Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
I turn back to Pete, his upset making sense—too much sense—in one, soul-crushing moment.
Sheriff Peeler is contrite, doing his best to be comforting, but I’m already a mile deep on a spiral no other human on this earth could possibly imagine. “I’m sorry, Tad. It’s your place. Nor and Ben just called it in, but said your truck had come and gone, so you wouldn’t be home.”
“Fuck!”
“Tad!” Pete yells as I take off for my truck at a run.
“Breezy’s inside!” I yell back without stopping, jumping in and starting it so fast, I swear my tires are spitting gravel before my ass even hits the seat.
Time slows down into a chasm, and my nightmares take shape in the light of day.
I can’t fucking do this again.
I won’t survive it.
44
Tad
Ten Years Ago
March 14th
The first sight as I wind around the bend and come over the hill is a punch to the gut in every sense it can be, a glowing mix of orange and thick black and ash curling into the otherwise blue sky.
My memories, my things, my home, picked for its perfect, quaint setting and idyllic white fence—up in flames. My legs move first, jumping from the truck at a run before it’s even stopped, my thoughts a mask of emptiness to let my brain protect itself just a little longer. My knee jolts on the loose, snow-melted, sloppy ground, but I don’t slow.
I’m already equipped with my air tank and respirator, having strapped in during the ride, and I breathe carefully to conserve my limited supply of oxygen.
But the glow of the fire as it rolls through the broken glass of blown-out windows is all I can see—all I can feel—as I cross the distance, and before I know it, I’m gulping over the sound of my own frenzy.
I hit the front door with a shoulder, snapping the wood frame with ease and barreling into the house in what feels like a fraction of a moment.
My foyer is dismally dark, the normal laughter of jokes and banter created with love replaced by a smoke so thick I can’t even see my hand six inches in front of my face. My lungs feel heavy but not with soot—with the real, raw reality that my limitations as a human are on the precipice of being challenged. I overpower the feeling with urgency. I can and will do whatever I have to do, no matter the cost.
There is no other option I’m willing to consider. In this moment, I can do anything. Because I have to.
Fear coats my movements, forcing me to rely on my training and muscle memory fully. I can hear my own breath in my ears, feel the thud of my heart in my chest, and see the film reel of a life in this house as it’s eaten by the lick of unbearably hot flames.
Palming the wall, I walk along it blindly with nothing to guide me but the experience of walking it a thousand times before and the determination to see if she’s all right—to see if they’re all right. To get them to safety as quickly as possible.
“Where are you?” I yell, my voice muffled unbearably. “Are you in here?”
Ash and water mix with still-hot embers as they rain down on me, the crew outside fighting to knock down the flames enough to keep the structure standing. Beams above me burn near clean through, and the walls feel hollow to the touch. I use my elbows and fists to knock through barriers, but it gets harder and harder with every step I take forward blindly.
This should be a hall—open and free from debris—to the back of the house, but it’s nothing more than an obstacle course now, burned and beaten by a fire that’s been unattended for just a little too long.
When I left for my shift at the firehouse this morning, all was well. Now, my whole world is on the verge of hell.
Words don’t seem clear or crisp right now, so I revert to anguish, screaming loudly instead. I listen intently, the sound of my breathing and the harsh crack of failing wood fading into the background.
It’s subtle, but there’s a cry back—one of desperation and pain that chills me to the bone in spite of the temperatures over five hundred degrees all around me.
The call wasn’t wrong. They’re inside.
Some part of me believed they weren’t; some part of me ignored the description of the dispatcher when she said people may be trapped.
Fuck.
I move more quickly, ignoring the creak and crackle of succumbing wood and pushing myself to my knees to go farther when structural collapse denies me at my full height. I have to get to them. I have to.
Randy’s muffled yell rings out behind me, but I ignore it, pushing forward anyway.
I can save them, and I will.