The Spark Between Us by Stacy Travis
Chapter Thirty-Four
Braden
The screamingfire bell woke me out of a deep sleep during which I’d thrashed so hard both of my pillows were on the floor, and my blankets hung off the sides.
Like a zombie on autopilot, I jumped into my pants and boots and pulled on my coat. We’d been anticipating getting called out to a brushfire that was still zero percent contained, but the dispatcher reported a second incident and asked that we share resources.
Mitch and I strapped on our oxygen tanks for the apartment fire in Pleasanton and jumped in the ladder truck with Logan. I sent an engine with a different crew to the brush fire.
The smell of smoke hit me from two blocks away, which was a bad sign.
Flames licked the second floor of the building, and smoke was visible through the windows of the upper floors. A couple of the tenants were on the street staring up at the flaming building as Logan parked the truck in front.
“I was up reading, and my light went out. Right after, I started to smell smoke,” a woman in a yellow nightgown gasped, clutching a small dog in a reindeer sweater.
The battalion chief from the Pleasanton department gave me the rundown. “Electrical fire in the basement, working its way up through the walls. Two guys went into the basement twelve minutes ago. Manager says there are thirteen units total. He’s accounted for only half the tenants.”
“Shit, okay.”
“Prep for search and rescue on upper floors.” That was why we all had oxygen tanks. Mitch and I strategized how to enter the building to avoid the flames.
Logan was attaching hoses to the fire hydrant, working fast, and Duke extended the ladder so he could take out the windows and let some of the smoke out from the upper floors. From what we could see through the closed windows on the upper floors, the smoke was already getting darker, so speed was crucial.
Thick smoke like that would kill anyone in the building if we didn’t get them out.
Mitch and I went in through a first-floor window, hoping the flames were contained in the basement and the smoke wasn’t horrible there yet. But we couldn’t see shit.
“Manager hasn’t accounted for two residents on this floor,” Mitch said.
Stopping to listen, all I heard was the hiss of flames destroying everything beneath me. I’d trained for years in these situations, so I took every precaution, covering the front of my oxygen mask with a wet towel and crouching as low as possible to stay beneath the smoke.
Then I heard it.
Mitch did too. He pointed to the apartment in the corner. Not a voice, but a whimper.
The locked door wouldn’t budge and from the heat emanating from the other side, I feared what we’d find when I raked through it with the blade of my axe. The whimpers grew louder as we crawled from room to room, finding two tenants prone and barely breathing in a tiled bathroom with the shower running. It was clever, but they’d still die of smoke inhalation in a matter of minutes.
One at a time, we shouldered them and carried them to the open window where Duke was waiting at the top of the ladder to help them down.
I started for the stairwell to the third floor. Two steps along, it was already much hotter.
Mitch grabbed my arm and yanked hard. “Hey. We need them to open the roof or the windows before we go any further. It’s too hot.”
He was right. I could feel it on the exposed skin on the back of my neck.
But my adrenaline was running high, and I felt the jones of a dangerous situation. Mitch knew the protocol as well as I did, but we were geared up, and I thought we had a little time.
“I’m going up,” I barked impulsively.
I didn’t have time to think about why I was so insistent on staying in the building longer than was probably safe. I just knew it felt good that I was already sweating beneath my gear.
My muscles ached from the heavy tank on my back. And I was going to give my all—and maybe my life—to help other people.
That was the job. That felt good.
If I wasn’t deserving of love and a lasting relationship, which time and experience had proven I wasn’t, then at least I could earn my worth on this planet by giving everything I had to help someone else.
Mitch pulled me back once more. “Braden, enough. It’s too damn hot in here. We’ve got to get out. Let ‘em break the windows first, let the smoke out. Then we can go back,” he begged. I didn’t look him in the eye. I couldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t find judgement, only concern, and I wasn’t sure I could take it.
“Go. Get out. I’ll be right behind you. I just need to check this floor. I won’t stay longer than it’s safe.”
“Dude. Please . . . it’s already not safe.” He was urging me to be sensible, and I could see from the sadness in his expression that he knew I wasn’t listening. Still, he tried with the one piece of ammunition he believed he had. “Sarah would not want you to do this.”
His words were a gut punch. I’d promised Sarah I’d never take unnecessary risk.
Sarah’s gone.
I left Mitch behind and worked my way up the stairwell through thick smoke, finding a few apartments where all the doors were open, hopefully because everyone had already left and made it down the stairs.
But I had to check them all.
I lucked into a pocket where the air was thinner, which helped me navigate. I could hear the water hitting the ceiling of the floors below me, dousing the flames at their source, but with an active fire crawling through the walls and ceiling crawl spaces, I had another problem—an unstable floor that could give without warning.
By the time I got to the third apartment, I was sweating like the devil and feeling the burn from scalding steam coming from the floor below—even with the mask on, my airways were swelling. I could feel the heat burning the back of my neck and ears.
But if I bailed out and someone died, I’d never forgive myself for getting this close and turning around. I stayed focused.
The smoke was so thick I couldn’t see anything but an orange glow through dark grey smoke, but I banged on the door. “Hello? Anyone inside?” I shouted, banging harder. “Hello?”
Listening, I could hear only the shouts of the firefighters outside and the blast of the hoses, but with the door closed, there was no way to be sure no one was trapped unless I got in.
The axe was heavy in my hands as I swung. Splinters from the doorjamb shot out in all directions when I made contact with the wood and broke the lock. Flames shot at me from inside the room, and I dropped to the floor to avoid the effects of the backdraft. I had to army crawl on my stomach to stay low and avoid as much of the smoke as I could, but it was a losing battle as I pulled myself deeper into the apartment.
My voice was muffled by the oxygen mask to make much of a sound, but I tried again to reach out. “Anyone here?” My voice was a croak.
Then I heard it, a quiet cough, barely audible but enough to direct me to that back room, where I reached for the knob, worried about what I’d find inside. I also knew that each time I opened a door and drew oxygen into a room, there was a good chance of tiny flames raging up into life-ending ones. I’d been here before and had always escaped with my life. But I’d never done it without backup.
Mitch was right. This was too risky, and I was falling on my sword like a coward instead of being smart.
Huddled on the floor was a teenage girl holding an infant wrapped in a blanket. The terrified look in her eyes told me there was no way she was getting out of here alive without my help. She looked paralyzed with fright. I’d seen it before. All the regular fight or flight instincts freeze when they should propel a person to safety. There was a window above her head, but she was staring straight ahead, her small body shaking.
Her cough sounded hoarse and jagged, and without the benefit of a mask or even a cloth to soak up the particulate matter, her small lungs were no match for what she was inhaling.
The way she sat with her back straight up against the wall reminded me of the way Sarah was sitting in my kitchen the morning after her car accident. Thinking of her sent a sharp pang of agony through me.
Between where the girl sat and where I crouched, an enormous hole burned through the floor, making it near-impossible for me to get to them.
I signaled to her to come toward me—there was a tiny ledge of floorspace remaining, too small to support me, but she was tiny. Forcing a hoarse scrap of a voice out, I called to her. “You can do this.”
She shook her head, clutching the baby tighter. Then her head lolled to the side and her eyes closed. No!!
Like hell I was going to let a baby and girl barely old enough to be her mother die when I was six feet away. I had to get to them.
Looking down into the fiery hole between us, I saw a cannon of water barreling through as the firefighters in my unit made every attempt to extinguish the blaze. There was a scrap of a pink bedspread hanging off the end of the bed nearest to where I crouched. If I could grab it and it held my weight, I might be able to balance on the ledge long enough to get to her.
“I’m on the second floor, northside bedroom, two people trapped. Heavy smoke.” I radioed, needing someone to break out the window and get us out of here.
“Coming to you now,” someone responded.
One chance, and I took it. The fabric held, and I used the momentum of my jump to swing across the dead space and over to the corner of the floor where she sat.
The girl was getting pale from lack of oxygen, and I made a split-second decision that was the only thing I could think of to save her. I released the mask from my face and held it to her small one, hoping to see a sign of breath. We could share for a minute or two until someone got to us.
“Come on, come on,” I urged, still not seeing her chest inflate.
I coughed and sputtered. My lungs burned in agony, seared by the smoke and whatever particulate clogged the thick smoke. Sarah would probably want to talk about its atomic mass and tell me about the reason certain matter could pass through other matter.
Sarah . . .
I couldn’t bear the idea that I’d never see her again. Mitch was right—this was a suicide mission, one I shouldn’t be on.
Because I should be with her. Wherever she was or however she wanted things to play out, I should be there. That was the only correct answer when you loved a person as much as I loved her.
I coughed again, this time gasping when I tried to breathe. My airways were closing. I didn’t have much time left before the lack of oxygen did me in. My lungs folded in on themselves, and my throat closed up. I tried to inhale but nothing got through. It felt like I was choking on my own tissues.
“Hey, here, in here!” I heard the voices below me where the blazing flames seemed to have subsided, but it didn’t matter. I’d taken my last breath.
The last thing I saw before passing out was Sarah’s beautiful smile. Even then, I didn’t know if I deserved it.