“This is one hot motherfucker.”
I look over to where Drew stands in the doorway, the flame’s fingers licking all around him and smoke billowing like a son of a bitch above us and from the windows we’ve broken out. His voice sounds like it’s in a tin can as it echoes in his helmet and then through my radio.
“We need to knock down that head over there and then get the fuck out of here.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Malone.”
I glance over to him again and wave my gloved hand his way. “We’re fine. Hitch and Collins have the other side of this. Johnson’s holding down the escape route.”
“Are we sure this place is cleared?”
I can’t see his face as I search through the smoke. “Why?”
“I swear I keep hearing someone calling for help.”
I stop what I’m doing and hold up my fist to tell him to be quiet. And I listen. There’s the crack of the fire. The snap of wood as it twists and pops under the pressure of the heat. The rush of the smoke as it pushes and pulls against the oxygen before devouring it. The roar of my own heartbeat in my ears.
But I don’t hear anyone crying for help.
“I don’t hear it, man.”
I take my axe to break apart a pile of burning debris, trying to dissipate the fire’s fuel. But it isn’t going to help. This place isn’t going to stop burning anytime soon.
“Listen.”
I stop again at Drew’s command, but the flames are closing in on us, roaring and spinning and whipping around in a vortex of heat I can feel through my turnouts.
For the life of me, I can’t hear shit. There’s a whistling somewhere, but I swear it’s the oxygen sucking through wood.
When I turn around to look back at Drew, he’s pushing deeper into the building. We should be getting the fuck out.
“Drew? Drew, c’mon. We gotta get out of here. We’ve been in here too long.”
“Just let me look in here.”
“Malone. Drew. We need to pull out. The roof’s unstable,” the chief commands over the radio.
“Goddamn it, Drew!” I move after him. My boots hitting debris I can’t see. My eyes are straining from searching through the dense smoke, and I’m just clearing the doorway as I hear the crack.
A portion of the ceiling falls in and lands in front of me and at his back.
Panic flickers and flames just as brightly as the fire raging around us.
“Grady? Where are you?”
“I’m here. You okay?”
“I can’t see you. I can’t . . . shit . . . I can’t find a clear line out.” The same panic I feel laces the edge of his voice.
“I’m here. I’m here,” I yell as my body heats with fear.
Another crack.
Then slam.
A beam falling.
A scream.
“Drew!” I shout. “Drew!”
Sweat coats my skin as I wait for an answer.
Seconds.
Tick.
Tick.
“I’m trapped.” His voice is almost quiet. Pained. “I can’t . . . I can’t.” Fearful. “Grady.” Terrified.
“I’m here. I’m coming, Drew. I’m coming.” Every part of my body shakes. Scared. Afraid.
Seconds feel like minutes. Minutes feel like hours. And neither of them are things we have.
“There’s no way in. There’s no . . . Fuck.” His breath is labored. With fear. With exhaustion. With smoke. “I can’t . . .”
“Don’t you fucking give up on me. Don’t you dare!” I scream and then radio back to dispatch that I need help. “Mayday. Mayday. Drew’s down. He’s trapped.” I look back into the flames where I last saw him, but only see black. And orange. And yellow. I give our location in the building and then turn my attention back to my partner. “Two-in. Two-out, man. Get over here so we can go two out!” All I hear is his breath laboring through the intercom. “Get through a wall. Push back and swim through it. Goddamn it, Drew, answer me!”
Another crack of the ceiling. Another deluge of burning debris rains down on us.
“Grady!” His voice is packed with every kind of fear I’ve ever imagined in my life, and I can’t do anything but cover my head and ward off the flames as they fall on me.
“Hold on! They’re coming for us.”
“My mask is cracked. I can’t breathe.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“C’mon, Drew. Hold on.” I take my axe and start hitting anything I can in a blind panic to try to get to him.
His gasps are in my ear. Each painful draw, coming more and more infrequently.
“Tell . . . tell Shelby I love her . . . tell her I’m sorry.” Each word is labored exhaustion as the carbon monoxide drugs him. As the fire takes over.
“No!” I shout the word at the top of my lungs, as if it’s going to help me get to him. “Chief, where the fuck are you guys?”
“Tell . . . tell Brody . . . I love him . . . promise me . . .Grady . . . you’ll take care of him. Please.”
“No! I won’t. You tell him. They’re coming for us, Drew. Any minute. Hold on. Hold the fuck on.”
I try to pass through the fallen beams. I try to get to him. I try to save him.
“The whole west side is gone. We’re breaching from the north.” The chief’s voice breaks through the panic ricocheting around inside me but does nothing to abate it.
There is a roar from Drew in my ears, and in that moment, I know it’s a sound I’ll never forget as long as I live.
If I live.
Because I’m not leaving him.
I can’t leave him.
And then the siren starts. The PASS alarm that tells me he’s no longer moving.
“Drew! Drew! Get up. Fight! Fucking—”
Crack.
I hear it before I feel it.
It’s deafening.
The loudest sound I’ve ever heard.
There’s a split second of pain. Of pressure. Of sparks.
There is sweat on my lips.
Or is it tears?
The Nomex of my jacket gives under the flames.
Two-in. Zero-out.
“No!” I wake up, bolting upright in my bed. My sheets are soaked with sweat. My room smells like fear. My back feels like it’s still on fucking fire.
It takes me a moment to realize it was only a dream.
But it’ll never be a dream.
It was a nightmare.
A fucking night terror that never ends.
Especially when I have to look into Brody’s eyes and try to hide the guilt of not saving his dad that is rotting me from the inside.
That I didn’t do the job I’m tasked to do daily.
Save lives.
What kind of firefighter am I when I can’t save anyone, not even myself?
I throw on some shorts and head toward the kitchen. To the bottle of whiskey that is becoming way too comfortable in my hands, but fuck if I don’t need it to get through some of these nights.
Bracing my hands on the kitchen counter, I look out the window to the half-built playroom. How stupid was I to think building a place for Brody to come and hang out someday would be enough to teach him what it’s like to be a man? After everything my parents have done for me, taught me, how did I ever think that would be enough?
And yet, when I pick up that hammer, I feel like I’m doing something instead of doing nothing. Like I’m trying, when every fucking time I look at Brody, my goddamn heart breaks in my chest from the guilt weighing it down.
Because I couldn’t save his dad.
It’s after my second refill—the burn chasing away the cobwebs of memory—that I hear Dylan’s voice through her closed door.
It’s soft. It’s haunting. It sounds just like how I feel. When she adds her guitar to the words, I sink down into the couch to listen.
To lyrics about loss. Hers are about losing love but they’re so fitting to where my thoughts are after my dream. They make me feel less alone. Almost as if she understands.
And I fall back asleep to the sound of her voice and the comfort she oddly brings.