by Erin Wright
There would be no in-between.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” he hollered, and the spell was broken. The men began scrambling into their turnout gear, which had been so conveniently laying out in front of them. Jaxson figured that their response time to this fire would break all records for the Sawyer Fire Department. Which, if they were gonna have a fire that they’d respond to quickly, this was it.
“I want to go with you,” Angus said, pulling on his arm as Jaxson was trying to pull his suit over it. Jaxson hesitated, staring at the two teens standing defiantly in front of him. They were still mostly untrained, and would cause more problems than solve, that was for damn sure.
“You guys haven’t had enough training yet,” Jaxson said briskly. “I can’t have you in the way—”
“We’re going to go down there no matter what,” Angus said bluntly. “You can’t stop us. But that’s Chris’ brother in there. We have to know that he’s okay. We could get down there faster if we rode with you.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Jaxson’s mind whirling with everything that needed to be done, he jerked his head. “You can ride down with us, but you better stay out of the way. No helping in any way, got it?”
They nodded solemnly as Jaxson finished pulling his gear on. Moose, as the new Sawyer Fire Department Deputy Chief, had been on top of things, getting both trucks started and warming up. They’d pulled them out of the fire station earlier that morning so they would have room inside to train, and stay out of the miserable cold.
Sawyer had hit another cold snap – although it was the middle of April, Jaxson had been told many a-time to not expect good weather to stay and stick until at least June. Staring out into the white wonderland outside, Jaxson could only hope the water in the tanks hadn’t frozen in place, since the weather had been too cold to start replacing the fire hydrants around town. Jaxson remembered all too well that the hydrant in front of the Muffin Man was only for looks at this point. Water in the trucks was all they had.
He nodded his thanks to Moose for getting the trucks started and warming up, grateful that he at least had a deputy chief that he could rely on. He didn’t even want to think about how JimBob would’ve responded to this call.
He looked around. “Whoever’s ready to go, jump on the new truck and let’s get moving. Moose, you drive the tanker and meet us over there with everyone else.” Moose nodded, and Jaxson swung up into the cab of the fire engine.
It was time to do his job, but even more importantly, it was time to save the woman he loved. He’d been holding off telling her that, not wanting to scare her away after all that she’d been through, but now, that reasoning seemed ridiculous. What if she died without knowing that he loved her?
What if she died?
As he tore through town, the sirens wailing, he didn’t feel that usual rush of adrenaline that accompanied every fire he’d ever been on before. He’d often thought that he was an adrenaline junkie who was just lucky enough to find a well-respected career where he could use that need for danger in a positive way, instead of doing stupid shit like base jumping or skydiving or something.
But today was different. He’d never felt this terror before, trying to overwhelm his senses and shut him down. Black spots flickered at the edges of his vision, and he realized that he’d stopped breathing, quite literally. He forced himself to take a deep breath, and then another.
Although the journey felt like it took years, maybe even decades, they finally arrived at the scene, and everyone began offloading, pulling out hoses, setting up the stabilizer jacks on the truck. Jaxson grabbed his helmet and face mask and jumped out, eyes darting around, looking for Sugar amongst the people milling around on the sidewalk. There was Mr. Stultz and Mrs. Gehring, but no Gage or Sugar.
“Oh thank God you’re here,” Mrs. Gehring said, swinging her way over with her cane to look up at him, her faded blue eyes pleading with him. “I was eating and then it started to smell smoky and then the young boy who runs the place started yelling for people to get out, and I came out here but I haven’t seen Sugar or Gage yet. I don’t know where they’re at. You gotta get them out.”
“That’s the idea, ma’am,” he said, trying to keep a smile planted firmly on his face and not show the panic building up inside of him. “Please step back – I’d hate to have you get hurt too.” He looked up and bellowed, “If you’re not a firefighter or EMT, step back!”
The last thing he needed was the giant front windows shattering from the heat and launching shards into the growing crowd. He spotted Angus and Chris, wearing their Junior Sawyer Fire Department t-shirts, and that gave him an idea. He pushed himself over to them, the weight of his gear and the crowd slowing him down.
“I need you two to keep the crowd back,” he told them. “Can you do that?” They both nodded solemnly. “Don’t let ‘em near those windows. They could shatter and do some real damage.” They nodded again, when Jaxson felt someone tapping on his shoulder.
He spun on his heel to find the police chief standing there, his pot belly hanging over the edge of his belt, his thumbs in his belt loops. Jaxson was ready to spit fire of his own – if the police chief was just here to tell Jaxson how to do his job, he could go to hell – when the man said, “It’s a chimney fire. A couple of my deputies saw sparks coming out of the smokestack on the back wall, in the kitchen area.”
Jaxson sucked in a breath of disappointment, his mind running through his options, remembering the layout of the kitchen as he did so. If Chief Horvath had actually bothered to purchase a fire truck that did more than just look pretty, Jaxson would have a ladder on top of the truck that he could use to drop a chimney bomb down the chute and onto the flames. The powder in them were nothing short of magical, and put out fires easily and quickly. Without a ladder on the truck, though, and the chimney being right up against the back wall, they couldn’t trust leaning a ladder against that wall, and risk having it cave in on them. Nor could they walk on top of the roof.
They’d have to put it out the hard way – by going in.
You have to find Sugar. Find her. Find her. Find her.
The panic was almost overwhelming him, but he pushed it down. He could hyperventilate later. “Thanks, Chief,” he said gruffly, and then turned to see that Moose had arrived, along with Levi and Luke, and in the back stood Troy, quiet as always. Jaxson looked at them. “Just like we trained for. Let’s go.”
He wasn’t much for giving rousing speeches, not when a building was on fire.
Not when his girlfriend was in the building that was on fire.
He slipped his mask into place and his helmet on his head, and then they began working their way through the smoky building methodically, leaving no part of the dining room untouched. A small child or dog could be cowering in the corner, and they’d never see them in this smoke. They had to be methodical, never letting fear or adrenaline rule their actions. They couldn’t just charge into the flames and hope for the best, no matter what his gut was screaming at him to do.
Moose and Levi were laying hose while the other men kept their hands free. Fighting fires was only part of the deal; saving lives was more important.
Sugar’s life, especially. Everyone deserved to be saved, but Jaxson couldn’t help focusing on Sugar. He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t focus on her in that moment. Nothing else mattered – it all faded away.
Just Sugar.
The gloom of the smoke-filled bakery made it hard to see anything, but Jaxson could feel the heat of the flames as he moved around the counter and towards the back. He pushed through the swinging doors that separated the kitchen from the front, the charred wood falling uselessly to the ground. He could hardly see his hand in front of his face, so when he felt his boot kick flesh on the floor, he almost jumped in surprise. Instead, he knelt, finding Gage’s thick, corded arm muscles leading up to his torso. He stood and spun, looking for someone to help him, and found Moose at his back.
He gestured down at Gage
, and he had the ever-so-brief thought that he needed to work on getting in-helmet radios for his men, and then he pushed the thought away. He’d focus on that later. Moose nodded, but instead of leaning down and helping Jaxson heft Gage up, he turned and grabbed Levi, pulling him forward through the smoke so they could lift Gage together.
Jaxson gave a brief nod of understanding, reminding himself to thank Moose later, and turned back into the smoke. He could see the flames clearly now, and a red-hot stove pipe leading up from the ovens along the wall. The brilliance of it was evil, glowing and taunting him through the smoke.
He shook his head. He had to focus. He kept shuffling his way forward, searching with his feet as much as with his hands and eyes, looking for Sugar.
What if she’d gone out the back, and didn’t need saving? The fire was growing bigger, the crackling sounds more ominous.
His mind spun with his choices – the worst choices he’d ever faced in his life. He could focus on finding Sugar, or on putting the fire out. One choice meant potentially saving her life, but letting a block of Sawyer burn to the ground, and the other meant saving this part of Sawyer but letting Sugar die.
And then there was the fact that Sugar may’ve gone out the back door and could be just fine right now. He could let a block of Sawyer burn to the ground for no reason at all.
It didn’t matter, though. He couldn’t do it. No matter how slim the chance that she was still in there, he had to keep looking.
The terror, which had been scattering his thoughts to the wind, suddenly focused them. Finding Sugar was all that mattered. He pushed the heat, the flames, the smoke, the worry that he was too late, to the side. He would leave that building with Sugar in his arms, or after he’d covered every square inch of the place.
And not a moment before.
He continued to methodically criss-cross the tiled floor, shuffling along, and then it happened. A soft barrier in front of his foot. He dropped to his knees and discovered Sugar’s limp body in the smoke. He scooped her up into his arms, ignoring protocol that dictated that two men carry unconscious civilians out of fires. Sugar was so small, she was practically half a person anyway.
In that moment, Jaxson would’ve taken the arm off anyone who dared to touch her. He held her possessively against his body as he headed back out of the kitchen, nudging a couple of men on the way out to show them that he was holding Sugar. They nodded in understanding, and began spraying the fire. Now that all lives were saved, they could focus on saving property.
Except, was she alive? In his mask and helmet, his body covered in full fireproof gear, he couldn’t know. He couldn’t feel a pulse through his gloves, or spot the slight rise and fall of her chest through his goggles. He just had to carry her outside, and pray that she was all right. He stumbled against some chairs on the way out, Sugar’s body and the smoke keeping him from being able to see much of anything, but he didn’t care.
He kept going.
He just needed to get her outside.
He just needed to find an EMT to save her.
Nothing else mattered.
He pushed the glass door open, the bell tinkling merrily as he spilled out onto the sidewalk, smoke following him in waves as he searched frantically for an EMT. A shout went up as the crowd spotted him, and a guy whipped his head around and headed their way, leaving Mrs. Gehring behind. He had a navy blue EMTs of Sawyer t-shirt on, and Jaxson almost sagged with relief. They were here. They would help save Sugar.
Another EMT, a woman this time, came up, pushing a stretcher in front of her. They were saying something but over the roar of adrenaline and the fire and everything else, Jaxson didn’t know what they were saying, only saw their lips moving. But he knew what to do anyway – lay her down on the gurney. Let them take care of her.
And so he did, as hard as it was to let her go. He didn’t want to. He hurt as he laid her down, because some irrational part of him believed that if he just held her, he could make her better. He could heal her through the force of his love for her.
Thankfully, his rational side prevailed, and he stood back, letting the EMTs push her towards a waiting ambulance, the lights flashing as they chattered back and forth about heart rates and smoke inhalation, and then…
The worst part of it all: He had to watch them load her and drive away, and he couldn’t go with them because he had a job to do, and he was sure, in that moment, that his heart was being torn in two.
To let them take Sugar away without knowing if she was dead or alive; if she was going to make it or die on the way to the hospital…
He had done nothing harder in his whole life. And for the first time since he’d learned the thrill that came with fighting fires, he hated his lifelong passion for making him choose like this. No one should ever be asked to make this choice.
Levi was tapping him on the shoulder, indicating he should take his mask off so they could talk, and Jaxson responded mechanically, doing what he was supposed to do.
As Levi asked about strategy to bring the fire under control and not take the adjoining buildings down with it, Jaxson answered, his body knowing what to do, even if his heart hated him for it.
Chapter 38
Sugar
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Sugar swatted at the air. Her alarm clock was going off again, just like it did every morning. Was it really time to get up already? She felt like she’d been run over by a truck. Surely she didn’t have to actually get up, right?
The beeping continued, annoying Sugar. She swatted again, trying to reach the clock, and then she remembered that it was across the room, on her nightstand. No wonder she wasn’t turning it off. She’d moved it months before.
With a groan, she tried to roll off the bed so she could crawl across the room towards the clock. But instead of hitting the hardwood floors of her bedroom, she was hitting a cold metal barrier.
“Whoa, whoa,” a soft voice said, stroking her hair back, pushing her onto her back. “Where do you think you’re going?”
That was weird. Sugar couldn’t make her brain figure out why someone was in her bedroom, but her eyes hurt too much to open them up. She opened up her mouth to tell this lady that she needed to turn off her alarm clock, but her throat hurt too much to talk, and only a small croak came out instead.
Frustrated and alarmed, Sugar cleared her throat to try it again, and instead, began coughing spasmodically, her whole body tensing up as she realized that something was in her nose and throat and she was choking to death. She began trying to pull at the things trying to smother her, her panic growing by leaps and bounds, and then people were calling out all around her and she felt a whoosh of cold liquid in her arm, which was so weird, and then she was drifting again, her body relaxing against the pillow and she was falling down the well into the darkness…
Chapter 39
Jaxson
Jaxson surveyed the kitchen, or what was left of it. The chimney that had started it all was black again, instead of that monstrous brilliant red, but then again, the rest of the kitchen was black, too. The smoke damage on this one was going to be tremendous. Jaxson could only hope Gage had excellent insurance on the bakery. He would need every penny of help he could get to rebuild the place.
They’d managed to keep the fire from spreading to the adjoining buildings, though, and for that, Jaxson was incredibly proud of his guys. Even Dylan, on his first real fire that he could fight, had stayed focused throughout it all. Probably more focused than Jaxson had been.
Is Sugar okay? Is she still alive?
For the thousandth time, he cursed himself for not making the EMTs swear that they would call him with updates. He burned to get onto the radios and ask, but knew that they were for official business, not so a guy could check up on the love of his life.
“Why don’t you go check on Sugar?” Moose asked, coming up to stand next to Jaxson. “I can take it from here.”
Jaxson turned and stared at Moose for a moment, his mind whirling with everythi
ng he should be doing, versus what he wanted to do. It was The Choice again, the damn choice between Sawyer and Sugar, and this time, he couldn’t do what he was “supposed” to be doing any longer.
He jerked his head in appreciation, shoved the clipboard with a checklist of items to complete after a fire into Moose’s hands, and headed for the front door.
Finally, his duty as fire chief was done. Now he could be simply Sugar’s boyfriend. The relief of it all almost knocked him to his knees, but he hurried to his SUV instead, pulling off his mask and helmet as he moved, wanting to get to the hospital as quickly as his gas pedal would allow him.
For the first time since he moved to Long Valley, Jaxson was happy to be the only person in town driving a brilliant green Ford Explorer. It meant that the cops all knew who he was, and where he was going. He tore around corners, ignoring traffic expectations like stopping at stop signs, or the posted speed limit, or anything else. Nothing else mattered except Sugar.
He got to the small hospital, throwing his SUV in park and sprinting for the door, moving faster than he’d ever managed to move in full gear before. Now that he was allowing himself to wonder how Sugar was doing, he found that breathing fully was hard to do. Thinking clearly was even harder.
A vaguely familiar looking redhead looked up from the desk and, catching sight of him, hitched her thumb over her shoulder. “Second door on the right,” she called out to him as he blew past her and down the hallway she’d pointed towards.
He nodded his thanks but didn’t break his stride. Nothing mattered now except seeing for himself that Sugar was okay. If she was okay.
“Jaxson, stop!” a voice cried, and he spun in a circle, trying to see who was talking to him, when he saw Dr. Torgeson come huffing up, out of breath. “They told me you were on your way over. Listen…Sugar’s alive, but…she has a lot of smoke inhalation damage to her lungs. We’ve sedated her because she kept trying to pull her breathing tube out. If she does that, she’ll die. Without the extra-high oxygen content from the air we’re shoving in her, her body won’t be able to pull enough oxygen out to keep her body alive.”
