“Got it.” Deciding to forgo the pleasantries, not to mention the wasted time, of trying to find the damned doorknob in the dark, Cole barged through the door with a sharp kick. “Fire department, call out!” he bellowed through his mask, just in case there was more than one person trapped inside. But the room was small—an office of some sort, judging by the desk and file cabinet against one wall—and the daylight from the window was enough to show him that the man slumped over the threadbare carpet was definitely the only occupant.
“Sir! Sir, can you hear me?” Cole hit his knees next to the man, and Savannah whipped off her glove to press her fingers against the curve of his neck.
“He’s got a pulse,” she said, the relief in her voice matching the slap of emotion working through Cole’s chest. He scanned the man for visible injuries, finishing just in time for the guy to let out a feeble cough.
“Where . . . what’s . . . the club,” the man moaned, his eyes flickering wide. “The club is on fire.”
“We’re with the FFD, sir. We’re going to get you out of here.” Savannah leaned in, her smart, capable stare flashing over the man through her mask. “Is there anyone else in the building with you?”
“No. I came—” He broke off for a sloppy inhale, sputtering the breath back with a wheezy cough, and yeah, they needed to get him the hell out of there. “I came in early to do the books. But the batteries . . . were on fire . . . by the electrical panel at the bar . . . I don’t . . . I can’t breathe . . .”
The man’s words dissolved into a fit of coughs. Between his pastelike color and his labored breathing, there was a zero percent chance he was getting anywhere on his own steam.
Cole shook his head, just once in Savannah’s direction. Smoke and heat were choking the tiny room heavily now. “We need to move.”
“Copy.” She pulled off her helmet, removing her mask to place it over the man’s face. “Let’s go.”
“Nelson.” Anger and sharp-edged concern crowded Cole’s gut. “Put your mask back on.” He knew she’d been trained to cling to the thing like it was a lifeline, mostly because it fucking was.
She replaced her helmet, tightening her chin strap with a yank. “No.”
“You’re breaking protocol. Put your mask back on,” Cole grated. Firefighters didn’t remove their masks for anything, and hell if he was going to let Savannah do it now. He pinned her with the most serious stare he could manage. “I don’t have time to fuck around with you here.”
“Then don’t. This guy is barely conscious, Cole. He needs the mask more than I do, and it’s a quick exit down the hallway. Now let’s go.”
She scrambled to her feet, and for a second, he nearly argued again. But Savannah’s brand of stubborn measured in at about ninety-proof, and he hadn’t been bullshitting about having zero time.
“Don’t think we’re done with this just because we’re moving,” Cole said, fully intending to chew out what was left of her ass once Westin got done with her. He worked to get the man in a fireman’s carry, his muscles tightening around his bones as he shifted to lift the man and distribute the added weight across the breadth of his shoulders. All they had to do was get down the hallway, make it past that dicey junction to get to the back door, and they’d be home free.
“All right, Nelson. It’s a straight shot back to the exit, and we’re going to hit the bricks running. Let’s do this.”
She nodded, her face bent in determination despite the hard squint of her eyes against the smoke and the coughs already filtering past her lips. “Copy that.”
Cole inhaled. Nailed his composure into place. Turned to step back into the hallway.
And his stomach bottomed out somewhere in the vicinity of his boots.
The fire had spread from the interior wall of the corridor, flashing over the ceiling in a foreboding orange arc. Fiery ashes rained down from the ceiling like Roman candles fizzling over a summertime sky, and the hunks of debris that followed were going to turn his straight shot down the hallway into a goddamn Hail Mary.
Cole swung around one last time to make sure Savannah was solid, but she jerked her chin down the hallway before he could even work up the words.
“I’ve got your back,” she coughed out. “Go.”
He lunged down the hall. His back and shoulders burned with labor he’d surely feel later, the relentless heat turning the corridor into a pressure cooker of smoke and flames. Sweat poured from his body, adrenaline and exertion doing battle in his veins, but he tamped them both down, lasering his focus on the end of the hallway even though he could barely see four steps in front of him.
Savannah kept up with him, stride for stride. Her breaths became heavy coughs halfway through the narrow passage, and God damn it, he knew he should’ve insisted she take her mask back. But still, she stayed right on his hip.
“Whoa! Look out!” Cole’s pulse spurted as a chunk of flame-engulfed drywall fell from above. He pulled up just in time, Savannah clattering to a clumsy halt behind him. She sucked in a deep breath of shock that exited in another round of raspy coughing, and the sound—hell, the entire situation—reinforced Cole’s resolve with a shot of pure titanium.
They were getting out of here. Right now. He didn’t give a fuck what he had to run through to make it happen.
He shifted to step over the burning debris, re-aiming himself at the end of the hallway. Clips of daylight slipped through the darkness from the busted back door, sending his awareness into overdrive. He pumped his legs faster, the air in his lungs feeling like the fire around him as he reached the bend in the hallway leading to the exit.
But before Cole could finish his break for the door, another piece of the Sheetrock above them collapsed, knocking Savannah to the ground with sickening force.
* * *
Savannah jerked her chin up just as a brightly burning immovable force free-fell from above, and her hand shot out in pure instinct to block it. Searing pain bolted all the way up her arm, forcing a scream from the very bottom of her chest, and her balance evaporated in a violent yank. Her senses dove into a tailspin of panic as she scrabbled wildly for purchase that didn’t come, her molars slamming together in an ear-popping clack at the same time the ground rushed up to meet her. She tried to roll over, to push her way to hands and knees so she could at least try to get upright and get the hell out of here, but then her panic dug in with all its teeth.
She couldn’t move.
“Savannah!” Cole’s voice ripped through the darkness, but the burning smoke made it impossible to get a visual on anything, much less her partner. She struggled in a second, more desperate attempt to move. Burning agony took possession of her left arm, turning the call for help in her brain into another guttural scream.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday, Everett to command. Firefighter down, rear hallway, Charlie side. Partial ceiling collapse, no visual on the man down. Requesting immediate assistance. Now.”
Cole’s radio transmission echoed in her ears. Reflexively, Savannah sucked in a breath, desperate for oxygen to relieve the steel band of pressure cranking tighter around her chest. The filthy taste of smoke invaded her mouth, scraping her already raw throat on its straight shot down her windpipe.
Her lungs constricted, rejecting all the smoke in a spasm of coughs that wracked her body, making her vision blink in and out, but no, no, no. She wasn’t going down like this. She was going to get out of here. She was tough. She was . . .
Dizziness swam through Savannah’s head as she struggled for breath, only to come up short. Panic resurfaced, cold fingers of dread slithering into her rib cage to snuff out what was left of her breath, and everything around her shrank into darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Savannah . . . Jesus Christ, baby, come on. Wake up . . .
O’Keefe, get a goddamn gurney over here! You’re gonna need a backboard . . .
Okay, Nelson. Hang in there. We’re going to get you to Fairview Hospital. On my count, Rachel. Three, two, go . . .
The ripping pain in her arm made her table the recon in favor of a low groan.
“She’s up!” came a familiar voice from her side, and Rachel slid into Savannah’s line of sight wearing an ill-fitting smile. “Hey, girl. Welcome back. Try to be still, okay? It’s me, Rachel. Can you tell me if anything hurts?”
“My arm.” Whoa. Did that three-packs-a-day smoker’s rasp belong to her? She blinked, her surroundings coming into focus more quickly now despite the gap in her memory of how she’d landed in the back of the ambo. “What happened?” And why was she wearing an oxygen mask?
Rachel paused. “You got a little banged up on a call, that’s all. We’re taking you to Fairview Hospital.”
“I . . .” Savannah frowned, struggling to remember. Okay, yeah. She and Cole had gone to breakfast at Scarlett’s, planning out when to go sit down with Captain Westin. But then there had been a building fire . . . a bar? No, a nightclub, with the dead-bolted rear entry and a silver sports car in the back lot . . . she and Cole had gone inside . . .
Oh my God.
Fear punched through Savannah’s chest, jackknifing her off the gurney and sending the monitors behind her into a frenzy of furious beeps and blips. “Cole! Where’s Everett?” she blurted, the morning’s events hitting her in full force. Well, most of them, anyway. After she’d been clobbered by whatever had fallen on her in that back hallway, things were a bit blurry.
“Hold on, Nelson! He’s fine.” Rachel flattened her palm over the center of Savannah’s T-shirt to guide her back to the gurney, and for such a petite woman, girlfriend packed some ridiculous strength. “He hauled you out of the nightclub after you were injured, but he’s totally fine.”
She exhaled hard enough to see stars. “What about the guy? The one we went in to rescue?”
“Stations Six and Thirteen rolled up on the scene just as Everett got you out. The paramedics from Six took your guy so we could take you, but he looked pretty stable last I saw.”
“Oh. Okay.” The word came out in a throaty whisper, relief making her sag against the flat mattress on the gurney. Her lungs felt as if a hippopotamus had parked itself squarely in the center of her chest for an extended vacation, and her left wrist throbbed in time with her overactive pulse. Bracing herself, Savannah worked up her focus, letting her eyes do a full body scan. Although she was still wearing her boots and bunker pants, her coat had been removed, her left arm heavily bundled in a temporary splint from just below her elbow to her fingertips.
“What happened?” she croaked, and even though Rachel’s hesitation lasted for only a second, it was enough. “No bullshit, Harrison. What am I looking at here?”
Rachel bit her lip, but seemed to know better than to sweeten up the answer to Savannah’s question. “Part of the ceiling collapsed in the back of the nightclub, and a pretty big piece of Sheetrock fell on you. It looks like you lifted your arm to try and shield yourself, which probably saved you from a concussion. Maybe worse. The bad news is, the impact did a number on your wrist and the debris blocked the hall. It made it a little tough to get to you right away.”
“I was stuck,” she said, her memory providing a brief, fuzzy snippet. “I tried to move so I could get myself out, but . . .”
“You took a feed and blacked out from the smoke inhalation,” Rachel finished. “Not gonna lie, sweetie. Passing off your mask was a bonehead move. You scared the shit out of us, losing consciousness like that. I’ve never seen Everett move so fast.”
Savannah’s heart dropped. “He knows I’m okay, right? Like you said, I’m just a little”—she paused, in dire need of a breath—“Banged up.”
“He knows your vitals weren’t critical when we got you on board, but I’m sure as soon as the fire is under control, you can expect visitors at the hospital. It helps that you’re alert now, but I’m sure the docs in the ED will run the works on your walnut, just to be sure. As for that arm . . .”
“I’ll live.” As if the limb in question had suddenly sprouted a will of its own, Savannah’s wrist began to throb beneath the splint. “I’m sorry I scared everyone, but I really do feel okay.”
Rachel smiled and rolled her pretty blue eyes. “Sell stupid someplace else, Nelson. I’ve seen enough people in pain to know one when I see one. Now what do you say we get your secondary assessment done so I can start a line and give you some fentanyl. Do you have any drug allergies?”
Savannah sighed, too tired and too busted to fight back. Her arm was starting to ache like a bitch. “No.”
She let Rachel prod and poke—that IV freaking hurt—and gave her friend carte blanche permission to pass on the details of her medical condition to everyone at Eight once they got to Fairview Hospital. This day so wasn’t supposed to have shaken out like this, with her getting slam-dunked by a hunk of flaming Sheetrock, Cole probably (rightfully) pissed enough to spit venom about the mask thing, and Captain Westin still unaware of Oz’s involvement in the two fires that had clearly been set on purpose.
Wait . . . “Hey, Rach?” Savannah blinked, her eyelids suddenly heavy.
“Oooh, looks like that fentanyl is kicking in. You feeling okay?” Rachel asked from beside her, lifting her gaze to check Savannah’s vitals on the monitor.
“Mmm-hmm.” In fact, she probably felt a little too okay, considering the full ten-second lag of her whole thoughts-to-words ratio right now. “The fire at the nightclub. Are there any updates yet?”
Rachel chuffed out a disbelieving laugh. “Nelson, we’ve been in the rig for twelve minutes, and you just lost a round of full-contact dodgeball with a burning nightclub ceiling. Are you seriously asking me for an update on a scene?”
“Yeah,” Savannah insisted, partly to keep her waning focus in place and partly because she needed to know. “The guy . . . in the back . . . he said something weird about batteries igniting. Does anyone know how the fire started?” Jeez, how was she so tired all of a sudden? She had to wake up. This was important.
“Batteries? That’s a new one on me.” Rachel’s auburn brows furrowed. “All I know is that I heard Oz say something about crappy electrical. Why?”
Savannah willed herself to stay alert, but her eyelids had other ideas.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” she murmured, and drifted into darkness.
* * *
All the way to Fairview Hospital, Cole saw nothing but Savannah, limp and unconscious and sprawled over the floor of that nightclub, and the image made him want to kick the shit out of something. Namely himself, for not drawing a hard line about her taking her goddamn mask back. He was pissed at her, too—Christ, it had been an epically stupid move to part with such vital equipment, even if the paramedics at Six said it had helped the nightclub guy immensely.
But now she was on a gurney, somewhere in the belly of the emergency department, and Cole was right back to square one with wanting to kick the shit out of something.
He swung Engine Eight into the hospital’s side lot, reserved for emergency vehicles, right next to Station Eight’s ambo. Although his instincts had screeched to find a way to ride with Savannah during transport, protocol dictated that everyone at Eight had to stay on the scene of the nightclub fire long enough to finish the call. As soon as the blaze had been under control, dispatch had taken the entire house out of service so they could drive to the hospital. O’Keefe had radioed an update that Savannah was awake and stable, and while Cole’s relief had practically made him dizzy, his other emotions were pinballing through him equally hard.
Savannah had terrified the shit out of him today. She might be fearless, but she wasn’t fucking
bulletproof.
And he couldn’t lose her.
Cole tamped down the emotions threatening to commandeer both his brain and his body. He cut a direct path through Fairview Hospital’s ED with Donovan, Crews, and Jonesey right beside him, zeroing in on the spot where Rachel and O’Keefe sat in the waiting room.
“What’s the update?” he managed, his pulse pumping a fresh wave of adrenaline through him at the serious looks on both paramedics’ faces.
“She’s stable,” O’Keefe said, smart to lead off with the good. “Her vitals are decent for someone who took such a nasty feed. But with the LOC, they’re going for a full workup, and her wrist injury isn’t a scratch. The docs are with her right now.”
“But she’s alert, right? She’ll be fine?” Hope swelled in Cole’s chest, like a bucket being filled to critical mass.
“Yeah,” Rachel said, sending his relief spilling in every direction. “I gave her some fentanyl in the rig,” she added. “It made her pretty woozy at the end of the ride, but she’s a fighter. She was even asking me for scene updates on the cause of the fire before the meds kicked in.”
Donovan chuffed out a laugh. “That sounds like her. Little badass.”
Rachel’s words trickled into Cole’s brain, the tiny hairs on the back of his neck beginning to stir. “What about the guy? The one we pulled out of the office at the club?”
“He’s stable, although the triage nurse said he’s asthmatic, so he’s a little roughed up right now,” O’Keefe said, nodding toward the triage desk. “I think I saw O’Halloran head back a few minutes ago to grab a statement from him, although Oz said he thought this looked like faulty electrical, so I’d bet it’s just a formality.”
Anger slithered down Cole’s spine. No way. Not this time.
Fearless Page 27
