8
Aidan
There’s a weight on my chest, and the more I try to push it off, the heavier it feels, keeping me rooted and unmoving. I can’t breathe; everything hurts; my eyes burn. Then I see her. She’s reaching for me. “Help me, Aidan. Please.” Tears fall down her ash-covered face. I can’t help her. I’m trapped, but she needs me. “Don’t fail me, Aidan.”
My eyes fly open. I look down, and a curtain of dark hair spreads across my chest. My heart is still pounding in my ribs. She stirs, and I move her off me gently. She covers her eyes with her arm, the sheet shifting slightly, exposing her breast. I sit up, rubbing my hands down my face. What the hell was I thinking? It was supposed to be one night, but I went and asked for something I cannot give her.
The dream was vivid, as it always is. Every night, she asks me to save her, and I can’t. My mother left a candle burning downstairs. She’d made a fancy dinner, lit candles, and placed fresh flowers from her garden on the table. She wanted it to be special for him. When it got too late, she put me to bed. She must have forgotten to blow them out. She was always tired, and that night was no exception. The investigation pieced together most of what happened that night, and as I grew, it got clearer.
I climb out of bed and walk into the living room, not bothering to put on the lights. My life is uncomplicated because I don’t let people in. I don’t intend to start doing that now. I settle down on the couch, closing my eyes, the small distance from Ocea making me feel less claustrophobic.
I wake up to the smell of bacon and coffee. It’s odd, and for a second, I wonder where I am. Light streams in through the windows, but it’s still a dull day. Soft humming has me sitting up. “Ocea?”
“Good morning, sleepyhead.” She walks over with coffee and plants a kiss on my cheek. She’s wearing my T-shirt from yesterday, her hair a wild mess. She looks too comfortable, and that makes me uncomfortable. Have you ever felt like you wanted to claw your way out of your skin? That is how I feel, looking at her.
“Good morning.” I frown.” You really didn’t have to do all this.” I set the coffee down on the table without taking a sip—her face drops. I should be more gracious, but right now, her presence is stifling.
“It’s no problem, really.” She smiles, but her eyes tell me that her guard is up.
“I should shower. I’m working tonight.” Standing, I make my way to the bedroom, shutting the door behind me. I stay in the shower for longer than I need to, and the irritation at myself continues to gnaw at me. I shouldn’t be rude. Ocea has no idea why I am the way I am, and maybe if I told her, she’d understand why I am not the kind of man she deserves.
Ocea deserves so much more than I can give her.
The living room and kitchen are empty when I enter. The T-shirt she wore is folded on the couch. I sigh. She left. I should call her. But maybe this is for the best.
“You look like shit,” Kyle comments as he hops over on crutches to where I’m crouching over cleaning equipment. I want to tell him I’m not the one in a cast, but I think better of it. He’s back on desk duty for the last week and insists that he will be good to be back on the squad next week. Couldn’t keep him away.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been the one doing all the work while you've been sleeping in.”
“You sure that’s all it is?”
I let out a groan. The last thing I want is to get into this with him. “Just drop it. I know you’re talking about Ocea, but that ship has sailed.”
“You’re a real dickhead. You finally find a woman that actually likes you, and you ghost her.”
“Look, she knew what she was getting into. I never pretended that I was anything I wasn’t.”
“Aidan, it’s been twenty years, man. You deserve to have a life.”
“Mind your own fucking business.” I throw down the cloth I’m using. “I’m out.”
I enter the station just as a call comes in. “An apartment is on fire,” Captain tells me. “It’s a wild one, so we’re going to need all-hands-on-deck.”
“Yes, sir,” I shout over the sound of the fire truck siren.
I hop in the driver's seat, Dan next to me. “Apartment buildings are the fucking worst,” he tells me as he buckles up. “You know we have a long few hours ahead of us.”
“Yeah, we do. Let’s do this, Dan.” I feel determined. Focused. This is my life, my work is, I don’t need the distraction.
The entire top floor of the small apartment building is already spilling out smoke when I pull up to it. Dan hops out as soon as the truck stops, and we gather at the back for instructions.
“We have the blueprints of the building. Chief just sent it over, so we know we have a couple of fire escapes at the side of the building. We have to make use of those. We have no idea how many people are in there.”
“I’m going to get ladders up,” Dan tells us. “Freddy and crew, you guys are on front approach.”
“I’ll take the ladder up. We need men on the fire escapes.”
People are spilling out of the building, and that always makes things more difficult. Keeping the crowd calm and trying to battle a fire of this size is a nightmare.
Someone stops the ladder a floor below the fire. I smash in a window, and Dan and I hop inside the small apartment. There is a thin layer of smoke, which likely seeped through the vents. We make our way through the abandoned apartment into the hallway. It’s eerily quiet. The way it usually is after an evacuation. We find the stairwell fairly easily and start up. The higher we get, the hotter it is. My mask and helmet feel stifling, my air tank oppressively heavy.
“This is it, Dan,” I shout. A thumbs-up indicates that he’s ready.
As the door bursts open, we open our extinguishers and immediately start making our way through the blaze. It’s hard to see where I’m going, but I push on. Flames dance across the walls and on every surface — reds, oranges, yellows, and blue.
I motion for Dan to take the left side; I’ll take the right. In this scenario, we listen to body language and hand signs. I kick open a door. “Anybody in here?” I am met with silence. It’s not anything to celebrate, but I hold the hope that the residents got out in time. After kicking a few more doors down and watching in horror as everything the people who lived there once loved melts and combusts into nothing. I stand at the last door, and I get that sickening feeling Kyle says is a psychic ability of sorts. He often tells me that once a person has touched death or stared it in the face as many times as I have, it’s frighteningly acute.
“Help!” someone behind the door shouts, and I wish I misheard it. I wish that when I kick down the door, I will find it empty. My foot connects with the wood, and a blast of flames has me ducking down low. Dan takes cover just in time.
“On three,” he shouts. One, two, three . . .
I rush into the apartment, and I see them, huddled in a corner, a woman and a little boy. My extinguisher is nearly out, but I spray my way to them. The window above them is open. I radio down to the truck and tell them we’re on the east side of the building and to bring the ladder up to the open window.