As soon as they were back on the street he tore his mask off and took several large gulping breaths, barely noticing the smoke outside after the thick blanket that was within the building’s walls.
‘At least one confirmed dead inside,’ Bell was saying to whoever was in charge. ‘The building’s no longer accessible.’ A hand clapped him on the shoulder, pushed him over to the truck where he sat heavily on the bumper, watching the men work around him, feeling shell shocked.
One dead. Two so badly burned that even if they made it, they would never fully recover. He stared at the ambulances, watched the lights flash red and blue, igniting the smoke puffing over them in technicolour, and felt cold to his bones despite the roaring heat of the fire.
‘You okay, Jameson?’ Bell was looking at his face, concerned and Ashley forced himself to snap out of it. No, he wasn’t okay, but he didn’t have time to freak out. Instead, he pulled his mask back on and nodded, moving to help with the hose, trying to find a way to save the buildings on either side. There was no saving this one. Another casualty.
The Arson Squad arrived and Ashley cursed when he saw Zhao and his partner get out of the car, moving immediately to where Bell was standing with the two paramedics charged with taking the body to the morgue. They hadn’t found any more bodies, thankfully. Ashley deliberately avoided them, moving to sit in the truck and wait for the crew to be ready to leave. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone.
The sun was setting by the time they were finishing up, not that you could tell. The buildings on either side were blackened and waterlogged but they were standing, which was more than could be said for the complex in front of them. The frame was there, and the rear side was still stretching it’s bones to the sky but the front had crumbled and fallen in on itself, leaving a black hole in the growing darkness. Smoke still lazily ghosted from inside while water dripped and trickled through the black bricks.
The ambulances were long gone, a few lonely police cars sat at either end of the street, closing it off. No pedestrians lingered, the buildings all abandoned, people finding somewhere else to stay for the night. It was eerie, the crew picking their way through the ruins in a final search for the living, and more likely the dead.
The moon was up, the smoke finally clearing as they packed up the truck and headed back to the station. Ashley helped restock the truck, then followed everyone to the showers, peeling off his clothes and tossing them in a garbage bag to deal with later, because getting the stench off them would take more work than he wanted to contemplate right then.
No one spoke, the only sound the rushing water as each man huddled alone in his cubicle and tried to wash his memories away. Ashley braced his hands against the wall and stuck his head under the water, letting the roar consume his hearing, closing his eyes and focusing on each breath, ignoring all else.
He had no idea how long he stayed in the shower, but everyone else had gone when he shut off he taps and towelled dry. He fetched a clean pair of overalls from his locker and pulled them on, sighing at the fresh, crisp lemon scent. Everything else stank of the fire. There was no escaping it.
The clock on the wall said past midnight when he sat heavily on one of the couches with a hot cup of coffee. A car pulled up out front, and a few footfalls later two figures appeared in front of him.
‘Where’s Bell, sweetheart?’ Zhao smiled brightly at him and Ashley scowled.
‘I’m not your sweetheart,’ he growled.
‘Don’t harass my men,’ Bell commanded as he came through the door from the garage, scowling at Zhao and his partner. ‘What do you want? It’s past midnight and we’ve had a long day.’
‘We know. We just came from there,’ Zhao’s partner interrupted. ‘It’s Arson, so we need to ask you all the standard questions.’
Ashley frowned, looking up at the man and trying to read his name on his chest, but it was some crazy Eastern European thing. Stano … Stankovic? Guy must have been teased at school.
‘The two girls were locked in,’ Bell said coldly. ‘Ash can confirm it. Other than that, we don’t know anything.’
Ashley nodded in agreement and sipped his coffee, really not in the mood to talk to anyone. He got that it was their job, but they needed to understand they’d done theirs, and now they needed a rest stop. With any luck people would sleep quietly in their beds and they could all go home to do the same come six in the morning.
‘We know you’re tired, but we also have to do our jobs. Please?’ Zhao never said please. It had them all frowning. Bell shrugged and sat heavily on the couch opposite Ashley, settling in for the questionnaire.
The questions were stupid. How many times they could say the same answer seemed to be the real aim of it all, and in the end Ashley had a headache that was almost blinding in its intensity and a deep desire to punch Zhao in the face.
Stankovic was professional, and seemed to be genuinely sorry for interrupting their down time after such a fire. He seemed aware they were not in the best frame of mind, and he stepped carefully. Zhao was like a dog with a bone, goading, demanding and completely out of line. He also consistently made personal comments. He asked about the speed of the fire in the same sentence he asked how long Ashley spent at the gym. He asked about the front wall collapse in the same breath he asked how many push ups he could do. He asked about the girl he saved at the same time he asked if he could carry a man, and it was obvious he didn’t mean for rescue purposes. The man had a death wish and Ashley was so fed up he clutched his cup too tightly and the stupid porcelain crumbled in his hand, cracking and falling to pieces, spilling lukewarm coffee dregs over his nice clean lemon scented overalls. It was the last straw. Ashley got up and stormed into the kitchenette.
Bell carefully got up and shook Stankovic’s hand.
‘Oh, sorry, we just have a few more …’
‘No, you’re done.’ Bell was very firm.
‘But we just …’ Stankovic was trying, he really was. It simply wasn’t good enough.
‘No, we are done. My complaint against your colleague will be on your superior’s desk by six am. Now get out of my station.’
‘Excuse me?’ Zhao snapped, finally turning from where he was ogling Ashley at the bench to Bell standing over him, arms crossed and furious expression on his face.
‘Get out. Now.’
‘You can’t …’
‘I can. Now. Get. Out.’
Stankovic grabbed Zhao by the elbow and hauled him out of the station. They were yelling at each other all the way to their car, but they got in, and thankfully drove away.
It didn’t stop his overalls from smelling like coffee and Ashley sighed heavily and dumped the remains of the mug in the bin.
‘How long has that shit been going on?’ Bell demanded, suddenly very close and very loud.
‘Excuse me?’ Ashley wasn’t sure why he was being yelled at now, quite certain he’d done nothing to deserve it.
‘That bullshit with Zhao?’ Bell clarified and for the first time Ashley realised the man was almost as large as him, and sounded suspiciously like a father. The grey seemed brighter in his hair all of a sudden.
‘I’ve already put in two complaints about the way Zhao behaves around Jameson,’ Keller came in through one of the side doors. ‘You write a third and they’ll have to finally do something about it.’
‘You what?’ Ashley had not known that.
‘It’s sexual harassment, Ash!’ Keller snapped at him, suddenly as furious as Bell. ‘You cannot let people talk to you like that at work!’
‘But he’s not that bad …’
They had that look. The one that he knew meant there was nothing he could say that would convince them he was not a complete moron. So he shut his mouth, sighed and waved a hand at them.
‘Don’t you have a complaint to go write?’
‘Yes. I do!’ Bell snapped at him and stormed toward the office. Keller watched him go, looking bemused.
‘He’s really not that bad.’ A
shley went about making himself a fresh cup of coffee.
‘He really is,’ Keller countered with a dark frown. ‘If you’re not gonna take our word for it, I’m telling Taylor.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’ Keller moved over to take the couch Bell had been sitting in, settling on it with a heavy sigh and putting his broken foot up on a magazine stand that was probably going to have to double as a footstool for the foreseeable future.
‘If I don’t agree with you that Zhao is an unprofessional douche, you’re going to dob on me to my brother, the human wrecking ball, so that he can what … knock some sense into me and make me put in a complaint against the guy?’
‘Yes, exactly.’
There were no words. Ashley glared at the man, sipped his coffee, and realised precisely how absurd that was. He was not five! These were grown men!
‘I’m not afraid of my brother.’
‘Which goes to show you how stupid you are,’ Keller nodded in agreement.
‘There’s nothing I can say to make you be less of a dick about this, huh?’
‘Not a thing,’ Keller agreed. ‘I’m not being a dick. I’m being a good superior officer.’ He wasn’t, he was being a good friend, but sometimes that was the same thing.
‘Whatever,’ Ashley shook his head, wondering how he’d ended up surrounded by as many lunatics at work as he was at home. He needed to lie down, so he sneaked off to the bunks and crawled in under a blanket with his steaming mug of milky goodness and prayed no one lit anything on fire until morning.
His phone was ringing. Groggy, head still pounding, Ashley rolled out of bed and stared blearily at the screen, groaning at his brother’s name but dutifully answering while he looked around at the empty beds.
‘Bray … it’s way too early for phone calls.’
‘It’s six thirty, your shift is done and you’re on the news, so Mum’ll call soon anyway. Be grateful I got through first.’
‘What?’ It was too early for conversations that made no sense. He checked the clock on the wall and sure enough his shift had ended a half hour ago, they must have let him sleep through when the second crew arrived.
‘That fire you were at, it’s on the news. You’re in all your gear, but Mum will still know it’s you.’
He groaned louder because even though she knew he was a firefighter, every time Chloe Jameson found out he’d been in a fire she rang to lecture him about it. Didn’t he know it was dangerous? Didn’t he know normal people ran away from a fire? Didn’t he know you were supposed to let the firefighters put it out? But she didn’t want to listen or accept that he was the stupid firefighter sent to put it out, as if she still thought he was still a kid who wanted to grow up and be one.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ he swore and Brayden laughed sympathetically.
‘I also have some bad news,’ Brayden admitted, tone softening. ‘The second girl you pulled out of the fire died overnight.’
He froze, sitting on the side of the bed, absorbing the words. He’d suspected, but it was another thing to know it for fact. He hoped she hadn’t woken up, that she’d quickly slipped away from unconsciousness into death.
‘You okay?’
‘Yeah,’ Ashley mumbled. ‘I figured.’
‘The other girl is alive. She’s got a long way to go, but there’s a good chance she’ll make it.’ The girl he’d pulled out. Her skin was still melted onto his overalls. He’d have to clean it off soon, but he hadn’t felt up to it last night.
‘Okay.’
‘Ash … are you sure you’re okay?’
‘Yeah. Sorry, I … It hurts, okay?’
‘I know,’ Brayden agreed and Ashley knew he did know. He sighed heavily and forced himself to get up.
‘Thanks for telling me, but I wanna get out of here, so I’m gonna go clean my gear and go home, okay?’
‘Yeah, course. Drive safe.’
‘Yeah.’
He wandered through the firehouse and said hi to the guys he passed but they were quiet and subdued, aware he didn’t want to actually talk to anyone. He went to his overalls and found them strangely spotless, and then stood there frowning at them.
‘Bell cleaned them before he left,’ Ridley said softly behind him. Ashley nodded, feeling drained and empty and then his phone started ringing in his hand again and he wanted to smash it into a thousand pieces but he answered it instead.
‘Yeah?’
‘Ash, sweetheart, you’re on the news!’ God dammit.
‘I know, Mum.’ He’d been there, it had sucked, and his superior had cleaned a poor girl’s blackened skin off his uniform. He didn’t want to talk about it. Why didn’t anyone understand that?
‘You’re fighting a fire and it’s huge! What the hell were you doing there?’
He sighed and stared at his equally spotless boots and felt tears pricking his eyes.
‘Because it’s my job, Mum. I’m a firefighter. It was a fire. We were called to put it out.’ Couldn’t she let it go, this weird thing she had against his choice of occupation that apparently required her to ignore he did it at all and act as if he magically happened to accidentally turn up to a fire and help put it out? A girl had died. He needed her to understand that and respect that it hurt, but she was oblivious.
‘Oh, don’t put that smart tone on with me, young man! I’m still your mother!’ But another voice was in the background and it sounded like they argued over the phone for a minute before his father’s calming voice came through.
‘Go home, Ash. Get some sleep. Good job, kiddo.’
Ashley turned sharply on his heel, striding past Ridley without a word, head down so no-one could see the tears that threatened. That girl was dead, and her friend probably wished she was and his clothes were clean as if nothing had happened.
He stormed toward his ute, rummaging in his pocket for his keys. He hadn’t made it halfway across the carpark when strong arms wrapped him up and he was pressed hard into a familiar chest and neck. Relief washed over him, his arms closing around Finn and holding him harder than he should have but no harder than was necessary.
‘Shhh,’ Finn hummed into his ear. Finn’s lips pressed in against his jaw and then his forehead and it nearly broke him.
Ashley let Finn pull him over to his car instead. It was startling enough that he froze there, gaping at it. He’d never seen an uglier vehicle.
‘What the hell is that?’
‘My car. Get in.’
He couldn’t. He was too busy staring at the car while his heart ached in confusion and his head reeled in amusement. The two feelings didn’t blend and left him frozen in a bizarre loop of incomprehensibility.
‘That’s …’
‘A Mazda 323.’
‘I was gonna say shit-box.’ Ashley looked on, awed in all the wrong ways. ‘But sure. We’ll go with Mazda 323.’
‘Her name is Harriet.’
‘What?’ He named it?
‘Harriet, meet Ashley. Ash, this is Harriet. Now get in!’ He was getting exasperated, but Ashley couldn’t help him. He wanted to cry, because Finn had the worst car he’d ever seen in his life, and because that poor girl had been burned alive.
‘She … she died, Finn,’ he whispered, horrified. It was supposed to be his job to save people, not rip their skin off in their dying moments while he hauled them out of the flames and handed them off to the devil.
‘I know, Ash. Taylor told me. Now get in.’
‘But you have the shittest car I have ever seen!’ It looked like it wouldn’t even start and for some reason he couldn’t move. Finn having an awful car was suddenly a huge deal and he couldn’t figure out why.
‘Harriet and I are gonna pretend we didn’t hear that, because you’re in shock. And you’re gonna get in, and you’re gonna let me take you home and we’re gonna curl up in bed and you can do whatever you want, okay? But you have to get in my shit-box car first.’
‘That’s a lot of gonna’s,’ Ashley muttered, forcing
himself to open the door and get in. The thing was hideous. It had a tan interior. Drug drivers would never have agreed to get in that car. What the hell? ‘Even you said it’s a shit-box,’ he pointed out snidely.
‘This was my dream car as a teenager. My friend had one that he’d gutted and put in this amazing stereo and this ridiculous suspension and it was literally the ugliest thing I can think of but at the time I thought it was the bomb,’ Finn explained, getting in and starting the engine. Ashley was stunned when it started, and even more so when it didn’t even rattle that badly as they pulled away from the curb and started home.
‘Why is this your car? You could literally have any car in the world, and … I’m not even sure this classifies as a car anymore!’ He ran his hands over the peeling dash, shaking his head and then he realised it had a tape deck and he started cackling, then crying, pulling his legs up and hugging his knees, pushing his face into them and struggling to stop.
‘It’s okay to cry, you know. As long as you know it’s not your fault, you did your best.’
‘I know that!’ he snapped. He didn’t mean to, but he did. He was so angry, but there was no focus for the rage. He didn’t blame himself, or Bell, or the fire, it was simply something that was. And the girl was dead, and he was angry about it. It was.
Finn rubbed his back between changing gears and let him be a furious mess while he drove. He seemed to know Ashley needed the space, at the same time he needed Finn there.
The drive took a long time, which was how Ashley realised they were going to Finn’s house, not his apartment.
‘We’re going to yours?’
‘Yeah. Sorry, I need to feed Anubis, and I figured we could hide there all day and you wouldn’t have to try and talk to Freya and Dave … We can go to yours if you want?’
‘No, no … I don’t want to see anyone, I …’ He frowned, very aware he was being a dick.
‘What?’
‘Your house is almost as bad as your car,’ Ashley admitted softly and Finn gaped at him.
Rhino Ash (Saturday Barbies Book 2) Page 19
