Please be okay.
Please be okay.
I chant those three words as I run through the back door, the same way we came out, and down the hall past my classroom. When I round the corner, I’m hit with a wall of smoke so thick it pulls me to my knees.
Jesus, how did it get this bad so fast?
For a split second I’m rendered helpless, and then, as if he’s here with me, I hear my dad’s voice in my head.
Cover your mouth.
Drop to the floor.
Get out.
Coughing, I lift the bottom of my shirt over my mouth and lower myself to the ground. The sound of the boys screaming powers me forward. I expect to hear my dad’s voice yelling at me to turn around, to save myself, but I’m met with the distant sound of a fire roaring and another ear-piercing shriek.
With my belly on the floor, I crawl to the bathroom, kick the door open with my feet, and then I see them. Troy and Marcus are huddled in the corner beneath one of the sinks. The brothers are holding onto each other for dear life, and when they see me, Troy bursts into tears.
A billow of smoke follows me in, and I quickly kick the door shut, grateful that smoke hasn’t saturated the small room. I take a deep breath as I scurry across the floor and fall to my knees in front of the boys.
Troy reaches for me first, locking his arms around my neck. “Are we gonna die?” he cries.
“No, sweetie, we’re not gonna die, but I do need to get the two of you out of here. I need you both to be really brave for me, okay?”
Marcus nods.
Troy’s grip tightens.
I pry his arms off of me. Tugging my sweater over my head, I hand it to Marcus and then peel my shirt off and hand it to Troy, grateful that I still have on a camisole. It’s usually nice in Texas in early spring, but the evenings can get cool—and so can this old building—which is why I dress in layers.
“Hold these over your mouths. Stay as close to the floor as you can get. We’re going to get out of here.”
Eyes wide, Troy frantically shakes his head. “I can’t. I’m scared.”
“I know you are, but we’re going to be okay. I promise I will get you out of here.”
My father was the best damn firefighter in the county. When I was young, he taught me all the basic knowledge someone would need to survive a fire—although running back into a smoldering building would’ve been a huge no-no. Each one of those warnings and instructions—not to mention my perpetual desire to make him proud—rages through my head as I look at the door handle. It doesn’t look hot, but that doesn’t mean shit, and the door only swings one way: in. I borrow the sweater I gave Marcus, wrap it around my hand and open the door.
A lick of fire darts in front of me, and I reel back, pulling the boys with me as the door slams shut.
“What do we do?” Marcus asks, scooting close to his brother. His wide eyes watch me as he covers his mouth and begins to cough.
Smoke starts to seep under the door, and all I know is we’ve run out of time. I need to get these kids out of here, but it isn’t safe. The fire has clearly spread, and I can’t risk our lives by going out there. Our only hope now is that the fire department does a sweep and gets to us before the flames do.
“Boys, I want you to sit together in that back corner,” I say, pointing toward the opposite side of the room.
I shove my sweater under the faucet, drenching it in water until it’s heavy and saturated. Rolling it up, I stuff it in the small crack between the bottom of the door and the floor. That won’t do much, but it might buy us a few minutes of cleaner air, and right now those few minutes might mean the difference between life and death.
11
Trevor
“Shit,” I hiss under my breath when we roll up on scene. “This doesn’t look good.”
We got the call for a first-alarm fire less than ten minutes ago. We’ve been called to this address several times—three times this year already—and it’s always a false alarm. Usually some punk who thought it would be funny to pull the alarm. But not tonight. Tonight there are flames shooting out the windows, and I’m instantly on high alert when I see a number of kids huddled around crying. My crew piles out of the three trucks while Chief doles out orders.
I’m wrapping blankets around a group of kids while other members of my crew prepare to fight the fire when I hear the chief ask someone if everyone made it out. Pushing to my feet, I turn toward him. He’s talking with a young woman who can’t be but a couple of years older than me.