Page 67 of Igniting Her

She knew the order was right.

She knew what one unassigned body did to accountability. She knew every crew on the ridge would be forced to spend water, air, and attention on her. She had explained that cost to Cassie on the back steps in the dark. She had promised nothing, but she had stood there and named every part of the lesson as if naming it meant she had learned it.

She knew what Cassie heard when a radio went quiet.

“Ellie.” Cassie used her first name on the fireground.

The sound nearly stopped her.

The child called once more, weaker now.

Ellie tightened her facepiece, checked the seal with one gloved hand, and ran toward the stairs.

“Ridge, do not enter.” Cassie’s voice followed her. Still level. No room left in it. “That is a direct order.”

The first flight shook beneath Ellie’s boots. She took it two steps at a time. Wind tore smoke away from the wall and put it back just as fast. Below the landing, the fire opened and closed like a furnace door.

Jamie shouted her name from the drive.

Ellie reached the balcony. The upper door stood crooked in its frame, smoke breathing through the gap. Somewhere beyond it, the child coughed.

“Ridge.” Cassie’s voice filled her radio. “Stay out.”

Ellie put one hand on the door.

She crossed the threshold.

Her radio cut to static.

18

CASSIE

At zero seconds, Ridge’s radio broke into static.

At eight, Cassie called her.

“Ridge, Command. Acknowledge.”

The channel returned a rush of interference and the open roar of the fire. No voice.

At fourteen seconds, Cassie called again. She stood inside the open garage across from the burning estate, where the command board had been set on a folding table sheltered from the wind. Company tags filled the accountability grid. Ridge’s tag remained beneath Engine 12, one name among four even though Cassie had watched her leave the line alone.

At twenty-one seconds, Cassie keyed the radio.

“Emergency traffic. Firefighter unaccounted for inside the structure. Last known location upper floor, Alpha-Delta corner. All master streams hold. Maintain defensive lines on the exposures only.”

Her voice reached the fireground cleanly. Nothing inside it belonged to the woman who had said I love her beneath a brass plaque less than a week ago.

At thirty-four seconds, Cassie ordered a personnel accountability report. Every company answered quickly. Engine 12 accounted for Mo, Jamie, and Cassie.

Ridge remained missing.

“Truck 6, ground ladder to the upper Delta balcony,” Cassie said. “Rescue 12, stage at Alpha with a protection line and thermal imager. Nobody crosses the threshold. The floors are compromised and we have active fire beneath the entry level.”

She heard the silence after the order. Every firefighter on the channel wanted to go after Ellie. None challenged her.

There was no interior route Cassie could safely give them. The center roof was failing. The lower floors had already lost a deck and part of the rear wall. Sending two more people through the same door would not make Ellie’s decision into a plan. It would multiply the missing.