Burned by Love

by Erin Wright

  “They’re already out on a fire on the north side of Franklin. Tonight’s the night for fires in Franklin,” Jaxson said grimly. “Ready?”

  “Ready!” the firefighters responded in unison. They split off into the two trucks, Troy grabbing the bucket seat directly behind the driver’s seat of the engine. He wanted to see the flames as quickly as possible, so he could stop panicking. As soon as he knew for sure it wasn’t Wanda, he could breathe again.

  He felt the cold, wet nose of Sparky before he saw her in the darkness of the wailing fire truck.

  “Sparky?”

  She thumped her tail against the floor of the truck, whining as she nudged his hand again.

  “What’s that?” Moose asked from the passenger seat. He turned as he heard her whine again. “Sparky? What’s she doing in here?”

  “I don’t know,” Troy said, dumbfounded. “I forgot to pay attention to where she was at. She hates being inside of vehicles and confined spaces.” He stared in shock at his loyal dog, even as he scratched her behind the ears. “I guess I figured she’d wait for me back at the firehouse.”

  “Well, now she can be a proper fire station mascot,” Jaxson said over the wail of the siren. “Didn’t Georgia think she was a Dalmatian when she first saw her, because of the black spots and white fur?”

  “Oh yeah, I gave her shit about that for days.” Moose stared at Sparky for a moment longer and then turned back in his seat to face forward. “After living through that wildfire up in the mountains, I doubt she’ll want to go anywhere near the fire itself, but you’ll keep an eye on her, right?”

  “Of course,” Troy agreed, narrowing his eyes as he glared down at his way-too-faithful dog. Now he had Wanda and Sparky to worry about. Grand.

  As they got closer to the Moose Run subdivision, Troy peered through the inky darkness, trying to figure out if the flames were coming from Wanda’s house. It looked like it was about the right spot. Dammit. He’d been hoping the fire would be in some far-off corner of the subdivision and he’d be able to tell on arrival that it wasn’t her house.

  Sirens wailing, Jaxson maneuvered the truck around tight corners, cursing the people parked on the street, making it difficult to squeeze the engine through. “C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered under his breath. “We gotta hurry.”

  In the bucket seat, Troy felt helpless. Riding to a fire was the worst part of a call-out, in his book. All he could do was sit and watch and wait to arrive. The helplessness of the situation grated on his nerves.

  They turned down Elkindeer Street and Troy sucked in a quick breath.

  Shit.

  It was Wanda’s house.

  Actually, it looked like it’d started originally in her neighbor’s house, because both structures were now ablaze, the neighbor’s house far worse than Wanda’s. The picket fence between the two houses was also on fire, flames shooting up as it licked its way along the top of the railing.

  They screeched to a stop in front of the two homes and piled out, Jaxson immediately assessing where to focus their efforts. Troy was scanning the yard, looking for a cloud of gray hair on a petite woman, but heart sinking, he only spotted a dark-haired woman in the yard of the house that was a goner. Part of the roof had already caved in. There was no way they were going to be able to save that house now.

  And there was no sign of Wanda.

  “Thank God you’re here!” the neighbor wailed, standing out in her front yard in her bathrobe. “I knocked on Wanda’s door but I didn’t get an answer and I didn’t dare open the door. I’ve watched Backdraft, you know. But she’s almost died twice, you know. Breast cancer.” She gestured to her chest. “Her daughter moved to Seattle, you know. Left Wanda by herself. You have to help her!” She was bawling again, clutching her yowling cat to her chest. Levi moved over to her side.

  “Ma’am, let’s step over here,” he rumbled in his deep, soothing voice. “Out of the way of the firefighters. Now, tell me how you think this started.” The rest of their conversation was lost in the roar of the flames.

  Troy, Jaxson, and Moose all exchanged nervous glances. The roof of Wanda’s house was starting to look scary – in danger of collapse at any moment. Usually the house fires they responded to were not this far along, and Troy wondered for a moment if this one had gotten this bad because they’d had to drive all the way from Sawyer to Franklin to respond to it. The extra 30-minute head start was great news for the fire; not such great news for the house.

  Or for Wanda.

  “Troy, you lay line. Moose, you and I go in through—”

  “I know Wanda, and this house,” Troy interrupted. “It’s Penny’s mother’s house. I should take the lead. I know where Wanda’s bedroom is.”

  “Oh, shit,” Jaxson breathed and for a moment, the world just seemed to freeze around them as Moose and Jaxson took the information in.

  Hurry, hurry, hurry. They didn’t have time for this. Jaxson needed to start making decisions, or Troy was just gonna make a run for the front door and protocol be damned.

  “Troy, you’re on point. Moose, lay out the hose. We gotta move fast. Dylan, Luke!” he called out, and the two men came hurrying over. “Troy and I will go through the front door; you search the backyard and garage to make sure there are no small animals hiding somewhere. Does she have a pet?” he asked, turning back to Troy, the dancing flames of the fire lighting and then hiding his face. Troy shook his head. At least, she hadn’t two months ago when he’d last seen her. “Good. Moose, once the hose is laid, start spraying and praying. Let’s go.”

  They all pulled their masks into place and after a quick radio check on their new in-helmet radios, they headed for their assignments, Jaxson on Troy’s heels as they pushed the front door open and stepped inside.

  Troy paused for just a moment, recalling the layout of the house in his mind. It was a dark, inky, swirling blackness in front of him, the smoke blocking out any light they would’ve gained from the flames. Troy’s stomach boiled with lava at the tension – he couldn’t remember if the hallway was to the left or to the right. It was so disorienting, being there without any light. Jaxson waited, not saying anything, giving Troy the seconds he needed to think through it, and there was a small, distracted part of Troy’s brain that was thankful for that. He’d tell him thank you later.

  Left.

  Without saying a word, he began feeling along the wall until he found the corner with his hands and turned down the hallway. Jaxson was right behind him, hanging onto a strap on his pack to keep from getting separated in the eternal darkness.

  Right or left? One was the bathroom, one was her bedroom. Oh, and a linen closet in there too. Dammit all, he hadn’t expected to be quizzed on the layout of Wanda’s home like this, obviously, and now he was cursing the times he’d spent drooling over Penny’s smile or her laugh instead of studying the inside of Wanda’s home. Now a woman’s life was in his hands – a very special woman – and she could pay for this with her life.

  Although he couldn’t recall any specific memory that made him sure of the choice, it just felt right to turn left. He pushed through the door and immediately came into contact with her dresser. Thank you, God. He’d chosen correctly. He felt his way past the dresser and over to the bed.

  The empty bed.

  “Dammit,” he said into the radio. “Not here.”

  “Let’s check under the bed and in the closet,” Jaxson radioed back. “Maybe she’s trying to lay low under the cloud of smoke.”

  Troy dropped to his knees and began feeling underneath the bed while Jaxson started to search the closet, but immediately, he knew Wanda wasn’t under there. He could feel boxes and tubs filling every square inch of space, and Penny’s laughing comment about her mother being the world’s most organized hoarder popped into his mind. She’d apparently used the space under her bed for yet more storage.

  “Not here,” he said into the in-helmet radio, and slammed his hand down into the mattress. Shit. Where could she be?

&nbs
p; Maybe she’d crawled into the bathroom? Shuffling their feet along the floor, feeling for her body as they went, they crossed the hallway to the bathroom, and then even checked inside of the damn linen closet.

  Hang in there, Wanda. I’m gonna find you. I’m not gonna let you down. Not this time.

  “It’s getting hot in here,” Jaxson radioed. “We need to head out.”

  Of course it was getting hot in there, but that wasn’t really what Jaxson meant. He meant that it was getting dangerous, and Troy knew, even as he ignored his fire chief, that the man was right. The creaking of the lumber was only getting louder as the house began to strain under the weight of flames and ash and water from the truck.

  Still, Troy shuffled towards the living room, using his feet to search as much as he was using his eyes and hands. There was one more place he could look—

  The low oxygen alarm sounded in his helmet.

  “We’re running out of air,” Jaxson shouted. “We gotta head back outside.”

  Still, Troy pushed forward. He just needed to check Wanda’s La-Z-Boy. It was her favorite place to sit while watching the ball games on TV. Maybe she’d fallen asleep that night in her chair.

  “We have to go, Troy!” Jaxson yelled. “That’s an order!”

  “Almost there!” Troy shouted back. The panic that’d been pulsing through him ever since he’d heard the words “Moose Run” was only getting stronger, drowning everything else out. He couldn’t let Wanda die on his watch. Not if he could help it. Not if he had to die trying to save her.

  He reached the chair, and her body. He could’ve wept with relief as he slid his arms under her frail body, noting even as he began shuffling for the front door that she’d lost weight in the last two months. She was so tiny now. Had she quit eating? Or was the cancer back?

  She couldn’t die. Not after all she’d been through. She couldn’t.

  The low oxygen alert switched over to a no-oxygen alarm, louder and more obnoxious. He couldn’t think. He had to get outside. Nothing else mattered. Outside, outside, outside. He was swimming through gravy, pushing himself, couldn’t breathe no matter how much he sucked in. His chest was tight and somehow, the darkness around him was getting even darker.

  He stumbled out onto the front porch, tripping over something and then he was on his knees, scrabbling at his mask, trying to get it off his face, and then he felt Sparky’s cold nose on the nape of his neck which just couldn’t be right, and then a growl of exertion, and hands were there, pulling him and Wanda – thunk, thunk, thunk down the porch steps – and then pulling at his mask, yanking it away from his face and he could breathe again but it hurt, it all hurt.

  It was in that moment that he discovered that he’d died, because Penny, his angel, was hovering over him and holding him and telling him that everything was gonna be okay. It was strange, because he thought he’d hurt less when he was dead, but then the world went black and he knew no more.

  Chapter 28

  Penny

  When she’d passed the open bay doors to the Sawyer Fire Department station, the warm lights spilling out into the cold winter night, she’d said a quick prayer for whoever was affected. She realized then that Troy was probably out on that call, and sent up a quick prayer for him, too.

  But it wasn’t until she got to the outskirts of Franklin and realized that the dancing flames she’d seen through the dark winter night was in her mom’s subdivision, that she got really worried. Troy would be fine – he’d had many years of training. He was practically born with a hose in one hand and an axe in the other. But her mom’s subdivision…

  What were the chances? Minuscule, probably. But the further she’d driven into the maze of streets, the harder her heart had pounded in her chest. It was either her mom’s house on fire, or her neighbor’s.

  Turned out, all of the above.

  She’d thrown her car into park and had sprinted across the street, hellbent on running inside and finding her mom, but before she made it up the front sidewalk, Moose had tackled her to the ground.

  It was an appropriate name for him, honestly, because as far as she could tell, he was about the size of a moose.

  “Oof,” she’d grunted when she’d hit the ground, every bit of air having been expelled from her body.

  “You can’t go in there,” Moose’d yelled over the crackling of the fire.

  “My mom—” Penny had gasped as the edges of her vision had gone black. “She’s…”

  “We know. Troy is in there and so is Jaxson. You gotta promise me you’ll stay out here before I let you off the ground.”

  The frozen, snow-covered ground. Already, her teeth had started chattering from the full-body contact with the icy surface.

  “Agreed,” she’d grunted.

  And now, she was just standing there, watching the flames dance, panic swirling, dancing, fighting to roar to the surface. It had been a long car ride and she’d taken her coat off hours ago so she should’ve been cold in the sub-zero temperatures, but of course, the heat from the flames made it feel like she was slowly going to roast alive instead.

  She wanted to make another run for it – every cell of her body was screaming that something had gone wrong, that they were in there too long, that they were all going to die and it would be all her fault because she hadn’t been here when the fire had started to pull her mom to safety and she didn’t know if she wanted to scream or cry or yell or pound the ground with her fists but she wanted to do something – anything at all.

  Anything—

  And then she saw movement at the door and damn well didn’t care about her promise to Moose – those were just words but this was Troy and her mom’s life on the line – and so she went running, Moose and the other guys just inches behind her.

  A streak of white darted in front of her, easily beating her to the front porch, and began pulling at Troy and her mom, trying to move them away from the heat of the flames.

  The acrid smoke burned her eyes and lungs and the heat singed her skin but she didn’t care, she too had to help pull them to safety. Troy was tugging at his mask, as weak as a newborn kitten attempting to stand for the first time, Sparky by his side, frantic and barking.

  Penny debated for just a split second of whether to take his mask off first or move him away from the fire, but then Luke was picking up his arm and yelling at her to pick up the other one, so together they pulled him down the front steps and onto the lawn, Moose and Dylan carrying her mom over to the waiting ambulance. She heard someone radio for a second ambulance even as she pulled the mask off Troy, looking for signs of life. Had he died trying to save her mom?

  Please God, don’t let him die. Don’t let my mom die.

  She was torn between Troy and her mom, her gaze flickering between the two, not knowing who to go to, when Troy’s eyes fluttered open for just a moment. She stroked his hair away from his face, crying and laughing hysterically and yelling, “I came home for you. You can’t die on me now!” but his eyes were already closed again and his body was limp against her.

  “He needs help!” she screamed. Moose pushed her hands away for a moment and she fought him until she realized that he was trying to put his own breathing mask on Troy. She quickly moved out of the way, letting him give Troy the precious oxygen he needed. She looked around frantically as she heard the ambulance pull away, the sirens wailing, and spotted Jaxson sitting on the ground, holding someone’s mask to his face as he took deep breaths.

  “What happened in there?!” she yelled across Troy’s prone body, even as she stroked his hair away from his face. “It’s okay, it’s all right, just hang in there,” she murmured to him.

  Dylan spoke. “Based on the radio chatter while they were in there,” he said quietly, “they couldn’t find your mom. She wasn’t in her room. They found her in the La-Z-Boy out in the living room, but by that point, they were out of oxygen. Troy refused to leave until he found your mom.”

  “You idiot,” she said lovingly to the unconsc
ious Troy sprawled across her lap. “If I live to be 102, I’ll never deserve you. But, you have to live to 102, too.” She started yelling. “You hear me, Troy Horvath? You live to 102, dammit, or I’ll be pissed!” Her moods were swinging wildly and there was a tiny part of her brain that was telling her that she wasn’t in control and she needed to calm down, but it just wasn’t possible. Not with Troy laying there in her arms; her mom in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.

  “The second ambulance is almost here,” Dylan said quietly. “Listen – can you hear the sirens?”

  She paused for a moment and listened. In the distance, she could hear the wail of the sirens as they grew closer.

  “They’re almost here,” she told Troy. “You get to hang on now. That’s your only job. Just hang on. You don’t get to die, my mom doesn’t get to die – nobody dies tonight. You got it? Nobody.”

  She felt a slight change in the air and she looked up to find that they were gaining on the fire. The flames weren’t as brilliant or bright. There were more pockets of fire still left, but at least to her untrained eye, it was almost under control.

  The sirens came to a stop, and numbly, Penny realized that EMTs were running a stretcher towards them. Hands were pulling her away from Troy and she tried to stand up, to tell the paramedics what had happened to Troy, but her legs had frozen into the kneeling position and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get her legs to cooperate; to hold her weight underneath her. And then her whole body was wracked with convulsions, the pain of the cold and ice and snow finally registering in her mind.

  “This lady doesn’t have a coat on,” someone said. “What the hell was she doing kneeling in the snow?”

  She told them not to worry about her – that she’d be fine, that they needed to get Troy to the hospital.

  “What language does this woman speak?” someone asked. “Can anyone translate for her?”

  English, you idiot. I’m speaking English.