Rhino Ash
Lindsey Black
Rhino Ash
Copyright © 2017 by Lindsey Black
Published by Netherwood Press
Cover Art
© 2017 AngstyG
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, businesses and incidents are either used fictitiously or are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book licensed to the original purchaser only. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used without the express written permission of the publisher or author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To request permission, please contact Netherwood Press.
Published October 2017.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 9781973101963
Kindle Direct Publishing - Amazon.com
For the rhinos.
Contents
1. We, the arson squad
2. Red Petunia Brunch
3. Quack and Shank
4. Le Corridor
5. Chicken and broccoli
6. Lifesavers: minty fresh
7. Ice screaming, got cake
8. Technically, it blew on me
9. Kisangani, Barney
10. Tag, you’re it
11. Oh, Harriet, sweet chariot
12. Bonne nuit, Bafwasende
13. Annandale after chrysalis
14. Where childish dreams end
15. Marina bomb-tastic
16. Please, don’t escalate this any further
About the Author
Rhinos
Also by Lindsey Black
1
We, the arson squad
Smoke billowed in fast moving waves that washed out the windows and guffawed into the street as if the warehouse were laughing at a brilliant joke. It looked like the Care Bears had turned to the dark side and decided to park their car on the old red brick building, exhaust from their less than carbon-neutral foot-printed car exploding over everything.
Ashley Jameson held the hose glumly, scrunching his nose up against the stench and wondering if he should put his mask on. It was getting bad, and they were expected to mask up before it could get into their lungs, but he was exhausted from a grass fire out at Olympic Park that morning and the last thing he wanted to do was put down the hose if all he was going to have to do was pick it up again. That thing was heavy!
‘Jameson, go put a damn mask on!’ Keller bellowed in his ear, snatching the hose from him. Ashley obediently spun and ran to the truck, grabbing a mask and pulling it on before hurrying back to the hose. Keller shoved it into his hands and ran off to check on the team coming out the warehouse doors. You could barely tell their uniforms had been yellow, they were covered in so much filth. Suddenly Ashley didn’t mind holding the hose so much.
Another truck arrived and within minutes a second stream of water was being directed at the warehouse. It was amazing how much heat was coming off, rolling them in waves of blistering stench that made him want to vomit. The fire part was not what Ashley liked about firefighting. He liked the physical necessity for strength and resilience, he loved the teamwork, and he enjoyed saving people when it was required. But the standing around holding a hose while he sweated to death in his suit? Hell no.
‘Jameson, get a tank. You’re going in!’ Keller bellowed at him, taking the hose again and shoving it into someone else’s hands before following Ashley to the truck and grabbing a tank.
Ashley worked through the check quickly, glancing over when something exploded inside and a tornado of flames erupted from one of the windows. There had to be people in there; why else would they would even consider sending someone in.
‘How many?’ Ash asked when he was certain Keller was good to go, pulling his gloves back on and grabbing an axe while Keller grabbed bolt cutters. That wasn’t a good sign.
‘Unknown. The other crew heard screams coming from out back. They’re going in from the left side. We’ve got the entrance.’
Ashley looked at the gaping hole at the front of the building where a door once stood. Its ashes smouldered on the ground while smoke continued to pollute the open air with black swirls. It looked in no way appealing, but if there was a chance people were stuck in there, then there was also no question.
The air filled his mask, blissfully cool, and he followed Keller to the doorway.
Strangely, it was never as bad as you thought it was going to be inside. The smoke was always high, the flames were roaring up the walls but the centre of the warehouse was relatively clear. For the moment. They stayed low and worked their way toward the back where a series of rooms and offices were.
They split apart and crawled along the wall, trying to avoid the smoke and flames as they pushed open doors and called out to anyone who might hear. There was no response.
Ashley reached the last door, pushed it open and found an empty toilet. He crashed forward onto his stomach and sighed heavily, wondering how long it would be before someone finally invented an air cylinder that didn’t weigh a tonne. It was only because he was plastered to the floor that he heard something pounding against his chest that wasn’t his pulse. Startled, he pulled off a glove and pressed it to the floor, feeling the uneven vibrations of something colliding with it.
‘There’s a basement!’ He called out, searching for a door, but he couldn’t see anything.
Keller crawled over to him with two more firefighters. The men from the other crew. They split up again, aware that the heat was building and the fire was getting worse. Their time was limited, but there was no sign of a door.
Ashley noticed a rollaway stack of shelves, which wasn’t unusual; the warehouse was full of shelves. But these were the only ones on rollers. He pointed to Keller and hurried over, shoving them out of the way to reveal a trapdoor. There was no lock and Ashley hauled it open, peering inside, the light from the flames enough to see by.
Faces looked back at him. A whole family of filthy, pale, terrified faces. Cursing, he looked for a way down but the family had already found the ladder and were struggling to come up. Keller lay flat and reached into the hole to help them, passing them up to the other team to take out. They took the two children first, leaving Keller and Ashley to pull the three adults out of the basement.
The fire was spreading fast, the smoke choking the room. The woman crawling out of the hole coughed and almost fell off the ladder, but Keller hauled her out and shoved her into Ashley, who managed to get her to lie still beside him while they pulled a much younger man out. He didn’t wait for them, running for the doors, ignoring Ashley’s demand that he stop and wait for their help. As if that was likely to happen.
Keller pulled the last man free and they got to their feet and ran, aware of the shelves burning around them. There was a loud crack and part of the ceiling gave way, forcing them to run hard for the doors. The roof crashed on their heels as they ran out into the street and safety.
An ambulance was on the scene. Ashley hurried the three adults over to where the children were already being treated. He almost ran back into the building when he realised one of the paramedics was his older sister, Hayley. Almost, but that would be cowardly, so instead he pulled his mask off and took several deep, calming breaths of clean air.
‘Did you just come out of that building?’ She glared at him, spraying something on the little girl’s arm.
‘Yes?’ He did not see what her problem was.
‘Mum’s
going to kill you.’
The little girl nodded, looking at Hayley in that way only small children can. Worshipping. Clearly the kid was an idiot.
‘Uh … it’s my job?’ Ashley did not understand how his family didn’t grasp the fact that fighting fires involved actually fighting fires. No one batted an eye when his older twin brothers joined the Public Order and Riot Squad. It was somehow accepted they would be shot, knifed and injured on a daily basis, but as soon as Ashley suggested joining the Firies he’d been lectured about how dangerous fire was. Fire didn’t hold a gun to your head and demand you obey it.
‘Jameson!’ Keller pointed to the truck and Ashley gratefully abandoned his sister to her job and ran back to the truck, ditching the air tank and moving in to help on the hose again. The roof collapsing had helped, putting out a lot of the flames and blanketing the fire in decades of dirt and grime. The fire was dying, the building remains smouldering and spluttering in death.
He was finally starting to feel relieved when he saw the familiar swirl of lights behind the trucks, blue and red lighting up the dark smoke like a disco. It could’ve been anyone, of course, but that wasn’t the way his luck worked. He held his breath as he turned, eyeing the dark overall-clad figures picking their way closer. He bit his lip in annoyance.
‘Dammit!’ He had the worst luck in the world.
‘What are they doing here?’ Tully frowned at the police and Ashley shook his head in despair, spotting his worst nightmare. The smoke seemed to part around them, as if it didn’t dare touch. They carved their way through and came to stand beside Ashley where he was still holding the hose trying to put the fire out. He felt like he was four, being taught how to piss straight into the toilet with them towering over him.
‘Wow. This is a mess.’ Clay waved a hand at the remains of the warehouse and shook his head, as if Ashley were somehow personally responsible for it.
‘You couldn’t have put the fire out before the roof caved in?’ Taylor was frowning at him. Ashley hated it when Taylor frowned at him. Sure, Taylor was an arsehole a lot of the time and he was a dick to everyone except his boyfriend, but that didn’t stop Ashley from hoping that one day he might magically look at him and say he’d done well. Of all his siblings, Taylor was the one Ashley admired most; the one whose approval he’d always sought, but never won. Maybe that made him an idiot, but even idiots need to be told they’re doing well once in a blue moon.
‘I was a bit busy saving the people inside.’ Ashley sprayed a lick of persistent flame and watched it die. He almost envied it.
‘You were in there?’ Clay pointed to the warehouse, but he didn’t look surprised. He looked pissed. Ashley sighed and wondered what sort of karma he had stockpiled that led to him never getting a day without his family interfering in his life.
‘Yes, Clay. You have to go in, if you want to bring them out.’ He pointed to the family huddled in Hayley’s ambulance, still being treated before they could be transported to a hospital. A second ambulance was arriving.
‘Ah, that’s why we’re here.’ Clay slapped Taylor on the back so hard anyone else would’ve face planted into the ground. Taylor grunted and looked back at the warehouse.
They could have sent anyone to investigate a fire. Why the Riot Squad? Ashley couldn’t even be bothered asking. It wouldn’t change the fact they were there.
‘The call said they were in a basement?’ Taylor asked Ashley and he realised they were there to investigate the people, not the fire. Well, possibly the fire? But mostly the people.
‘Are they illegal?’
‘Probably. I mean, we’re here? Now tell us about the basement. How big was it, how long do you think they’d been in there? Were they locked in?’
‘Uh …’ He pushed the hose into Tully’s hands and moved his brothers aside, frowning as he looked from one to the other.
Ashley was not a small guy. At six foot four he was the tallest guy in his station, and he was one of the strongest. He was fit, he could run a marathon with ease, and he could bench press a very small car if he had to. Well, not the actual car, but about the same weight. Like … maybe a Micra. If he had to.
He looked short and small beside his twin brothers. They were scary looking men, with short cropped ice blonde hair, tan skin and piercing blue eyes. They looked like they had recently hopped off the set of Vikings, and the riot squad uniform only made them look scarier. Unfortunately, Ash knew it wasn’t all for show. Clay and Taylor were the scariest people he knew. They were also the only people he would trust with his life if he was genuinely in danger. Which he wasn’t. So he wished they weren’t there.
‘It wasn’t locked. There was a wooden ladder down into the basement. It was more like a pit? I’d say it’d been there a long time. It was old. I’ve no idea how long they were in there, but there was a rollaway shelf over the door, so they were trapped. Five people. I think it’s mum, dad, daughter and two sons but one of the sons has to be late teens. Asian, if I had to guess I would say Vietnamese.’
Taylor and Clay were staring at the smouldering ruin, arms crossed over their chests. Identical sentinels with matching dark frowns marring otherwise attractive faces.
‘You have to go in there, don’t you?’
Taylor grunted and marched off toward Keller, likely to ask how much longer they thought it would take before the squad could sift through the ashes and try to find whatever it was they were looking for.
‘Pretty sure the teenager is Vincent Dao,’ Clay told him softly. ‘He’s wanted for a list of drug trafficking offences as long as your arm and there’s a rumour he’s started trafficking refugees. He’s pretty high up with the Triad in the city. What do you want to bet he’s not related to that family?’
‘Oh …’ Ash looked over at the ambulance, but if Vincent Dao had been planning to run, he was out of luck. Chris Mendel was literally the biggest man Ashley had ever seen, and he was standing over Dao like he wanted any excuse to break his legs.
‘Jameson!’ Keller bellowed, and Ashley turned and groaned when his brothers also turned to glare at the man. Taylor was right there in front of him. Why would the man need to yell like that if he wasn’t calling to someone else?
‘He means me, morons.’ Ashley went back to help pack up the truck now that the fire was officially out. His brothers were frowning as if they couldn’t understand anyone speaking to someone other than them but he ignored it and did his job, moving about the truck on instinct. He’d been part of the squad long enough now that it felt like a second home. Only less crazy, maybe, since he was born into an insane asylum.
He was climbing into the cab to finally go back to the station when Keller put a heavy hand on his shoulder and looked at him with something akin to pity.
‘No,’ Ashley moaned.
‘Sorry kid, you have to stay and help them. It was you or me.’ And Keller was the boss, so that meant Ash was staying. He didn’t bother pointing out he wasn’t a kid. Keller was forty-six years old and had been fighting fires for longer than Ashley had been alive. He could call him whatever he wanted, he’d earned the right.
Letting go of the door handle, Ashley watched the truck amble away, followed by the two ambulances and a police car, and his shoulders slowly drooped. He turned to look around him at the chaos and bit his lip to keep from screaming in frustration. The warehouse was a black sludge of wreckage, the Riot Squad had a van parked over the street and there was still another fire truck packing up. Other than that, no one was stupid enough to be in the area. Smoke was still heavy across the whole block, and the place reeked of water and charcoal.
Clay and Taylor had gloves on and were starting to sift through the area where the ceiling had collapsed. Harris was with them, though it took Ashley a minute to recognise him. The smallest member of the Riot Squad looked out of place amongst his peers. He looked as if he should have a surfboard under one arm and be wearing a wetsuit down at Bondi, not carrying a notepad while he recorded whatever debris the twins found.<
br />
‘Ash, get over here!’ Clay bellowed and Ashley forced his legs into gear, trudging through the flood of black water to where they were kicking some burnt shelves, a metal wheel still attached to one of the planks of burned wood.
‘This it?’
‘Yeah, but the door was over …’ He scanned the area and went to a large sheet of blackened ceiling, pulling it out of the way to reveal the pit. It was smoking, and looked no more inviting than the first time he’d opened it up.
Clay whistled as he looked inside, getting down on hands and knees to have a better visual and shaking his head.
‘It’s not too big, but enough to live in if you had to. There’s not much down there. The remains of a mattress and a table. I don’t think they were there long, especially if Dao was still here.’
‘It means Dao didn’t lock them in there,’ Taylor pointed out. ‘Who moved the shelving over the entry?’ He looked at Ashley as if he might know the answer and be withholding information.
‘How the hell should I know?’
‘You were here before us,’ Taylor reasoned.
‘Not before the fire!’ Ashley argued, incredulous.
‘Does it look like Arson?’
‘Again, how the hell should I know? I’m not an arson investigator, I just put the fire out!’
They were all staring at him as if he were the crazy one and he forced himself to take a deep breath.
‘If I had to guess, yeah, I don’t see how it could’ve got burning that fast.’
‘Was that so hard?’ Clay rolled his eyes and got back up. He was wiping his hands off on his trousers when Mendel bellowed something from the street and they looked over to see another member of the squad leap out of the riot van and sprint down the street after could-be-Vincent Dao.
No one moved and Ashley looked between them, horrified.
‘Aren’t you going to go help?’ he demanded.
‘Why? He’ll catch him in a second,’ Taylor waved a hand at the street and when Ashley turned back he realised Taylor was right. It had to be Finn Hale; no one else ran like that. Hale ate the space between them, moving faster than Ashley would’ve thought possible, and a moment later he slammed the man into the asphalt and jumped on his back, cuffing him in a move so practised it was hard to see how he’d done it.
Rhino Ash (Saturday Barbies Book 2) Page 1
