The Evolution Trigger (Evolution Trigger Trilogy Book 1)

by C. S. Won

  Teeming masses of curling flames painted the walls in a red-hot glaze, revealing the plaster and pipes hidden underneath. Up above, the ceiling was like a storm that rained droplets of scalding fire at their feet. The furniture scattered around the apartment shrank and faded as they burned, dwindling into oblivion.

  “What the hell are the other stations doing? They need to hose this shit down,” Gabe said.

  “They’re doing their best to contain it. Either way, we can’t worry about that. Let’s just quickly do what we came here to do,” Jae said.

  They made their way through the living room, squatting on their heels as they maneuvered past the fire and smoke coursing over their heads. Gabe turned around a corner and entered a bedroom while Jae searched the adjacent bathroom. Dropping to his knees, Jae opened the cupboard underneath the sink and peered inside, flicking on his flashlight. He waved the light in a circle, the beam casting a foggy shine in the darkness, but found only a small bucket and some cleaning solutions. He moved away from the cupboard and made his way toward the bath, shining his light inside the porcelain tub. Nothing remained except for the charred remains of a rubber ducky and some blackened debris.

  “Jae, I found someone,” Gabe’s voice called out through the radio. Jae made a beeline for the bedroom and found Gabe with his stomach to the floor, working his flashlight underneath the bed. Gabe looked over his shoulder and beckoned Jae over. Beneath the bed, a small girl no older than four or five lied curled into a ball, arms and legs pressed against her chest. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow and hoarse.

  Jae reached for the girl. “Honey, are you okay? We’re here to help.” No reply. He sprang to his knees and tapped Gabe on the shoulder. “Help me move the bed.” Gabe nodded, wrapping his arms around the top layer of the mattress. With a loud heave, they threw the mattress across the room, which landed in the burning remains of a dresser, coughing up a dusty cloud of ash into the air. Without skipping a beat, they grabbed the bottom mattress and made short work of that also.

  Gabe took the metallic bed frame and pushed it upward against the wall, giving Jae easy access to the girl. Jae moved forward and took the girl in his arms with great care, cradling her against his chest. Still alive. Thank goodness. Lines of soot covered her face in wide, uneven strips, giving her the appearance of a zebra. Her hair was tangled and matted, coils springing out of her scalp in jumbled patterns. He could see frantic movement spinning underneath her eyelids. When he tried to rouse her, she would not wake. She’s having a bad dream. “We need to get her to an EMT,” he said, frowning.

  “I fucking knew it.” Adam stood in the doorway, helmet and mask poking through the smoke. He thundered his way into the room and snatched the girl away from Jae. “I’ll be damned if I let you take the credit for this, you chink.”

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Jae asked, eyes widening behind his mask.

  “I’m sick and tired of you taking all the credit. You sent me inside a vacated apartment all by myself just so you could run off and steal all the glory.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” Gabe asked.

  “I’m dead serious, you yellow fuck.”

  Jae took a step forward. “Are you really going to pick a fight with me here, right in the middle of this fucking fire, when this girl’s life is on the line? Are you that stupid? Go, I don’t care if you want to take the credit for rescuing her, just get her to an EMT. That’s all I care about.”

  Gabe stepped in front of Adam, poking a finger into his chest. “Let me ask you a serious question: are you retarded? Are you fucked in the head? How can you not know by now that it’s the team—all of us—that gets the credit during these rescue operations? It’s never one person hogging the spotlight. When was the last time you saw Jae or me or Stephanie or Tommy or anybody else taking sole credit for a job well done? And are you already forgetting that you’ve rescued your own fair share of people over the years too, all by yourself? Or are you too busy thinking ahead to your next achievement to even remember? It’s not just Jae busting his ass out there. Everyone contributes, you blind idiot.”

  “Then why does everyone adore Jae, like he’s the one who’s doing all the work? Why does everyone bow down and kiss his feet?” Adam asked.

  “Maybe it’s because he’s not a jealous, insecure, egomaniacal, delusional motherfucker like you are. Have you ever thought about that? Maybe if you weren’t so desperate to swing your little pink pecker around you’d see that. Seriously, go get help, bro. Go see a therapist, get on some drugs, whatever. Anything they can prescribe to fix that broken head of yours, because you need it.”

  “Listen, I don’t care about any of this,” Jae said, getting in between Gabe and Adam. “Right now, that girl is going to die if she doesn’t get the help she needs. Move your ass Erste, or I’ll—”

  The apartment shook beneath their feet, moaning like an animal taking in its last breath. “We need to move!” Jae said. He took a step toward Adam, ready to hustle him out of the bedroom, but paused when he saw the ceiling above Adam’s head sagging downward. A spiderweb of cracks streaked over the room. Jae faced Adam, eyes wide, and threw his arms forward. The ceiling tore open with a scream, flooding the entire floor with a flotilla of burning debris. The force of the breach catapulted Jae backward against the wall, knocking the wind out of him. A great cloud of ash and fire shot up into the air, blanketing the room in a stygian haze.

  The world went black. The roar of the fire settled into a buzzing whisper. The heat was no more, and the chaos had all but faded. Where am I? Jae felt like he was floating in a pool of water, drifting idly by. It didn’t make any sense. Am I dead? He moved what he thought was his left arm. Pain pinged in his shoulder and elbow, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. Still alive. Jae clenched his teeth through the rising pain. He shook his head, and the world slowly came into clarity, as if a cumbersome mist was dissolving away. He heard the fire screaming again, and the heat penetrated his coat.

  Jae lurched up with great difficulty, sliding onto his elbows and knees, easing into a crawl as quickly as his body allowed. A sharp pain screeched up his back and exploded somewhere in the back of his head. He stopped. The world tilted, going milk white. He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, breathing in and out in a controlled rhythm. Nice and easy, Jae. Nice and easy. When he opened his eyes the world was right again, if being surrounded by fire and chaos could ever be considered right.

  He continued forward on his hands and knees, chopping through the fog as he tried to clear the room of the mist. Through the smoke, Jae saw the little girl lying motionless just a few feet ahead, splayed out on her side. He crawled over to her, ignoring the pain in his joints, and fell in next to her, throwing a hand over her neck, waiting for the faintest semblance of a pulse. Please be alive. A weak thump jumped against his fingers, and he lowered his head, relieved. Thank God. He scooped her up delicately and looked around for his fellow firefighters.

  “Adam? Gabe? Where are you?”

  “I’m right here.” Gabe said, groaning loudly. He was propped up next to a blackened dresser, a crack forked down the length of his mask. Jae went over to him.

  “Are you alright? Can you move?” Jae asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Gabe eased himself up, making a lot of noise in the process. “I’ll be hurting tomorrow, but it’s nothing my masseuse won’t be able to fix.”

  “Where’s Adam? Have you seen him?”

  “No, I just remember the ceiling falling and—” Gabe went rigid, his lips sliding open in a dumbfounded gape. His gaze fell to something on the ground. Jae turned around, trying to see what Gabe was looking at, and nearly dropped the girl.

  A large burning pyre had trapped Adam underneath its immense weight, covering more than half his body. Only his head, arms, and portions of his torso stuck out from the fiery rubble. A rivulet of blood slid out from underneath his body, pooling next to a burning wall. He wasn’t moving, but his back heaved in and out, slow and ir
regular. The fire worked quickly, having already chewed through much of his turnout coat. It was only a matter of time before it would start digging its way into the soft, combustible contents underneath.

  “Adam,” Gabe said in a hushed whisper, his face paling behind his mask.

  Images of the past swamped Jae’s mind with alarming lucidity. He saw his mother again, buried underneath a large pile of burning debris, blood running from her nose and her lips. He saw himself as a nine-year-old with a bruised face covered by ash, kneeling next to his dying mother, screaming loudly as he tried to pull her out. But he felt his strength betray him, abandoning him when he needed it the most. He felt his mother’s hand caressed the tears from his face. Once again, she urged him to run. She told him how much she loved him, to take care of his father, to take care of Han, to promise her that he’ll look after them for her. Then the fire took hold and consumed his mother. He remembered how quickly he ran.

  Jae shoved the girl into Gabe’s arms. “Take her and go.” But Gabe did not go, standing in place as he gawked at Adam’s trapped body. Jae grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him hard. “Gabe! Take the girl and go!” Gabe looked at Jae with a blank, stupid expression. But as if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers and commanded Gabe to wake from his stupor, he stirred, shaking his head.

  “Shit.” Gabe looked at the girl in his arms, like it was the first time he’d noticed her. “The girl. Right. Get her out.” He looked at Jae. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to try and get Adam out of here.”

  “How? We’ll need tools and help from the others. The fire is also still raging. There’s no time. We need to—”

  “Just go! I’ll take care of it!”

  “But . . . but what if you don’t make it? The floor might give way any second now. The rest of the ceiling might fall in and trap you too. You can’t stay. You have to run. If—”

  “Don’t make me repeat myself, Gabe! Just go, I’ll be fine! Just call for backup the second you step out that door.”

  Gabe took a step back, hesitated, and then sprinted out the burning doorway and into the smoke-filled hall. Jae’s radio came alive with Gabe’s voice. “Station 4 to command, I need an EMT ready on standby for a young girl, unconscious. She needs immediate medical attention. I repeat: a young girl, unconscious, is in need of immediate medical attention. We also have a man down in complex thirteen, third floor, apartment 133a. I repeat: we have a man down in complex thirteen, third floor, apartment 133a. Requesting immediate assistance . . .”

  Jae knelt down next to Adam and scanned the debris, looking for a solution. His mind raced, a shifting blur muddling his thoughts. Nothing came to him. Shit, just do something. Digging his heels into the ground, he grabbed Adam’s hands and pulled. The rubble refused to give an inch. He pulled again, growling through clenched teeth, shoving his heels deeper into the ground. It was no use. There was too much weight pinning Adam to the floor. Releasing his grip, Jae dug into the pile, shoving his hands into the pyre and tossing out whatever he could take hold of. Even with flame retardant gloves, he could feel the bite of the fire biting into his hands, crimson teeth searing through leather and flesh. Jae ignored it. The pain, the burns and the blood—he ignored it all, punching through the debris like a hammer. His arms cried out to him to stop, but he didn’t listen. A man’s life was at stake. He couldn’t stop. I’m not going to let you die, Adam.

  “You did this . . .”

  He stopped digging, fingers frozen in the air. Adam had a hand wrapped around Jae’s ankle, strong and tight. One blue eye peered up at him through a cracked and smoggy visor, bloodshot but focused. Dried blood stained the lower half of the mask in a messy blot. “All your fault . . . you did this . . .”

  “I’ll get you out, don’t worry,” Jae said, easing forward, fingers trembling.

  “You wanted this.” Adam spat out a sharp, raspy cough. “You pushed me under . . . don’t deny it, I know you did . . .”

  “Adam, you’re . . . I’m going to get you out in no time. Just hang in there.” Jae began to dig again.

  “You tried to kill me, Yeon . . . tried to fucking kill me . . . I swear . . . I’ll . . .” The hand weakened, sliding off Jae’s ankle and resting on top of his boot. The eye closed, the mind behind it drifting into unconsciousness. The breathing slowed down and became weaker, softer.

  Delusional. Jae scraped through the pile. You’re delusional. I didn’t push you. I didn’t even touch you. Why are you blaming me? But the words had already taken root, and doubt was growing, which was the last thing that he needed. Doubt, even a miniscule amount of it, could be a powerful influence. It could subtly shift the pieces around just enough to make one question himself. Already, Jae wondered if he had, in fact, pushed Adam into the breach.

  He’s just angry; that’s all, only angry. He’ll calm down once he awakens.

  Jae dug faster and harder.

  Chapter 7

  Gabe paced around the waiting room, arms clasped behind his back, taking two or three steps before turning on his heels and taking another two or three. His boots squeaked like a yowling puppy, a steady cadence of rubber skimming across limestone. Dried blood and soot still smeared his face. Jae, slumped against a chair with his arms dangling over the sides, wanted to tell him to stop because it made his ears sore, but he didn’t have the strength or the heart to speak up. His muscles ached, his bones hurt, and his skin burned. Bandages crisscrossed from his hands to halfway up his forearms. The dressed pressed hard into his skin. With the pain that he was in, what was one more ailment added to the list?

  So he let Gabe be.

  The rest of the crew, dotted around the waiting room in disheveled heaps, sat staring at the floor, eyes glazed, bodies limp, and voices quiet. The laughs, the smiles, and the energy from the morning were gone, replaced by a despair. It hovered over their heads like an ominous black cloud. And ominous it was. One of their own was dying.

  A few had their faces craned up toward a TV in a corner of the ceiling. A female singer belted out her rendition of I Will Survive on some daytime talk show. The irony was not lost on Jae. Her performance, impassioned as it was, seemed to be doing little to uplift the morale of the group. Blank faces, whether staring at the show or at nothing at all, were unmoved by her urges to survive. Gabe was the exception. He’d stopped to watch her sing. Seemingly inspired, he bobbed his head and tapped his foot to the rhythm. He spoke up, perhaps buoyed by the message of the song.

  “Adam’s going to make it, right? He’s got to. Injuries like that can’t kill him. There’s no way. He’s a stubborn little fuck. He’ll live; I know it,” Gabe said.

  Silence answered him. A few firefighters raised their heads to listen to his words, peering up with tired, aggrieved faces. Their lips remained still. Tommy Rachetti took the initiative, speaking up. “I don’t know, man.” He scratched his head, sighing. “You saw how he looked. He . . .” His words trailed off into an unspoken thought. He cupped the lower half of his jaw, rubbing the ragged stubble on his chin.

  “Why did this have to happen?” Stephanie asked, slamming her hand down on the seat next to her. The cushion belted with a loud clap as she smacked it again for good measure. She buried her face into a hand. “Goddamn it all.”

  “Try not to dwell on it,” Chief McAdams said, standing next to a window, hands gripped behind his back. His voice was firm and hard, like iron. “It’s out of our hands, now. We did what we could. We have to hope the doctors can do the rest.”

  No one muttered a single word of acknowledgment. Their faces, grimaced in fear, bloated with defeat, and riddled with exhaustion, told the whole story. They knew in their heart of hearts that Adam wasn’t going to make it. Hope didn’t wield the tools needed to fix him. Encouragement couldn’t provide the elixir needed to restore him. These were practical men and women, hardened and shaped by the work they did and the reality they faced every time they stepped into a fire. Having seen this act before, they knew how it e
nded. Denying it only brought more pain. Coping with the impending truth was all they could do. They’d experienced too much to think otherwise.

  But Gabe looked undeterred, reality be damned. His tone was hopeful, his expression optimistic. “Jae, you think he’ll survive, right? You were the one who carried him out; you saw how he looked. It wasn’t all that bad, was it?”

  “Gabe . . . ,” Tommy began, but he trailed off once more.

  Jae lowered his eyes to the turnout coat bunched up in a wrinkled pile on his lap. It was stained black and red with burnt flesh and blood. Adam’s blood. He took the coat in his hands and squeezed it. The mesh scraped against his bandaged hands, crackling in his grip. The stench of charred flesh stuck to the coat like meat cooked black on a summer grill. The smell was something Jae was never going to forget, not for as long as he lived.

  Do you want to know what I saw, Gabe, when I freed Adam from that burning rubble? What I saw couldn’t even be described as a man anymore. It was more of a husk, burnt and blackened. His skin popped and bubbled like a boiling soup, pink flesh replaced with black ash. Muscles were exposed, softened by the fire. His scalp was blistered and cracked like splintered glass, silvery blonde hair singed off at the roots. And there was blood everywhere, almost too much to imagine. I couldn’t believe the person I was holding was even Adam. It seemed impossible. I didn’t even recognize him. How could someone filled with so much piss and vinegar be reduced to this? I thought I was dreaming. Everything seemed so surreal. But the smell, the heat, the pain—it told me it wasn’t a dream, Gabe. None of it was. If anything, I was living a nightmare.