My eyes find the name of the complex and it sounds so damn familiar… Cypress Gardens… Where the fuck have I heard that name before?
And then it hits me. Victoria said she lived here… Fuck! This can’t be happening.
As the guys and I jump out of the engine, we scan the scene, assessing the situation. Since I’m the Battalion chief, it’s my job to command. But as I watch half the building go up in flames, there’s no way in hell I’m standing out here on the sidelines.
“Hey, Rich!” I yell, as I charge to the back of the rig, grabbing gear and throwing it on.
“Chief,” he calls back, looking shocked to see me gearing up. “What’s going on?” There’s protocol, a way shit gets handled, and by me going in, I’m breaking it. But I don’t give a fuck. If that bitch has my daughter in that building, I’m going to find her or die trying.
“I need you to command!” I toss the radio at him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Alec yells.
“I’m going in! Victoria lives in this building.”
Alec curses under his breath. “All right, let’s go. You’re with me.”
Reaching back, I turn on the air on my tank and pull my mask on. Thankfully, it’s only a three-story building, and the fire appears to be contained to the east side. I send up a silent prayer that Victoria and Hazel aren’t here, and if they are, they aren’t on this side.
“Chase, you there?” Rich says over the radio.
“Yeah.”
“The fire started in apartment 257. It’s leased to a Victoria Burke.”
“Fuck,” Alec curses at the same time I do.
It’s her damn apartment.
Taking my Halligan in my hand, I jam it into the doorframe of apartment 257 and pry the door open. When we break through into the apartment, the fire is out of control, thick clouds of smoke curling up toward the ceiling. Thomas and Carter work the pipe to knock down the flames, while Alec and I search the place.
With a thermal image camera in hand, I hold it up, scanning the darkness for any movement. The second I step foot into the master bedroom, my body goes numb. Victoria. She’s lying on the bed, her arm draped off the side with a needle sticking out of her vein.
Rushing over to her, I try to shake her awake. Nothing. She’s out, whether it’s from smoke inhalation or from the drugs, I don’t know.
I glance around for Hazel but don’t see her anywhere.
Lifting Victoria into my arms, I radio down to command that I’m bringing her out. In the hall, I hand her over to Carter. “Take her!”
The second I go back in, the smoke is thicker, and the roaring of nearby flames can be heard over the piercing alarms. Dropping to my hands and knees, I search for my daughter, desperately throwing shit everywhere. She’s not in the master bedroom or bathroom, so I move on to the rest of the apartment. I hear Alec yelling clear throughout the place, but I refuse to take his word for it. I need to see for myself she isn’t here. The flames are licking the walls, the ceiling boiling and close to caving, and I know my time is limited. There’s no way anyone, let alone a baby, would survive in this heat, in this smoke.
The call comes over the radio. “Command to all units. Evacuate the building. I repeat, all units, evacuate.”
“Chase!” Alec calls out, struggling to get a line on the flames. “They ordered evacuation.”
“Hazel is in here somewhere. I need to find her.”
“The place is clear!” he yells back. “If she were here, we would’ve picked it up on the camera. We gotta go.”
“I need to find her!” I go through a door I haven’t gone through yet and find what was the nursery, fire rooted in every corner. Ignoring the command to evacuate desperately coming through the radio, I enter the room, crawling on my hands and knees with the camera in my hand.
Sweat pools inside my mask, the hiss of the tank and my heartbeat the only sounds. Fuck! This can’t be happening. She has to be here somewhere. I check the guest bathroom again, then move on to the kitchen. Alec has cleared it, but I need to see it with my own eyes. And that’s when I see it… One of Hazel’s shoes. Georgia bought them for her last week because her feet had outgrown the old ones. I grab it to make sure I’m not seeing shit, but I’m not. It’s half melted, but I know it’s her shoe.
On my hands and knees, I search the other rooms for a third time. I’m crawling down the hallway when Alec yells, “We have to get out now! We’ve searched every part of this place and she’s not here.”