Page 156 of When In Doubt

OSCAR

Sounds good, see you later

The pager chimes and I feel my insides clench as the words scroll across the tiny screen.

Fuck.

“Alright,” I yell out as I round the corner into the bay, seeing the crew already getting turned out. “We’ve got a fire in a barn on the edge of town, by Danforth and West.”

I get myself into my own gear and board the truck. Jenna’s in the driver’s seat and I rattle off the full address.

As we drive, I go through the motions of prepping the team, but I feel like a screen has come down. My ears ring and it’s like this isn’t quite real. Since coming back, we’ve only had medical calls, and one vehicle fire. This’ll be the first building I’ve been to since the night Mack died. I squeeze my eyes shut, but when I do, all I can see is his face in that final second.

“You good?” Jenna asks quietly. I whip my head to the side and she nods down toward my hands which I didn’t realize were white knuckling the fabric of my pants.

“I’m good,” I reply, flexing my fingers. I need to lock in. There are people counting on me, and I can’t let them down.

“It’s alright if you’re⁠—”

“I’m good.”

She nods, and I really fucking hope she believes me. If they’re going to put their trust in me out there, then I can’t have them thinking I’m about to break.

Up ahead, I can see the pillar of smoke rising from behind a group of trees. I take one more long breath and finally feel my brain find the place it goes during a call, where all my training takes over and I’m able to leave everything else behind.

I’ve led responses before, this is nothing different.

We pull up and get out of the truck. An older man in a faded flannel jogs over to me.

“You the owner?” I ask.

He nods, looking toward the structures, now engulfed in tall flames, his expression anguished.

“Anything I need to know? Any gas or hazards in there?”

“Just straw. I don’t know what happened. One second, I was trying to put out a tiny spark, now…” He trails off, not able to take his eyes away from where his livelihood is burning. I give him a squeeze on the shoulder. It’ll be a big hit to his business, and he’ll have to buy in enough to feed his cattle this winter, but it could have been worse.

“Everyone’s accounted for?”

“Yeah, nobody was in there.”

Thank God for that.

Jenna jogs over to me, having made a lap of the barn to assess the situation. She looks over at the owner, her face grim. She puts her back to him as she speaks to me in a low tone. “Thing’s a goner. I reckon it’ll come down in the next ten-fifteen minutes.”

I nod. She’s telling me what I already suspected. “Let’s get another tank out here, try to keep this thing contained.” There aren’t any other structures in the immediate area, but a rogue spark on the wind could travel for miles, and with the dry weather we’ve had, it could be catastrophic. There’s nothing we can do at this point to save the building, so we’re playing defense.

Jenna steps away to radio in for another water truck. I head to the rest of the crew and give instructions, setting up a perimeter and starting to get some hoses on this thing. They move in perfect sync, almost like a dance, the way we have a hundred times before.

The farmer gives a yell and I turn to see him with his hands over his face, gaping in horror at the barn. I follow his gaze to see the roof starting to come in. All the hay inside acts as the ideal accelerant, making these kinds of fires almost impossible to fight. Not that that’s any comfort to this man.

A crack rings out and I freeze as one of the roof panels hits the ground. My shoulders tense, hands fisted, and it’s like I’m not here anymore. I can’t see what’s in front of me, all I can see is Mack’s face as that beam came down. I shake my head, trying to erase the memory, but it won’t go. The smell of smoke stings my nostrils. I need to get to him, to get him out. I can’t watch him die a second time. I have to⁠—

“Murph!” I hear someone call, but it’s like I’m underwater and they’re calling from the surface.

My whole body starts shaking, violent trembles that almost make me stumble. It takes a second for the fog to clear enough to realize that I’m not just shivering, someone’s shaking me. I blink to see Ryan in my face, yelling.

“Murph! You with me?”