Nothing Left to Burn (8 page)

“When is the next one?”

“End of the month.”

Alex shook his head. “Reece, you should sit this session out and do next month’s.”

No.

I shouldn’t.

Because that would show my dad I couldn’t do the job. The whole point of this exercise was to show him he’d been wrong about me.

Beside me, Alex sighed.“But you’re not going to do that, are you?”

“Alex, I can’t. The whole squad is trying to help me. I can’t let them down.”

He put up his hand when we reached the bus stop. “Okay. Here.” He opened his messenger bag and took out a bottle of water and a banana. “Eat this now. Don’t stretch, but do warm-ups before you start running up the steps.”

“Wait,
don’t
stretch?”

“No. The reason your muscles hurt is because they’re tearing. Stretching will tear them more and, in your case, will likely cause more injury than it prevents.”

Okay, then. No stretching. “Thanks, Doc.” I waved the banana at him and headed for the field.

“Oh, and apply ice later!” he called out before the doors slid closed.

As soon as the bus pulled away, I remembered we were supposed to see a movie tonight. With a curse, I pulled out my phone and texted Alex my apologies for forgetting.

He immediately replied.

I knew you forgot. Your failure to mention our plans indicated that. The pain that you’re in is making it difficult for you to concentrate. We can adjust and try tomorrow.

With a laugh, I texted back my thanks and headed to the field, where Max was already stretching. “Hey, Logan. You ready?”

I ate my banana, swallowed some water, and nodded. “Let’s do it.”

I followed behind him, my quadriceps burning and trembling with every step.

“Come on, Logan, kick it up!”

I struggled to control my breathing, but it wasn’t working. I was sucking air, and my legs quit. I fell, sprawled face-first, and waited for death.

“Whoa, what happened?” Max ran back down the stairs and turned me over. He wasn’t even winded. I’d have cursed him if I could…you know…actually talk.

“Jesus, Logan,” Amanda’s voice said from somewhere outside my visual field. It hurt even to roll my eyes.

Two hands grasped mine and abruptly pulled me up to a sitting position. The world reeled for a second, then righted itself. “Gah,” I might have said. It was all a blur.

Amanda peered at me and shook her head in disgust. “Guess you’re cooked for the day.” She tossed me my water bottle. It sailed right past my head and landed with a dull plunk somewhere to my right. Amanda shut her eyes, and Max snorted.

“Logan, have you ever done anything physical without a game controller in your hands?” Max laughed.

Huh. I wondered if walking Tucker counted. “You know…it’s all about…finger strength,” I said between pants.

“Logan, think you can pull the heavy rope?” Amanda asked.

Oh God. I wasn’t sure my arms were still attached. I just sat there, panting. Amanda retrieved my water bottle—it had rolled down a few steps—and popped the cap. I managed to get my arm high enough to swallow some.

“We’ll forget the heavy rope for today.” She pulled out her cell phone, an ancient flip, and tapped out a text message. “Go meet Bear. He’s gonna quiz you on fire extinguisher types.”

There were
types
?

I climbed slowly to my feet and managed to make it down to ground level without passing out. Max and Amanda laughed, and my face burned, but I didn’t look back. I made it to the library, muttered a prayer of thanks that Bear chose a table on the main floor, and slowly shuffled over.

“Hey, Bear.” I fell into the chair opposite his.

“Hey, Reece. You okay? You look like you’re gonna puke.”

“I’ll be fine.”

He slid over a book. “Okay, we need to know about fire suppression.”

I glanced at the book. “I had no idea there were different types of fire extinguishers.”

“Yeah.” He pointed to the one bolted to the wall in the corner of the library. “You need to make sure you’re using the right tool for the job.”

I read the page he had open. The most common types were water, dry chemical, and carbon dioxide. In addition, there were categories based on the type of fire each was best suited to put out. Class A fires were ordinary things, like wood, paper, and household stuff. Class B fires were petroleum-based, like gasoline or oil and paint. Class C fires were usually electrical, like wiring or transformers. Class D fires were metal-based, like potassium or copper. Class K fires were kitchen- and restaurant-based, involving cooking greases.

“We’re taught to never use a water extinguisher on a kitchen fire. Tell me why.”

I considered that for a minute. “Oil and water don’t mix.”

“Yeah. The water extinguisher will spread the oil drops, which just spreads the fire instead of suppressing it.”

Made sense.

I kept reading. The cans were color-coded and labeled for intended uses, and some could be used for more than one type of fire. We kept this up for an hour or so, with me reading the list and Bear quizzing me, and it was really working for me. Once I read something, I never forgot it.

Matt always called my eidetic memory my superpower. But Dad? Oh, he hated it. Thought it was just another thing that made me…weird. Mom—well, she kind of played the center. She encouraged me, but she also tried to downplay my ability. That was another reason I knew I had to leave. She’d been playing the center for so long, she didn’t know where the edges were anymore.

Alex was the only person I knew who thought my memory thing was cool. Smart as he was, he didn’t have an eidetic memory, and so, he had to study—hard—for whatever it was that interested him at the moment. But the difference between Alex and me is that he
grasped
the things he studied. Applied them. Thought about them. Expanded on them. All I could do was regurgitate what I read. But Bear’s quizzes were helping me truly understand this material.

“Okay, make sure you read the next chapter. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to go over fire behavior. When we get to the training facility in a few weeks, we need you to be ready.”

“I will be with this stuff.” I waved a hand over the book. “But the exercise? I hurt from head to toe.”

Bear grinned. He was a big kid, but not exactly a poster boy for the
Insanity
workout. “I hate working out. But I do it.”

I blinked. “I haven’t seen you run up and down the bleachers.”

“I may be a little chubby, but I’m strong.”

I didn’t doubt that. “What about fast? Amanda and Max, they told me you have to be fast too, because there’s only about thirty minutes of air in the tanks.”

“That’s only half true. The tanks are
rated
for thirty minutes, but under the stress of working the fire, we’re lucky to get half of that. I have a lot of stamina. I know how to conserve my tank.”

Frowning, I tried to imagine holding my breath in a real fire. “How did you learn to do that?”

A slow and evil grin spread across Bear’s face. “Tomorrow, I’ll show you.”

I climbed to my feet, relieved my wobbly legs could hold me, and held out my hand. “Thanks, Bear.”

“No problem, man. See ya tomorrow.” He shuffled off to the exit. I took a few minutes to reread the fire extinguisher section and headed home.

***

I was parked in back of the firehouse by eight thirty the next morning, watching sprinklers tick across a couple of lawns. I took my note out of my pocket, read what I had so far, and frowned. A car pulled in beside mine, and I quickly put the note away, watching Amanda leave the passenger seat of Mr. Beckett’s car.

She didn’t look happy as she strode into the station house. He followed, several paces behind. Was he her stepfather or something?

I got out of my mom’s car and headed in. Amanda was already in the conference room, distributing a stack of photocopies.

“Hey,” I greeted her.

She looked up, grunted, and went back to work. I watched, wondering if I was supposed to help. She looked terrible this morning. Her hair was tied up in its usual knot, and she wore her station uniform—LVFD T-shirt with a pair of black work pants—but she was pale with purple circles under her eyes.

Amanda hadn’t slept.

Why? What was she worried about?

“Logan,” she snapped. “Grab that stack of textbooks and hand them out.”

I stepped closer. “You okay?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Back off. Put out the textbooks.”

I sighed loudly and nodded. “Yeah. No problem.” I did what I was ordered.

“Amanda.”

The voice in the door made Amanda snap up straight. I turned and saw Mr. Beckett looking from me to her and back again.

“You’re working alone with this boy?”

She shook her head. “The rest of the squad will be here in a few minutes.”

He took a step inside the conference room and picked up a textbook. “I’ll wait then.”

Her lips got tight for a second, and then she smiled. “Sure. We’re working on fire behavior today.” She chattered on, cutting me off when I tried to interject, even going as far as to turn her back on me. Finally, Ty and Kevin came in, and Mr. Beckett stood up.

“Okay. Have fun. I’ll be back to pick you up just before noon.”

He left with a glare aimed at me, and Amanda cursed under her breath.

“What the hell was that about?” I demanded.

She shook her head. “Let it go. It’s nothing to do with you.”

I snorted. “Really? Seemed like it was all about me. Who is he to you, anyway?”

She sighed. “My foster dad.”

Whoa. Foster dad?

“I’ve been living with the Becketts since I was fourteen. He has a strict no-boys rule and doesn’t like the way you look at me.”

I looked away and shifted my weight. “Oh, um, sorry.” Jesus, how did I look at her? I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept my eyes pointed at anything but her.

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t change things, okay? He wants me to quit.”

“Wait, you mean give up junior squad? I thought you were the captain.”

“Relax, I’m not quitting anything. But it would really help if you’d stop staring at my ass.”

The breath got caught in my lungs, and my face burst into flame. “I wasn’t staring at your…at your ass. I just like to watch you walk.” Oh God. The words that left my mouth sounded so much better in my head than out in the real world. I snapped my teeth together, resolved to never speak again until I was thirty.

“Hey, Man. What’s up?” Kevin frowned at us.

“We’re good. Grab a seat,” she ordered.

Bear ambled in and nodded a greeting at me. By the time my dad came in, the whole junior squad was present and accounted for.

“Good morning, cadets. Page seventy-six, please. What is the fire triangle?” Dad waited for a volunteer, and when no one spoke up, he called on Max.

“Fuel, heat, and oxygen.”

“Good. What about them?”

I read about this yesterday. “They’re essential elements for ignition,” I answered with confidence.

“Yes, but what about them makes them essential?”

“Remove any one of those elements to stop the fire.”

Dad’s jaw twitched. “Yes, but you’re not answering the question.”

I damn well was. “They’re all essential—”

“Reece, you said that already. I want you to tell me
why
they’re essential.”

Amanda intervened. “When the three elements are combined in the right quantities, a fire can spontaneously occur.”

Dad clapped his hands. “There it is! The right quantities. That’s the key here, cadets. You know what they teach you in the military? Know. Your. Enemy.” He paced between the tables, pounding a fist into his palm on each word. “The military spends countless hours gathering intelligence, analyzing, predicting, knowing what the enemy is up to. Your enemy as firefighters is fire, and to beat it, you need to know it. Reece, maybe you should read page seventy-six again.”

I crossed my arms and bit my tongue.

“Lieutenant, maybe you should explain the chemical process.” Amanda indicated her photocopy on the table.

Dad’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, should I? I wasn’t aware that I needed to hold anybody’s hand.”

“I didn’t suggest holding hands. I suggested explaining the process so that my squad understands the chemistry that causes fire.”

I stared at Amanda, astounded.

And impressed.

Really, really impressed.

I snuck a glance at my dad. His face was red, but he smiled. “Okay. Why don’t
you
explain the chemical process, Captain Jamison?” He pulled out a chair and sat.

Amanda’s face flushed, but she stood up and faced the class. “Your handout explains what causes combustion. The fire triangle tells you that you need something to burn—that’s your fuel. You need heat at a temperature high enough to make that fuel source burn—which is called what, Reece?”

I knew this. “Its flash point temp.”

She nodded and kept going. “You also need oxygen. Why?”

Gage put up his hand. “Because combustion is an oxidation process.”

I knew that too. Oxidation, the same process that causes metal to rust, is what fire was—except a hell of a lot faster.

Amanda grabbed a marker and drew a simple time line on the whiteboard. “Okay. You’ve got oxygen, fuel, and heat at the right combo, right here.” She tapped a point on the line. “This is called ignition. Then, the fire goes through a growth stage because the flame that results from ignition is now increasing what?”

“Heat,” Bear called out, and she nodded.

“Right. As heat is produced and unchecked, growth accelerates. Additional fuel sources, when heated to their flash point temperatures, will ignite. At this point, superheated gases are collecting at the highest point of a room.” She marked points on her time line as she spoke. “When the fire heats everything in reach, we say it’s fully developed. If nothing else changes, the fuel source and oxygen source get depleted, and the fire starts the decay process and eventually loses intensity.”

She stepped aside and pointed to the first point she’d marked on the time line. “These points are how fire spreads. What are they?”