And there they are—Blake, Justin, Rich, alongside two other men I don’t recognize. They move like a well-coordinated unit as they slew the fire truck across the mouth of the alley, screeching it to a halt.
In seconds, they’ve leaped down, Blake directing everyone with the commanding authority that makes him seem like he can handle anything.
His smooth, rolling voice urgent, demanding obedience, but calming.
Still promising everything will be okay.
The morning light flashes off the smooth gleam of his hair and the stark line of his temple as he directs his men to connect the hose to the hydrant on the corner while others gear up, shrugging into thick fire jackets.
The flames billow higher.
I can see them now, rising up past the back of the shop, and there are screams from inside. Somewhere. I think the building behind it—Jesus.
Horror knifes through me, making the cold of the day that much heavier.
It sounds like people are still trapped inside.
I hate this.
Hate standing here, helpless, watching.
I feel like I’ve latched on to Blake as this avatar of hope, straining toward him like I can reach out to him and push him just a little harder, a little faster.
Like something my small, supporting hands could do would make him stronger, when I know the pain he’s hiding under that firm, broad stance.
For the briefest second, it almost feels like he senses me.
As if there’s this wavelength between us, this single struck chord vibrating to the same frequency.
He turns his head, looking over his shoulder.
One dark-blue eye locks on me.
It’s like a piece of night cut out of the day. I feel that cool, soothing darkness folding me up, telling me everything’s going to be all right.
Blake looks away, draws his helmet down, and leads the charge down the alley to the flames.
Three men wrestle a giant high-pressure hose as if handling an anaconda. It’s like Hercules against the hydra, all strength and rippling muscle and grim purpose as they aim the bursting stream of water at the fire.
Wild spray arcs out in rainbow-rippling droplets in the sun. They step closer, closer to the wall of fire I can see spreading past the buildings, blocking my line of sight.
They’re so determined.
So focused.
So sure of themselves.
And at their head is Blake, commanding them all with a militant confidence that captures and rivets me as much as the battle against the moving wall of flames.
The smoke billows thicker, but the leaping tongues of fire grow thinner by the second.
Though my heart skips, my throat clutches, just as Blake drops the head of the hose, barking at Justin to take it up.
Then he pulls the collar of his coat up and dives out of sight.
I can’t stand it.
The next five seconds are too terrible, each one taking an eternity to grind out.
I know I shouldn’t.
I know I’m risking myself.
I know Blake will yell at me later.
But I need to see him safe, like that odd wavelength between us has wrapped its chords around my heart and squeezed it too tight to beat when he’s out of sight.
So I go darting down the other narrow alley flanking the opposite side of the building, pulling my shirt and coat up over my nose to filter out the acrid sting of smoke.
Peering around the brickwork at the corner, I don’t see Blake—but I do see Justin and the others charging in while two more men aim the hose at the shop behind Sweeter Things.
The door is an employee entrance in the back, and it’s not the only source of the flames.
There are more contrails billowing from the other side of the building, thick and dark.
The front entrance must be blocked.
Oh—oh, God.
Yet again that need to do something consumes me, but I know I’d only get in the way.
Too bad I can hear him. Voice like a beacon, calling from inside, roaring orders, searching, questioning. Other voices, too, but I’m only listening for his.
As long as I can hear him, I know it’ll be all right.
It’s still too long, watching frozen while the firemen point the hose at the flames pouring through the door, then guide it inside. I can only guess how the battle’s going by the high-powered water blast, the steady hiss of flame.
Then the slowing plumes of smoke pouring from front and back.
But I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe, not until it happens.
That door bangs open again.
And with his temples glistening and smeared with soot, his jacket pulled off and wrapped around a shaking, sobbing little boy, Blake steps out in all his glory.
Steam rises off his shoulders. He’s drenched and scorched but whole. And just as courageously angry and focused as ever.
I’m so relieved to see him I almost don’t catch the limp.
But as someone else comes tumbling out behind him, a crying woman in the uniform of the clothing shop currently sinking into a smoldering wet pit, the door bangs against him, and he stumbles forward.
His left leg starts going out under him.
He catches himself, just barely, clutching at the little boy, standing a little taller like nothing ever happened.
I start forward but stop myself.
Then let out a cry as he tries to straighten.
Too late.
His body goes crashing to the ground in a slow, strained, broken mess.
My pulse stops. I don’t even realize I’m moving.
It’s just sneakers on pavement and then I’m there, catching the shrieking little boy before Blake can’t hold him up anymore and he hits the concrete. I’m just in time, gathering him up in my arms.
“Blake,” I gasp, but he’s on his knees now, gripping at both thighs with white-knuckled hands, teeth bared in a grimace of agony and shame. His eyes are pinched shut.
“Take him. Go,” he snarls through his teeth, deep and raspy with pain, the timbre cadence richer, almost velvety. “Oxygen mask!”
“On it, Chief,” Justin says. And suddenly he’s there, relieving me of the little boy, juggling him against his hip as he clamps an oxygen tank under one arm and fits a mask over the boy’s face with his free hand.
Leaving me free to focus on Blake, this feral beast-man laid low by an invisible arrow to his muscle.
I step closer, then back, then stop, hands outstretched.
“Here,” I whisper. “Let me help. What happened?”
He actually flinches back.
“Just a cramp.” He opens his eyes, glaring up at me, blue irises fierce and snapping, the faint hints of lingering embers floating in his gaze. “What the hell you doing here, Broccoli? It’s not safe.”
“I...” I falter, swallowing. “I was worried about you. I was talking to Leo when the fire started. I just wanted to help and—”
“Don’t need no help, woman,” he snarls. “It’s just a cramp, you hear?”
It doesn’t matter how many times he says it.
It doesn’t make it true.
I know what deep pain looks like—the kind of brute agony that takes up root and never goes away, coiled like a serpent under the skin.
But he doesn’t want my help.
And I feel redundant as Leo thrusts himself around the corner and races to Blake’s side, approaching him with a certainty I could never feel.
Blake doesn’t flinch back from him, at least.