Bear the Burn(11)

He jumped in the back seat with Gage while Boone took shotgun and Cody drove. His alpha was fire chief of this station, and Boone had just been promoted to captain a few months back. Above, he could hear the other three crew members settling on top of the engine. Clutching the grab bar, Dade looked back to make sure the ambulance was following. Lights flashing, sirens blaring, Cody blasted down Main Street.

Dade’s heart was already pounding, but the closer they got to the vet clinic, the more the fine hairs on his arms raised, even in the stifling heat of his turnout gear.

“Hey, what was that address again?” he asked.

Cody recited it, but it didn’t ring a bell. He didn’t know the exact address of the clinic. But as they turned off the main road and he saw the black plumes of smoke, he jolted upright.

“No, no, no!” he yelled, lurching out of the engine before it had stopped. “Quinn!”

“Who’s Quinn?” Boone called.

No time to explain, Dade ran ignored him and sprinted toward the back of the clinic.

Two men were trying frantically to pry something off the door handle.

“Dade,” Cody called out over the radio on his shoulder. “Stand down. We need to assess this before you go in there. Repeat, stand down.”

“She’s mine, Cody,” he gasped out, choking on the smog. He pulled his mask on as Boone muttered a curse from right behind him. Everything was different once his mask was securely over his face. Sound changed, became muffled, and smell was all but nothing. Pulling on his gloves, he yelled Quinn’s name again as he pushed past the two men trying to open the door. Every window around the side was engulfed in flames.

Please, God, let it not be too late.

A metal pipe had been twisted around the emergency exit, and the thing screeched as he pulled it apart. Fuck showing off his strength to the bystander humans right now. Dade didn’t care about anything but getting to her.

Sweat dripped down the sides of his face as he growled and bent the pipe with all of his strength. With an echoing metal clang, it broke in his hands, and he tossed it to the side. Boone’s hand was on his back, and Cody was murmuring a string of orders through the radio Dade couldn’t make out over the roaring in his ears.

Please let there not be a backdraft.

It was then that he heard it. Pained screams from the woman he’d been dreaming about. Throwing open the door, he ran through the fire-rimmed frame.

“Fire department, call out!” he yelled.

The smoke was so thick he couldn’t see. He’d never been in this room, so he had no guess how big it was or where Quinn could be. Smoke billowed through the open door behind him as Boone stepped through.

“Fire Department. Quinn, call out!” he yelled again.

His brother pointed, and Dade’s eyes adjusted to the dim light.

Quinn wasn’t screaming anymore, and she lay under a metal beam from the ceiling. With a sound of agony lodged in his throat, Dade bullied his way past burning boxes. Two cats rushed past his legs, headed for the door. She must’ve let them out of those open cages on the wall, hoping they would get out somehow.

“Help me!” he yelled, pointing to the hot metal over her legs. Boone and Gage took the other end and lifted. When it was off her by inches, Dade slid her out from under the rubble. No time to C-Collar her, he scooped her up as flames licked at her shoes. Boone kicked a path through the debris, but when they reached the door, the wall collapsed with a tremendous crash, blocking them in.

The powerhouse whoosh of hose water sounded against the walls, blasting holes too small to fit through.

Dade crouched and covered Quinn’s body with his own. Gage was already going at another wall with an ax as he spoke to Cody through the radio.

Heat everywhere.

Burning.

Searing.

Even through his fire proof clothes, it was an inferno.

Smoke everywhere, covering everything, blocking the sun as he stumbled through the flaming wreckage.

Boone grabbed his jacket and pulled him through the opening Cody was cutting from the outside.

Running, panting, his breath so loud in the mask. Quinn’s face was white as a sheet.

Dropping to his knees, Dade set her in the grass and yanked off his mask. She smelled like ash and death. He leaned over and checked her breathing. Shallow air was raggedly passing her lips, and her lungs made a rasping sound.

“Stay with me, Quinn,” he demanded, yanking the C-Collar from Boone’s hands. “Medic!” Where the fuck were they?

One glance at her legs, and a sound of devastation wrenched from his throat. Her jeans had been burned away across both thighs, leaving the skin underneath raw and open. And that’s just what he saw on the outside. She could’ve broken her back or had internal bleeding.