Sweet Heat (2 page)

“Oh.” His brow furrowed, but he took a step back. “Okay. I’ll call you.”

He wanted to do this again? She tapped her fingers against the cab door.

“Hey lady, we going or what?” The cabbie glared at them over the seat. Suzanne nodded.

“Goodnight, Antoine.” There, she hadn’t actually encouraged him, but she hadn’t been rude either. “Thank you for dinner.”

To her further surprise, he leaned in, his mouth aimed for hers. At the last second, Suzanne turned her head so his lips skimmed her cheek. She gave him a little smile and slipped into the cab before the night could get any more awkward.

She rattled off her address to the driver and gave Antoine a little wave as they pulled away into traffic. As soon as his frowning face was out of sight, Suzanne blew out a long breath.

“Blind date?”

The cabbie’s voice startled her. She’d zoned out watching the traffic. Suzanne chuckled as she realized what he’d asked.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

The driver began telling a story about a blind date he’d gone on twenty years ago, his thick Bronx accent washing over her as he related how he’d met his wife. Suzanne leaned back against the seat, wishing she’d had a date she’d still be telling people about in twenty years.

Unfortunately, the only magic that had happened tonight was that when she got home, the latest episode of Arrow was waiting on her DVR. She spent the rest of the night before climbing into the bed with Oliver Queen, John Diggle, and some rocky road.

***

Brandon was lounging in the station’s rec room, reading one of the worn paperbacks that were scattered here and there, when the alarm went out. His heart lurched into overtime, pumping adrenaline through his veins along with the blood.

All the drowsiness that had begun to settle around him in the wee hours of his long shift was swept away as he pulled on his turnout gear and jumped onto the truck.

The sky was still a deep blue-black as they roared through the city streets, sirens blaring. He could smell the smoke before they reached the scene, acrid in the back of his throat. Beside him, Hollis whooped and pounded a fist against his thigh. He was still new.

Brandon had been a fireman long enough to no longer get that surge of giddy excitement when they got a call. His heart still beat like a war drum, and his focus intensified until he felt like he could see in the dark, but he wasn’t rocking in his seat in anticipation like Hollis.

“Don’t piss yourself, Probie, or I’ll hose you down too.” Pete sneered, deftly handling the engine into a screeching halt in front of the hydrant nearest the burning building.

They all poured from the truck. Brandon could hear the Chief shouting orders, directing his fellow firefighters. A crowd of people were milling around in the street and on the sidewalk. Several of them were wearing pajamas and looked puffy-eyed and confused.

“Fleming!” Chief barked at him, round face already red as a devil’s in the fire light. “You and Hollis take second floor. Super says there’s a back staircase there.” He jabbed a fat finger at the building.

Brandon didn’t wait to hear what else the Chief said. He grabbed Hollis’s shoulder and shoved him toward the building. “Go on, Probie. I got your back.” He settled his respirator into place and jogged into the sweltering building, making sure to monitor their surroundings carefully as they headed for the back stairs and the second floor.

It was impossible to tell at this point where the fire had started, but it was quickly devouring the interior of the four story brick building. Ahead of him, Hollis was a dark shape against the flames.

He listened to the chatter on the radio that was rigged into his helmet as the guys cleared the first floor, and outside, Pete and Tremaine manned the hose. His breath was loud in his ears as he carefully, methodically, but quickly moved from apartment to apartment, checking to make sure the tenants had gotten out.

Brandon heard Hollis yell, “All clear down here!” from the other end of the hall. Smoke rolled around them, thick and dark, and he could feel the heat baking through his gear. The flames were worse here than on the first floor. Must have started higher up.

When he cleared his last apartment, he returned to the hall to find Hollis. “Probie! Where you at?”

“Here.” Hollis lifted a hand from just outside an apartment’s busted open door. “We heading back down?”

There was very little warning as a section of the dropped ceiling crumbled above Hollis, raining down plaster and liquid flame.

“Hollis!”

The kid was quick, thankfully, leaping forward just in time to avoid the burning debris.

“Holy shit, that was close!”

Brandon shoved him toward the smoke-filled stairs. “Get your ass back downstairs. Chief, two is clear! Heading back now.”

He yanked off the respirator when they made it back out onto the street, sucking in cool air, as he made his way back to the Chief. Before he could reach the older man, a middle-aged woman, her face soot-streaked and her red-rimmed eyes pouring tears, grabbed his arm in a death grip.

“My babies! Please, you have to get my babies! The door was stuck! Oh God, my girls!” She was frantic, her fingers digging into him even through the turnout coat.

Fox and one of the paramedics, Doyle, he thought, were trying to tug her back toward the ambulance, telling her she needed oxygen. She fought them tooth and nail.

“My babies!” She wailed, pointing toward a window on the fourth floor. “My babies are up there! Please!”

“Okay, ma’am. Just go with the EMTs. I’ll see what I can do.” Brandon wanted to tell her they’d be okay, but he’d been on enough calls not to promise anything anymore.

The EMT got her into the bus. Fox shook his head. “Venatta is still up on four. It’s bad up there. He’s probably got five before Chief calls him back down.”

Hollis’s eyes were wide, white all round the irises. “But has he got everyone out?”

“Oh, kid,” Fox said, shaking his head. Brandon looked past them toward the woman’s bleak, drawn face behind the oxygen mask. His heart twinged. He shoved Hollis toward Fox.

“Keep an eye on the probie for me.” Spinning around, Brandon tugged his respirator back into place and jogged back into the building.

“Where the fuck you think you’re going, Fleming?” the Chief’s voice growled through the speaker near his ear. Brandon chuckled a little. As if his chief didn’t know.

“Gonna help V clear four. Probie’s with Fox.”

He tuned out the rest of what the older man said. It was mostly curses anyway. Gennaro and Paddy had finished clearing the third floor and asked if he wanted help, but the chief absolutely forbade them going back in.

“That’s a goddamn order, you hear me?”

Brandon’s lungs pumped like bellows as he jogged up the stairs, the tanks on his back heavy on his shoulders. His heart pounded in his ears, drowning out the faint hiss of air from the respirator.

“V, where you at man?”

“East side of the building.” Venatta grunted into the com. “Watch your ass up here, Flem.”

“You know I hate that fucking nickname.” Brandon pushed through the half open west stairwell door, ducking back as flames surged toward him at the inrush of air.

V gave an out of breath chuckle. “That’s why I like it so much.”

Brandon tuned the radio chatter to the back of his head, concentrating instead on the hallway before him. Smoke was thick and the flames were crackling, louder even than the beat of his heart.

He oriented himself, trying to figure out which apartment the woman had been indicated from the street. He cursed when he realized he’d started from the end of the hall opposite the one Fox had been working earlier. His end was all uncleared apartments. He tried each apartment knob carefully, breaking them down only when necessary. Likely, this floor was totally lost.

Water sprayed against the hall windows, sending in a shower of glass onto the carpet. Flames hissed, and steam joined the smoke, making visibility even poorer.

“Got a tenant in 4G!” V’s call was triumphant.

“Kid?” The woman had said ‘babies’, but Brandon knew from experience that in times like this, every mother’s kids became babies. They could be any age.

Venatta cursed. “No. Old man. I need to get him down. Shit, Flem, we need to get the hell out of here. He’s on oxygen and has a stash of tanks in here!”

Brandon began shoving into the small apartments faster, yanking open cupboards and doors, searching for the kids.

“Flem, man, c’mon!”

“Fleming, get your ass down here!” came the Chief’s voice.

He could just imagine his Chief’s face. But there were only a couple more doors left.

“Only got two more apartments left, Chief. Be right down.”

Another string of curses followed as Brandon barreled into one of the last two apartments on the floor. He scanned the rooms quickly, heart thudding, breath ragged.

Nothing.

“Always the last place you look,” he muttered, trying to lighten some of the dread weighing on his chest.

The next apartment would have been the last one Fox had been in, the one he’d pulled the woman out of. A door was stuck, she’d said. Brandon prayed he had the right apartment.

The door was hanging open, showing faded flower wallpaper curling in the heat. The flames hadn’t quite made it to this end of the hall, but they were right behind him, roaring like a beast.

“Fire department, anybody in here?” His throat shredded with the effort of his yell.

Faintly, over the flames and the hiss of his respirator, he heard crying and pounding.

Brandon tore through the tiny living room, the carpet stained with the soot of Fox’s earlier visit, heading into the narrow hall. The smoke was thick, and he could hear the flames eating through the wall from the apartment next door.

The door at the end of the hall was decorated with big yellow daisies. One said SAMANTHA and the other TAYLOR.

He put his hand on the door, but it was thankfully cool. The crying and calling was louder.

“Mommy! Mommy!”

“It’s okay, sweetie,” he called. His voice was muffled, the words almost indistinguishable through the mask. With a curse, Brandon tore it away from his face and tried again. “My name’s Brandon. I’m a fireman and I’m going to take you to your mom. Is your sister in there with you?”

“Yes! She’s on the floor!”

Good, that was good. Jesus, how little was the sister?

“Good, honey. Can you back away from the door for me?”

The crackle of flames had grown louder. Brandon coughed at the thickening smoke.

Taylor or Samantha called a sniffling, “Okay.”

He gave her a minute before hefting his axe. “Alright sweetie, stay back from the door. Cover yourself and your sister with something. Your blanket.”

“Okay!”

A second later, he was through the door. The little girl couldn’t have been more than five, her blonde hair paler than her mother’s. She was crouched on the floor beneath an Elsa blanket, her baby sister cradled against her belly.

The baby had calmed in her sister’s arms. Brandon was thankful for the small blessing.

He crouched down in front of the girls and smiled. He knew he probably looked scary to her, with his helmet and respirator on, covered in soot and sweat. But she just looked up at him with big, trusting brown eyes.

“Are you Taylor or Samantha?”

“Sam. My sister’s Taylor.”

“Okay, Sam. You did a real good job, but I need you to listen to exactly what I say, alright?”

She nodded. It took only a minute to situate baby Taylor in the crook of his arm and then hefted Samantha’s light weight under the other. She clung to him like wet seaweed, her grip tight, just as he instructed her to do. It was unwieldy, but he had no other choice. If he wanted to get both girls out of here, he needed to get moving now. Who knows how much longer he had until the fire reached those oxygen tanks?

Brandon ran, his eyes trying to look everywhere at once, to check the location of the flames. The last thing he needed was to run into a wall of fire with his arms full. Smoke choked him and he cursed. He’d forgotten to pull his respirator back up. Shit. He needed to get them down to the street yesterday.

Taylor shifted against his chest, beginning to whimper now. Sam, bless her, had pressed her tear-streaked face to his shoulder and not uttered a peep.

He barreled down the stairs, trying to find a balance between caution and speed. Sam began to hack, her tiny body lurching against him.

“Sam, honey, take my respirator and put it over your face.” He jerked his head toward her, trying to indicate what he meant by ‘respirator’ without his hands. Thank goodness, she seemed to understand what he meant. She did as he asked. The thing was much too big for her small face, but at least she wasn’t breathing in smoke.

As they passed the door for the second floor, the air got a little bit better, the smoke not as thick. This side of the building was still somewhat untouched by the flames. The carpet beneath his feet squished with water.