After strapping a mask to her lean, spare face, Rey joined the hand-off line to get her to the swinging basket and the waiting EMTs. Grit smeared her skin, tacky where her spit and blood trapped it, but her breathing was steady, and Rey broke off from the lift to work through the rest of the apartment with Mace, a silent agreement they’d come to with a short string of grunts and a jerk of Rey’s chin toward the bedroom.

“Daytime. Maybe the kid’s at school.” Rey continued to work back into the apartment. “Still….”

“Won’t hurt to check,” Mace agreed. “Not like we can get down right now. Bucket’s got to come back up.”

There were toys on the floor under the cabinets, a broken stacking ring game lying in pieces by a fallen chair, and a cartoon bear laughed up from a plastic plate lying on the kitchen counter, a fat-barreled spoon keeping it company while the fire raged on. Chatter flared on their comms, and Rey’s attention was half on the progress of the lift and the convergence of two fresh crews on site to battle the hopefully diminishing blaze.

There wasn’t much left to the apartment other than the living area and kitchenette, just a small bedroom with a thin window and a bathroom not much bigger than a postage stamp attached to that. Mace covered the rest of the living room while Rey went through the bedroom, oddly happy to see the queen-size mattress and box spring sitting on the floor instead of on a frame. The closet was clear, but his link was full of voices. Then Mace shouted his name, breaking through Rey’s concentration, ordering him to get out.

“It’s clear!” Rey shouted back. “Coming out.”

The smoke was thicker going out, but its ash was pale, bluish flakes smearing on Rey’s face mask. He’d been on site too long, for what felt like hours, and his body was slick with sweat beneath his gear. Mace was waiting for him at the apartment’s wedged-open door, his expression hidden behind the mask, but Rey could practically feel the waves of adrenaline rolling off of his friend’s body.

Spreading through open space, the fire chased them, but Rey ignored it, eager to get clear of the floor. One of the outer windows shattered a few feet away from them, punched in from one of the ladder crews’ axes, and they were through the hallway’s window as the hoses began to batter the flames back. Mace caught Rey’s arm, pulling him over the transport bucket’s edge.

Desperate for fresh air, Rey yanked his mask down as soon as they were clear, sucking in stale, ashen air, but it was good to be free of the SCBA equipment. The basket touched ground a few moments later, and he stumbled out, legs wobbly from the run through the building. Each step seemed to add a pound to his shoulders, his bunker gear dripping on the inside with his sweat. Arms and legs aching, Rey collapsed against the side of their station’s main truck, the battalion chief waving their crew off the front line. A bottle of lukewarm water tapped his cheek, and Rey glanced up, grabbing it from Mace’s hand.

“Thanks.” His throat hurt. It always hurt after a fire despite the gear they used to keep their airways clear. The water tasted as stale as the ash-coated air, but it soothed Rey enough for him to risk speaking again. “We still owe Murphy a beer?”

“Not… today.” Mace slid down beside him, his eyes intent on Stevens and a small group of firefighters gathered around one of the response vehicles. Clearing his throat, his friend murmured, “Murphy got hit. He was on the other side of the wall when part of the third floor came down. Stevens told me, but he doesn’t know how bad the kid is, but he was responsive, so we’ve got that at least.”

“Fucking hell.” The fear finally hit, its long teeth sinking into the meat of Rey’s thoughts, and he shuddered, wishing the water bottle in his hand held something potent enough to wash away the bitter, metallic taste spreading over his tongue. Murphy was new, so green his gear was still sparkling and untarnished, but he’d been a good addition to their station and crew. “Today’s been one shitty day, Mace. One thoroughly shitty day.”

“That it has been, but Murphy’s got a great medical team, and he’ll be okay. They’ll slap him together and send him out quick.” After finishing off the water, Mace crumpled the plastic, twisting it into a ball. “And when we get back, I think we’ve got to talk about Gus, because judging from the text I got from Ivo while we were in there? I’ve got a couple of brothers who are ready to skin you alive and use what they get for cone sushi.”

“JESUS, YOUR… damned… brother.” Rey stood in the middle of the living room in their shared not-quite Chinatown cramped apartment, blocking Mace’s view of the television. “Actually pretty much all of them are assholes, but Gus… fuck Gus.”

“Dude, there’s a game on.” Mason motioned at the screen with a remote. “Trying to watch here. Thought you didn’t want to talk about Gus. So high school. Much drama. Do not want. I think that’s what you said, right? Now let me watch the game.”

“The damned thing is taped.” Rey slapped at his best friend’s feet, knocking them off the coffee table. “And about three months old. Look up the damned score if you’re that interested.”

It was two in the morning and they both should have been asleep, but neither of them seemed to be able to unwind. They’d played a short game of tag, torturing their aching bodies on a ten-minute run to burn off the odd excess energy, but it hadn’t helped. Grabbing showers and comfortable clothes, they’d flopped on the massive L-shaped sectional they’d inherited from Bear and agreed beer and chow fun would do the trick.

Buoyed by the news of Murphy’s quick release from the hospital, Rey still couldn’t seem to shake off the incessant bits of Gus surfacing in his head. His mind replayed the squeak of the toy beneath his foot and the trembling fear he’d refused to let get hold of him, doubt eating at him because they hadn’t found a kid back at the fire. Reasoning with himself did no good. They were off-shift, worn down to the bone, and waiting for a delivery of Cantonese food from the restaurant downstairs. He’d already shot Mason down about Gus not more than an hour before, but his thoughts kept circling back to the one man he knew he shouldn’t get involved with.

The doorbell rang before Mason could answer him. Thirty bucks and five minutes later, they were hunched over on the couch, shoveling beef chow fun into their mouths while Mason cursed out the end of the recorded game. Shutting off the television, Mason picked up his beer, then ripped away any pretense Rey might have had about his best friend’s feelings for his younger brother.

“Look, I promised Bear I’d fuck you up if you hurt Gus… again. I didn’t even know there was a first time, but apparently, yeah, you fucked him up. Or at least Bear thinks so.” Mason sipped at his Finnegan Pub’s IPA, then set the bottle on one of the wooden crates they’d put on either side of the couch. “I thought you guys were just fooling around. No harm, no foul when you walked. Now Bear’s telling me something different.”

“What’s Gus telling you?” Rey shot back. “Because as far as I know, Bear wasn’t in bed with us.”

“Fair enough. I haven’t talked to him…. Gus, I mean. And Rey, you’ve got to know I love you like a brother but…. Gus is….” Tapping his arm where Mason had the brothers’ star inked into his skin, he continued, “He’s my baby brother. Has been for a long time, and this is shit because you’re my best friend. So if you want to talk about what’s going on between the two of you, I’m going to listen. I love the dude, but I know he’s an ass, and I don’t like Bear putting me in the middle of this, not when I’ve got stakes on both sides of the fence. Do I need to get in the middle, or are you guys working this crap out?”

Picking a water chestnut out of his half-finished noodles, Rey searched for where to start. His emotions were too muddled, a conflict of want and caution. Crunching through the chestnut’s soft flesh, he thought about what to say. Murphy complicated his thoughts, as did the woman they’d pulled from the kitchen rubble. The beer was a mistake. He should have gone for something harder, a raspy bourbon potent enough to steal his breath away.

Much like Gus’s kisses had.

“I can’t get that woman out of my head. The one we got out today,” Rey confessed. “The last one. With the kid we couldn’t find.”

“Kid wasn’t there,” Mason reminded him. “Woman’s fine. A bit banged up and in a cast but she’s good. Her little girl was at school. It was a win, Rey. Why are you dragging her behind you?”

“Because Gus has a kid. Stupid as it sounds, I keep putting him in that kitchen. Under those damned cabinets. Which is fucking insane because there’s no way Gus would be….” Rey snapped his mouth shut, hating the paths his mind took. “My brain keeps telling me Gus wouldn’t be there watching a kid. That’s just not his style. But—”

“There’s a lot of something in that but there, Rey,” Mason cut in gently. “I’m not going to tell you Gus is a great father and a good person. He hasn’t even seen the kid yet, but that’s ’cause her family’s… well, I guess they want to make sure he’s okay. Can’t blame them. We all know just ’cause someone says you’re the father, that doesn’t mean he’s going to be a dad. They’re going to make him jump through some hoops, but he’s willing to do the jumping.”

“He wasn’t for me.” The hurt in that still stung. He hadn’t been enough for Gus to try to straighten up, and with as much regret as he had for letting Gus go, Rey had to. Or he’d have been caught in the same love-you-hurt-you relationship his mother had with his father. “I wasn’t a priority for Gus. Not then. And yeah, I figured that meant he was good with me telling him we were done. It didn’t seem like he cared, Mace. I mean, shit, how many times has he been late for things—important things—and I was supposed to just laugh it off? If I don’t think I’m worth more than that, then I’m asking to be treated like shit.”

“Three years too late to be having this conversation, man,” Mason pointed out.

“We had that conversation. Or at least I thought we did.” Gus stood there, looking at him, light glittering on his face and picking the silver out of his pale blue eyes. His expression had been… rebellious, then dead, shutting Rey out. “Maybe only I did. I don’t fucking know anymore, Mace. He threw that at me this morning. Right after I… fuck, he gets to me, man. I know he’s your brother, but he gets under my skin. I can’t remember the last time I saw him, and this morning… at the house… in the kitchen—”

“I don’t want to know if the two of you fucked in that kitchen.” His friend shook his head, picking up his beer again. “Look, you two are adults, and like it or not… actually no, you don’t have to be around each other, but Rey, you’ve got to ask yourself this: Are you just missing having someone to fuck or do you actually love that damned asshole?”

“It’s not that simple—”

“It’s exactly that simple, Rey.” Mason looked away, huffing out a breath. “Gus… he pisses me off. He’s got fucking everything inside of him to make something of himself and he wastes it. He could go to school, suck in some more knowledge about art or… something. He’s wicked smart, but his grades were shit because school bored him. Now he’s kicking around, living day to day like some slacker when he could be doing more. I know he’s not lazy. He’s scared. He’s scared to try something because he’s afraid to fail, and that’s on his whacked-as-fuck mom. She did that to him. Talk to him, Rey. See how he feels. And for God’s sake, listen to what he’s saying under the posturing and bravado. Really listen to him.”

“Never would have thought you’d be sitting next to me on the couch telling me to go after your brother.” It was literally the last thing in the world he’d have bet Mason would say, but there the words were, sitting smugly in the middle of the shock wave Mace dropped on him. “You’re the last person I’d imagine as Gus’s cheerleader.”

“That’s where you are wrong, dude. I’m his biggest fucking cheerleader, Rey. No one wants Gus to succeed more than I do. Not Bear. Not Ivo. Not even Saint Luke.” Mace smirked as he sipped at his beer. “And if you do go at him again, and if you let him down, I hope you’ll still be my friend after I beat the shit out of you.”

Mason’s phone rang before Rey could respond, and they both froze. Predawn phone calls never carried good news, especially considering their line of work. When Mace mouthed “Bear” at him, the worry intensified, deepening to touch at terrors involving the shop, the brothers, and the craziness in their world. Mace was silent for nearly a minute, his face sobering as the call went on.

“No, shit. What do you want me to do? Are you guys heading over there?” Mace frowned, then glanced up, his worried eyes connecting with Rey’s gaze. “You sure? Fucking Christ. Bear, we didn’t know, man. We thought… shit, what are the damned odds. Look, how about if we swing by the house tomorrow afternoon…. Okay, today, but afternoon? Yeah, me and Rey. No, it’s….” He gave Rey a speculative and assessing look. “It’ll be fine, Bear. And if it’s not, then it’s on me. How about at one? Think that’ll give him enough time?” A hiccup of time passed; then Mace nodded. “Okay, see you then.”

“What’s going on?” Rey didn’t wait for Mace to put the phone down.

“First, update on the woman we pulled from the fire. That was Jules Wagner….” Mace swore under his breath. “The mother of Gus’s kid. That place was her friend’s apartment. She was over there picking up some stuff for Chris when the gas line blew. Jesus. This is nuts. We’ve got to get some sleep.”

“How the hell do you think I’m going to sleep? We pulled Gus’s… we pulled her out of a damned building, Mace. Sleep isn’t going to happen.” His hand felt rough on his cheeks when he rubbed at his face. “And what the hell are we doing at one?”

“We’re going over to Bear’s because Gus is meeting his kid tomorrow morning and probably is going to be a fucking mess when he gets back.” Mason slapped Rey’s thigh, stinging his skin under his sweats. “That means you’ve got less than twelve hours to decide if you’re going to admit to yourself and maybe Gus that you’re in love with him. Because I’m sitting here watching you talk about my brother, and I can see you still want him. And knowing Gus… knowing how he’s acting… he’s just as tangled up. So now’s the time to step up, Rey, because Gus is going to need all the help he can get, and if you’re not going to jump in now, tap out. Before you let him down… and so none of us have to punch your face in for it.”