Flashpoint Read online

  They had no idea where their victims were so Aidan gestured for Zach to go left, and he’d go right. About twenty feet down the dark, smoky hall, Zach heard a woman screaming. “Got one,” he said via radio to Aidan, pounding on the doors as he went, stopping at the one from behind which came the screaming.

  The wood was hot to the touch.

  A door opened behind Zach, and as he turned, a man stumbled right into his surprised arms.

  “Claire,” the man gasped, and fought to get past Zach. “I hear her, I have to get to Claire!”

  The guy was half-unconscious, and the size of a linebacker, an overweight linebacker. Zach gripped him tight, completely supporting his weight. Clearly the guy couldn’t go after anyone in his condition. Hell, he couldn’t even walk on his own. “You’re not going anywhere—”

  “I’ve got to get to Claire! Claire, it’s me, Bob! I’m coming!”

  “I’ll get her.”

  “No, I—” That’s all Bob got out before his eyes rolled up in the back of his head and he slumped to the floor, a dead weight.

  Zach hunkered down to sling him over his shoulder, but Bob suddenly came to life, and with what seemed like superhuman strength, grabbed his ankle and tugged.

  Zach hit the floor hard.

  “Claire!” Bellowing, Bob crawled over him toward the office door.

  Zach rolled and managed to hold him down. “You can’t go in there. You don’t have a mask. I’m taking you out—”

  Good old Bob slugged Zach in the gut.

  Zach absorbed the blow, using precious oxygen as he got the guy in a choke hold just as the ceiling began crashing down in flaming chunks, one narrowly missing the man’s head, and only because Zach yanked him out of the way. “You’re wasting time! Wait here—”

  “No!” Bob charged for the door, but on the way there, a huge piece of burning tile fell, hitting him hard enough to slam him to the ground, where he finally was still.

  Great. Now Zach had to get Bob out and to medical help before he could go for Claire, whose screams were already fading.

  Calm but furious, Zach hoisted the man up in the classic fireman’s hold and made his way back down the hallway. Luckily, Aidan met him halfway. “Take him,” Zach directed. “I’m going back for the woman.”

  “We’ve got orders to get out now. The roof’s unstable.”

  No shit. “I can get to her quick.” Hands free, Zach turned back. The smoke was even thicker now, pouring in through the walls, making it seem like night. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.

  But worse, Claire was no longer screaming.

  Then Eddie and Sam showed up, their lights barely cutting through the darkness. “Zach! Out of here!”

  “I know—hold on!” He opened the office door. Behind him he heard Eddie and Sam yelling into their radios for lines of water to come through the office windows and the roof. They were going to get their asses kicked for breaking protocol, but Zach had never been so happy to see them in his life. “Claire!” he yelled as flames roared out the door, right at them, attracted by the new source of oxygen.

  From outside, the hoses beat the flames back enough for them to move in; they found Claire crumpled on the floor beneath a desk. Zach dropped down and pulled her toward him. With Eddie flanking one side and Sam the other, he carried her into the hallway, where they were shoved back by flames coming from both directions now.

  “Go back the way you came!” came the chief’s voice via radio. “Out the way you came!”

  They wouldn’t make it. They needed a faster way—the office windows. But they couldn’t get to them without hoses.

  “Do it,” Blake shouted into their radio. “I’m on the roof, I’ll cover you.”

  Shocked, they all looked up, and through the burning ceiling, they could see an arc of water coming through.

  Blake.

  “Hurry!” he yelled down to them. “Move it!”

  Eddie went out the window first, straddling the ledge, reaching back for Claire. Sam went next. Waiting until the ladder cleared, Zach took one last look over his shoulder at the flames rushing them, but Blake still had his back.

  “Go,” Blake shouted as the ceiling started to cave.

  “Jesus, Blake!” Zach’s heart stopped. “Get back!”

  “I will when you’re out—”

  But a thundering shudder silenced them both. Zach made to leap for the ladder, but the ceiling crashed down. As he yelled Blake’s name, everything went black.

  “TWO FIREFIGHTERS are down,” Dustin said grimly, setting down the radio.

  Brooke’s heart stopped. “Oh my God. Who?”

  Dustin didn’t meet her eyes.

  She grabbed his sleeve. “Who?”

  “Blake and Zach.” He grimaced, but tried to sound reassuring. “Don’t worry, they’ll get them out.”

  “Ohmigod, they’re trapped?”

  The male victim Aidan had carried out was sitting on the curb holding an ice pack to his head, and at this news, he moaned. “It’s my fault. I freaked out. And now Claire’s trapped in there, too.”

  “She’s out,” Dustin told him. “She’s in the ambulance, where you should be.”

  “Oh, thank God.” The man surged to his feet, grabbing Brooke’s hand, his eyes wet. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”

  She shook her head. “You need to sit down—”

  “No, I’m fine. I’m just so damn sorry—”

  Dustin brought him to Claire, while Brooke stared up at the building, which was a virtual inferno.

  Zach was in there.

  She took a step toward it but Dustin was back, blocking her path. “What are you doing?”

  “I need to get closer.”

  “You’re not a firefighter. And we’re hospital-bound, Brooke. Two vics, remember? It’s our job.”

  Damn it, he was right. The job. The job always came first. It was what she’d signed on for, and she’d never before minded it taking over her life. Not once.

  Unfortunately, she’d given herself a taste of real life here in Santa Rey, and she liked it. Hell, loved it.

  But now the person who’d given her that taste of life was in danger of losing his.

  BROOKE AND DUSTIN were still unloading their patients at the E.R. when word came from the fire scene that they had the flames eighty percent contained, and the injured firefighters had been evacuated safely.

  Alive.

  And on the way to the hospital.

  Brooke took her first deep breath since she’d heard the words firefighters and down in the same sentence. She and Dustin tried to wait but an emergency call came in for them—a woman with chest pains needed assistance.

  While Dustin drove, Brooke called Aidan.

  “Blake’s in surgery,” Aidan said, sounding tense and stressed. “Badly broken leg.”

  Ohmigod. “Zach?”

  “A concussion, broken wrist and a few second-degree burns. I know that sounds bad, but he’s going to be okay, Brooke.”

  Relief hit her like a tidal wave, but she couldn’t lose it because they’d arrived at their call, where she and Dustin found a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound woman stuck in her bed, needing assistance to the bathroom.

  “You said you had chest pains,” Dustin said.

  “Right. I do. But I think it’s heartburn.”

  “Are the pains gone now?” Brooke asked.

  “Yes. Completely.”

  “Ma’am, we still need to bring you in to be checked—”

  “Okay, so I never had chest pains. I called because you people won’t come out unless it’s serious.”

  They were speechless.

  “Would you hand me my TV remote?” she asked them. “Oh, and that box of doughnuts?”

  Brooke stared at her. She’d missed being at Zach’s side for this, for a woman who couldn’t reach her damn remote so she’d called 911? She handed over the remote but not the doughnuts. “Ma’am, the 911 system is for real emergencies—”

  �