And eventually the other girls started to join Susie in downing more drinks. I couldn’t believe that the bartender wasn’t cutting them off. This was crazy.
I wasn’t sure how many more shots the girls did. In fact, I couldn’t remember the rest of the night. All I do recall is that I started feeling a little queasy and then the room started spinning a lot and everyone’s voice sounded so far away with some kind of echo on them. What was happening to me? I… shit…I was really in trouble…
Chapter Nineteen
Lance
I was daydreaming, almost totally asleep at the lounge table when the horn blasted and woke me up off my feet. I jumped to my feet and ran to get my gear on. It had been a slow week. And to have a real live call was exciting. Finally, I could do some real work instead of training drills, busy work, and weight lifting.
We were on the truck within two minutes heading out towards the fire. It was about six blocks away through heavy traffic, so the horn was running full speed as we drove through the streets. I was still half asleep. I hadn’t been sleeping that well lately. In fact, I’d been sleeping just a few hours each night and then I would be up pacing the floors. Sometimes I made it back to bed, but most of the time, I didn’t.
It was becoming a bit bizarre, the routine, if you could even call it that. I’d somehow messed up my normal sleep patterns, now I was starting to doze off at random times during the day.
I knew what was causing it. This had all started when Kat left me. Did she really leave me? Or did she run towards something else? Yeah, that was probably a much better way of wording all that. And now, she was off doing her thing, being happy, living her life, and probably not thinking a damn thing about me. Fuck. I missed her so much. I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be this nuts over a woman. I needed her. I damn well loved her.
I wasn’t sure she had any of those feelings for me. We never texted anymore. I was careful about not texting her very much, but even the few I did send she would not reply to half the time. I realized she was busy, but she only moved four hours away. She could pick up the phone and make a call occasionally, right?
When we got to the fire, I was amazed at how big and out of control it was. Flames were pouring out of the windows. This was definitely one of the worst fires I’d ever seen in all my years years on the job. And from the report that had come in, there were people in there.
I jumped off the truck with Joey, one of our veterans, and the two of us ran up to the house where we began chopping at the door with an axe. The door crumbled under the onslaught of the axe and we quickly ran inside.
The house was a two-story. It was in a nice section of town. But the house was rather old and historic. The wiring was probably old as well. That was a common problem we often ran into. Of course, the root cause of the fire had not been determined yet by the Marshall, but I would have been willing to bet it had something to do with electrical.
From the report we had that was called in, there was a young child trapped in the upstairs bedroom. I ran up the stairs towards the bedrooms and began to search through each and every one. There were five in total. Of course, I found the child hiding under the bed in the last room I tried. She was about eight years old, cuddled up with a stuffed animal, choking from the smoke, scared out of her mind.
The smoke was black and thick. It was so heavy that I could barely see through it myself. I hoped the child did not suffer any lasting effects from the smoke inhalation. She needed medical treatment right now.
“It’s ok,” I called out to her. “I’m here to help you. Just give me your hand.”
I reached out to her. The child was scared, but brave. She reached out to me slowly and grabbed my hand. I pulled her to me and once she was out from under the bed, I scooped her up and held her close to me. Then I hurried out of the room and down the stairs towards the door.
Right before I got to the bottom of the stairs, I heard something breaking. I looked up just in time to see a large beam crashing down in front of us. It missed landing right on top of us by mere inches. Dammit. This was getting close.
The child was screaming in terror. I quickly turned around and jogged back up the stairs. I would have to find another way out. When I got to the top of the stairs, I entered the first bedroom I came to, and ran to the window. The child was screaming in terror now. She had lost all hope of getting out of this fire alive. But at least she was breathing and still ok. That was a good sign.
I tried to open the window, but it would not budge for some reason. It was jammed. I kicked it in, and the glass sprayed as I tried to shield the child from the debris. I looked out the window and realized that there was really no way down. At least not any safe way down. I did not see the truck or the ladder anywhere close to me. I reached for my radio, but it was gone. What? Where the hell did it go? I had it earlier I thought. Shit. That was it. I had no way to signal for help here.
Well, this was going to suck. “Hold on tight to me,” I said. The child clung to me tightly. I climbed out the window onto the ledge and began to inch my way down the side. This was going to be a rough landing.
I just had to ease myself out there, move slowly, and do my best to inch along. My heart was beating a hundred miles a minute. This was going to be very delicate. I could afford no mistakes here. I had to get to the edge so that I could ease myself down maybe along the eave spout. I reached it with no problems. So far, so good. I just might make it through this.
I grabbed the eave spout and began to climb onto it begging the thing to hold my weight. I knew the second I was on the thing that this might have been a mistake. I’d only climbed down about a foot when the thing started to break. Shit.
The child screamed loudly in my ear as she clung to my back and squeezed my neck cutting off my air. I tried to ignore it, but it was already affecting my muscles. I could tell her to ease up, but there was no time. We had to get out of there.
The eave spout was falling from the side of the house, detaching itself until we were starting to free fall with it. I had to do my best to land on my feet or at least brace myself before I landed right on the child. But my hands were in the air now. My feet were touching nothing. We were freefalling through the air.
The ground was coming up at us so fast… I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was brace myself for the impact.
Suddenly, there was no ground there. A tarp was in front of us, just in the nick of time. We landed on the tarp and bounced up in the air before coming back down on it. Finally, we came to a rest.
The other guys had seen me climbing out of the window and had the presence of mind to grab the tarp before we fell and hit the ground. It was almost miraculous. We’d trained for this sort of thing, but sometimes in the field, things didn’t work out the way you expected them to and you had to improvise.
I climbed off the tarp with the child who was still hysterical but very relieved to be alive. Her mother ran up to us, frantic as could be. She embraced the little girl and thanked us all profusely as she held her baby. That was what it was all about. Saving lives and helping people. That was why I did this. I’d almost died myself just now, but I had put my life on the line, and it had paid off.
I just wish I had someone to comfort me right then. No matter how many times you come close to death, it never gets any easier to let go of. The fear stays with you and you find yourself thinking about all you missed, about everything you’ve done and haven’t done in this life. You don’t want to leave the world with any regrets. I sure as hell didn’t.
I wished I had Kat there, my sweet Kat. What was she doing right now? Would she have any idea that I’d almost just died? Would she care?
Of course she would. What if I was married to her and we had a child? What if I’d died just then in this fire and I’d left them alone? I couldn’t do that. As important as my job was to me, I didn’t want to be a burden to my family. I had some things to think about. I might have to walk away from the career I loved,
for the woman I loved. Would that have made a difference to Kat? I wasn’t sure. She was a million miles away, at least in her mind, she was.
I missed her like crazy.
When I got back to the station, I showered and went to the break room to grab a bite to eat. I was starving now, and still a bit shaken up from the fire. As I sat down, I saw a few of the rookies who were just starting their shifts gathered around someone’s phone watching something. I wasn’t too interested, but then I noticed that Peters kept looking up at me and giggling. After a few minutes I decided I had to find out what was so damn funny.
I marched over to the group. “What’s going on, guys?”
“Oh, nothing Lance,” Peters said. “Say, isn’t that your ex-girlfriend?”
I wasn’t sure how he would have even known who Kat was, but word got around pretty quickly in this place. It was like people had to keep tabs on what was going on in your personal life, since at the station we weren’t allowed to have any fraternization among the crew. We were stuck with each other enough that it was just natural that sort of thing would end up happening.
I was mortified by what I saw on the screen. There was Kat with her shirt off, wearing just the bra, and she was dancing with some naked stripper on a stage in a bar. The guy kept trying to get her to kiss him and to grab his cock, but she kept laughing and walking away. It was obvious she was drunk off her ass and trying to get off the bar, but then her friends were pushing her back up there to get her to keep jumping around like an idiot. I could tell it was a setup of some sort just by watching. The title of the video read “Ex-girlfriend of business tycoon Roger Dow’s son Lance caught with stripper.”
I was instantly infuriated.
“She’s hot. You banged that bitch?” Peters asked. “Guess, she is onto bigger and better things, right?”
The others laughed as he high fived them.
I couldn’t hold it in. The rage overtook me, and I saw red. I had to do this for Kat’s honor. I jerked Peters up from the table and decked him hard right across the face with a right fist. He fell to ground almost instantly unconscious.
His friends jumped into the fray and attacked me. I barely knew this crew. They were all newbies and apparently, they hadn’t learned how to be respectful to senior officers. I was about to teach them a lesson they would never forget.
Michaels rushed to tackle me, but I sidestepped his attack and brought my knee up to his rib cage quickly. It caught him and he stumbled backwards. He was still attacking, so I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him forward. Keeping him bent over I delivered several hard Muay Thai knees to his stomach and ribs. I let him go and he fell to the ground.
Robert, the tall redheaded guy, landed a hard punch on my jaw. I saw it coming just at the last micro-second, and barely had time to react. But I did roll with it and use the momentum to spin around and deliver a spinning backfist to his face. He went down to the ground as well.
“What in the hell is going on here?”
I recognized the voice of Chief Daniels coming into the room. He saw what was happening and he was none too pleased. He ran up to me and pulled me back as I was about to deliver some more ass whipping to these guys who would not stay down.
“I expect an answer,” Daniels said to me.
“Just a misunderstanding,” I replied. “Isn’t that right, guys?”
“Yeah, sure. Look, you know the policy about fighting. All of you are suspended for a week, without pay. Maybe that will teach you.”
Before I could stop him, he walked out of the room. I was hot on his heels. I knew I’d lost my temper, but this was outrageous. I needed my job. I needed that sense of purpose. He didn’t even know the story.
“Chief,” I called. “This isn’t right. I was sticking up for a friend of mine. These guys were trying to disrespect us. I won’t stand for that crap. I doubt you would either.”
“You have to pick your battles. You know the time and the place. This isn’t it. I can’t have that kind of dysfunction in my unit. You know this.”
I watched him walk away then I stood there pacing back and forth. Dammit. I needed to talk to Kat and make sure she was ok. Surely, she knew about this by now. I could only imagine what she was going through.
She needed me.
Chapter Twenty
I could hardly breathe. Every time I watched the video, I got sick to my stomach. How had this happened? I didn’t remember a thing. I did not consciously do any of that. That was not me. But I knew it was me. The video had not been doctored. It was real. I’d really done those things.
I didn’t do them willingly. I had been drugged and I knew it. I couldn’t prove it, but I knew had been. In fact, when I thought about it, I couldn’t remember anything after I drank that club soda. And I’d left it there on the table while I went to the ladies’ room…
I’d been drugged. This was a setup from the start. The girls wanted to make me look bad. They were jealous of me. They knew I was outshining them on the field in every possible way and they were not too happy about it. They wanted to make sure I paid the price.
Well, they had no idea who they were fucking with. I wondered who the ringleader was… Susie? Or was it that bitch Julie? Yeah… it was probably Julie. Susie was too much of a lackey to be calling the shots, and she was too stupid to come up with a plan like that, and actually stick to it.
Those bitches were going to see a rath like they’d never thought possible. I was pacing back and forth now, raging within myself. I wanted to break something. I wanted to hurt them so badly. I am not a violent person, but this had rotted me to the core, and I had to lash out at someone or something. I would not let this happen.
My phone rang just then as I turned off the video. I couldn’t watch it anymore. When I woke up that morning with a throbbing headache and nursing a hangover, I noticed that I had several notifications on my social media accounts. Some of my real friends were alerting to this damning video that was going viral. Whoever had posted the thing had mentioned that I was the ex-girlfriend of Lance Dows. I didn’t realize I was an ex anything. Had we actually broken up? With us, there was still something going on there. We had some things to sort out.
It was Kayley on the phone. “I saw the video. My God, how did this happen?”
“I was fucking drugged! Those bitches!” I was raging now. I didn’t even recognize myself.
“Calm down. What bitches?”
“From the team. They are jealous of me. They tricked me into going out with them and then they drugged my drink. I’m sure of it.”
“How can you prove that? Do you think it’s still in your system where the cops could detect it with a blood test?”
“I don’t know.”
“Probably not,” she said. “But just promise me that you won’t do anything crazy. Go to the cops and tell them what happened.”
“I will, but I doubt it will do any good.”
“Sure it will,” Kayley said. “Even if they can’t test the toxin given to you, they can find out who posted the video and have them arrested. This is slander, right? They are trying to ruin your reputation. That is still a form of harassment.”
“Ok. Maybe you’re right,” I said.
My doorbell rang just then. “I got to go. Someone is at my door.”
“Ok. Just be strong and don’t let them get you down,” she said. “You will be ok.”
“Thanks.”
I ended the call and answered the door. I couldn’t believe that Lance was standing on the other side of the door. He’d come here for me. Really?
I couldn’t help myself. I burst into tears and fell into his arms. He held me closely and walked me back inside. It felt so good to be in his arms. He was really there. He’d seen that I was in pain, that someone was trying to hurt me, and he’d come running immediately. This man really cared for me.
“I’m so glad you are here,” I said after we sat down and I’d calmed down somewhat.
“I came as soon as I saw th
is crap,” he said. “Who did this?”
“Julie Parks,” I said. “She is the ring-leader. I’m sure she is the one who spiked my drink.”
“Wait…Julie Parks?” Lance asked. “What does she look like?”
I was not sure why that mattered. I pulled up her social media pages and showed him some pictures.
“I can’t believe it,” Lance said. “I know her.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Her father used to be a friend of my father’s. They did some investment deals together. She had a thing for me. I turned her down. She has been out to get me since then, but I’ve always thought she was a joke and I haven’t spoken to her in years.”
“So, that is why she hates me,” I said. “Now it makes sense. It isn’t just because of ball. I’m going to kill her. That bitch …”
“Honey, if you do this, you will get kicked off the team. We don’t have any way to prove she really drugged you or that she put the video online. We have to handle this diplomatically to avoid a farther incident. I’m going to go over there and talk to her. I want to see if I can get her to admit that she did this. Then we’d have something to take to the cops besides a theory, right?”
“Ok,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“I think I should go alone,” Lance said.
“No. I’m going, too. I’m going to confront her directly.”
I got dressed and we hurried out the door. When we arrived at Julie’s house, she was surprised to see Lance at her door. I decided to hide to the side behind a big bush in the front of the house. This would be more conducive to her spilling her guts about what she did. Then we would have her ass.
I held my phone up with the camera turned on so that I could capture it all on video. Lance also had his set to record audio in his pocket.
Light Up My Life Page 17
