The Protector

  Cole paused long enough to grab a breath and get a firmer grip. “She’s got a concussion.” He was guessing on that but it fit her total disorientation and uncoordinated movements trying to get up.

  “Jack?”

  “Not yet. Let me get you to Nate, then I’ll find him,” Cole gasped out. This was a job that needed several people; instead he had Nate and himself.

  “Chad’s dead.”

  Cole felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. “Chad?”

  “We found him just before the inferno ripped through. Gunshot to the chest, maybe self-inflicted. He was lying on the gun.”

  Cole tightened his grip on the back of Ash’s coat and hefted him into a fireman’s hold. Ice hit Cole and a sharp wind bit as he got out of the protection of the building.

  “Cassie, knock it off!” Cole ordered. She was fighting Nate, trying to get up. The sight scared him to death, for her movements were uncoordinated and would increase injuries she was too adrenaline blocked to feel.

  “Dump me beside her,” Ash ordered. “I’ll deal with her.”

  Cole lowered him down as carefully as he could, grateful it looked like Ash had a simple fracture. Cassie looked horrible. Her face wasn’t white as much as it had a grayish cast. The only thing keeping her moving had to be adrenaline. And it was obvious by her actions that she was not thinking clearly.

  Ash stripped off his gloves and started unbuckling Cassie’s fire coat. “Both of you go get Jack,” Ash ordered. Ash turned Cassie toward him and gingerly cupped her face. “What did you do to yourself, partner?”

  Confident Ash would be able to help her, Cole headed back inside the building with Nate.

  Cole worked his way back into the destroyed apartment, knowing where Ash had been found. He made a guess that if Jack had been with him, he would be buried somewhere nearby.

  There was a gas line feeding the flames, and the fire was growing in intensity. As more and more material and carpet ignited, the smoke became denser.

  The only thing working in their favor was the way the structure had settled. There was a wind tunnel effect coming through, pushing the smoke back into the structure and keeping the air near the floor clear, if freezing cold. It created an odd explosion of sparks upward as the dampness in the air snapped and popped as it was blown into superheated air.

  Nate grabbed his arm and pointed.

  Cole added his torchlight to Nate’s. In the wavering light Cole spotted Jack by the smiley face on the back of his fire coat.

  Seeing his position was almost a dagger in itself.

  The fire was close. Getting from here to there…even if they could get to him, digging him out was going to be nearly impossible before the fire swept the area.

  “Nate, we need new sixty-minute cylinders, an extra one for Jack, and a cutting torch to deal with that ductwork. On the second trip be thinking about how to suppress that gas line fire.”

  Nate nodded and immediately headed out for the gear.

  Cole shoved aside furniture and ducked down to get under the door tilted on its side now holding up part of the ceiling.

  He tested if an overturned bookshelf would take his weight. He didn’t have room to move it aside. He climbed over it and winced when the back panel gave way and his booted foot crashed through. The heat started to make him feel like he was getting a sunburn.

  “Jack.” He slapped the man’s leg when he got near, looking for a way to get him free.

  “About time.”

  “Get on air,” Cole growled.

  “Get this thing off my shoulder and I can move. It’s hot.”

  “That thing is a personal safe and it’s wedged under what looks like the central ductwork for the furnace.”

  Cole heard his response but decided to ignore it. He had no choice but to wait for Nate. He started moving away anything he could that would burn. The mural would have been interesting to see as a whole. Cole tossed chunks of plaster out of the way, the red flames in the paint mirroring the reality of what was around him.

  “It was a good painting. My gift to Chad when he used to dream about being a fireman as a child. It’s been a long time since I painted, but the skill returns.” The voice rasped from the wrong side of the room.

  Cole froze.

  He looked across Jack and into the dark building where the only light came from reflected flames.

  The man clicked on a torch.

  He stood in the apex of the wind tunnel, the hot air and sparks blowing toward and swirling around him. Ben. Cole took a deep breath and suppressed the emotion that surged as the horrible reality was confirmed. He had suspected it might be Chad, but never Ben. Cole ignored the danger obvious in Ben standing there and kept moving debris.

  “The painting haunted Chad after the accident. He wanted to paint over it, but I wouldn’t let him. I kept promising him he’d come back to work. But I couldn’t give him back the job he wanted, being a firefighter. He shot himself, Cole.”

  Cole wanted to reply and couldn’t afford to get drawn into the pain the man was feeling. He heard a shrill hiss and knew the gas line was building toward another explosion. He was not going to let Jack be caught in it.

  “The department destroyed us. My marriage. My nephew. And they’ll destroy the community if they don’t reopen the fire stations they closed.”

  “Why Jack? What did he ever do to you?”

  Jack had stopped moving, hearing the conversation.

  “I sleep during Red Shift. Jack was the one on duty when I was awake. Awful, isn’t it, the randomness of who gets to be a victim?”

  Cole squeezed Jack’s leg to apologize for what he was about to do. He put his strength into shifting the safe, knowing that because of how it was resting, moving it would actually cause the corner to dig harder into Jack’s shoulder. If he could get two inches, Jack had a chance of sliding back.…

  The best Cole could do was raise it a fraction of that distance. He was forced to let it settle.

  “Use this. I went into the fire to get it.” There was irony under the words. Ben tossed him a crowbar.

  Cole picked it up.

  Ben grabbed the ductwork from his side and put his weight on it, shifting it back. “All they had to do was restore the stations they closed, Cole. Rehire the men they let go. That’s all they had to do.”

  “Shut up,” Cole said coldly. The safe slid up ever so slightly. “Move,” Cole ordered Jack, as he fought to keep the safe from slipping back.

  Jack’s hand grabbed hold of Cole’s boot to use it as a leverage. Jack pulled himself back. The rubble shifted and Cole got his feet knocked out from under him. He landed hard atop Jack and rolled.

  The dragon lashed out.

  Cole felt agonizing heat brush his face.

  Jack grabbed the back of Cole’s coat and yanked him back. “Move!”

  Cole struggled to his feet. He pushed Jack ahead of him. As soon as Cole saw Jack was able to get out under his own power, he turned back toward Ben. They were divided by the ductwork that had come down. He reached out his hand. “Come on.”

  “Not this time.”

  Cole heard his tank begin to chime.

  “Ben—”

  The man turned back into the burning apartment.

  Cole wanted to dive after the man. Ben was making his decision, and it was agonizing to realize Cole didn’t have the time to change it. He prayed for words but none came. He closed his eyes, turned, and struggled to get across the rubble. Twenty seconds later he was breathing icy night air.

  A second explosion ripped through the building.

  Forty-four

  You look horrible.”

  Cole struggled to open his eyes. The emergency room was not the place to try and overcome a headache. He ached. He licked lips that were cracked. “Rae.”

  “You got a fire sunburn.”

  He gave a painful smile. Her hand touching his was so tentative it felt like a feather. “Some,” he whispered. Most of the flash burns from the second ex
plosion were at worst first degree; they’d heal. “How’s Jack?”

  “Pacing until he can see Cassie. Jennifer is keeping him company.”

  The relief was incredible.

  “Thanks for getting him out.”

  There was a lot he could say. About duty, about friendship, about feeling responsible for what Ben had done. He passed it all by to say what he wanted to most. “You’re welcome,” he whispered.

  Cole struggled with his memories of the man he had known and the man he had changed into. It was senseless. Ben had been pushing him on the budget, for more personnel, to get at least one of the closed stations reopened, but Cole had missed the desperation Ben felt.

  Ben felt he had to force change to happen—setting the fires, focusing on Jack and on department officers to get across the point they were stretched too thin to fight the arson fires. Using popcorn and vicious words to make his actions something the public would react to with alarm. Making it personal, raising the stakes by threatening a former victim— Cassie being in trouble had gotten Cole a call from the fire chief and a push to find a solution. Eventually what Ben had been after would have happened. Only Chad had cut it short by taking his own life. Had Chad read the paper that morning and realized the arsonist was Ben? The young man had been smart; the mural information Gage presented would have been enough to convince Chad it was Ben.

  Cole had failed them both. Rae’s hand slid under his. “Can I stay a while?” She spent her career trying to heal trauma from events like this.

  She was doing that for him, being here right now, trying to heal his trauma. His hand closed around hers. “I’d like that.” He took a shallow breath feeling the pain in his ribs. “No jokes.”

  Her smile was worth the attempt at humor. “No jokes,” she promised.

  “Jack, sit down.”

  Jack paced the ER waiting room and ignored Jennifer. “I should have seen the warnings when I went toward the master bedroom. I let Ash and Cassie stand there as the wall blew up.”

  Jennifer grabbed his hand, caught him by surprise, and pulled him down to the chair beside her. “Great, blame yourself for what Ben caused. Just because he’s dead and you can’t be mad at him does not mean the answer is to be mad at yourself.”

  He rubbed his sore shoulder that had been so bruised he could not lift his arm without agony. “Ash busted his leg, Cassie’s got a concussion—” Jack shook his head.

  “Would you quit changing the diagnosis? She does not have a concussion. The doctor said a bad headache and a disoriented inner ear impact with her balance.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “She’ll want to go home in the morning is the difference.”

  Jack pushed his hand through his hair. “How long before they are going to let me see her?” he muttered.

  “You asked me that three minutes ago. Soon.”

  He got up to pace again. Cassie had been his responsibility. Instead of protecting her, he’d come close to killing her.

  “I know what Cassie must have felt when she got hurt. Trapped, desperately worried about friends, hoping for help to arrive, dependent on others. It was awful.”

  Jennifer didn’t say anything. He looked over at her.

  “Cassie needs someone who understands her. God gave you a chance to taste what she went through. I’d consider it a gift.”

  He smiled. “One I would have been glad to pass on. But it did get me off the fence to make a decision.”

  “You chose to believe,” she whispered.

  He simply nodded.

  “I’m glad.”

  He leaned over and hugged her. “Between you, Rachel, Cassie…the three of you are pretty persuasive. Hell is a scary place if tonight was any glimpse of what it will be like.”

  “It will be much worse.”

  “Will Jesus heal you, Jen?”

  “He’s the I Am. He doesn’t explain Himself. But I trust Him. If He heals me, it will be a gift I’ll treasure. If He doesn’t … t h e r e ’s something gracious still in His plans for me, something that will bring Him glory. He loves me, Jack. I trust Him.”

  The doctor came into the waiting room, interrupting them.

  “Cassie, can I see her?” Jack demanded.

  “She’s being admitted for the night for observation. You can go with her as she’s transferred to a room if you like.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Do you want the lights off, not just dimmed?”

  “They’re okay,” Cassie reassured Jack. She was relieved to finally be done with the moving around and the doctors prodding her.

  Her headache had become a throbbing reality. The world still had the nasty habit of spinning when she moved her head. The explosion had set her left inner ear ringing, and as a result, messed up her sense of balance.

  Jack had pulled over a chair but it was obvious he was having to force himself to stay sitting. She could see the tension in him, or rather inferred it from her impression of him. Even with her glasses, which she’d begged him to find for her since she hated a fuzzy world, at the moment nothing was very clear given this headache.

  Jesus, thank You for keeping him safe. Jack could so easily have been killed.

  “Tell me what happened,” she whispered. “I remember your hand coming back and propelling me toward Ash. Then the next thing I know I’m looking up at the night sky with Ben standing there.”

  “He had been setting the fire to cover up Chad’s suicide. He wanted a fire that would crawl through the walls and floors. I got a glimpse of the holes between joists in the drywall at the base of the walls just before the paint began to peel back. The way the wall came back at us, something explosive ignited.”

  “He disabled the building sprinklers?”

  “Either that or they never worked.”

  “Please don’t blame yourself,” she whispered.

  He touched the back of her hand. “Is this going to bring back all the memories of the nursing home?”

  It was a worried question and it brought a lot of comfort that he would ask. “If it does, it will fade. How’s Cole?”

  “He got caught by the second explosion and has some flash burns. He’ll recover.”

  Jack walked back to the window.

  Cassie watched him and sensed there was a lot more here than what he had said so far. “Are you going to tell me?” she asked softly.

  He was prowling around the hospital room struggling to push down emotions. She’d seen it before.

  He sank back down in the chair beside her bed and buried his head in his hands, raking his fingers through his hair. “Jennifer’s here. It’s so hard, Cassie. I don’t want to accept she is dying. I have no choice but to accept it.”

  Her heart hurt at that broken admission from him. She knew how tight Jack held to his family, how close he was to Jennifer. He would do anything to protect her. “If you don’t accept it, you’re just going to hurt yourself,” she whispered.

  “Jesus loves her as much as I do?”

  Tears filled Cassie’s eyes. She felt the depth of those quiet words. “More.”

  “I know Jesus is alive; I got past that hurdle tonight while I lay there helpless. It’s finally more plausible that He is who He claimed to be than not. I just resent not being the one in charge when it’s Jennifer we’re talking about.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes, of relief that he had finally wrestled through the question of who Jesus was, of sadness that he was so deeply hurting. Cassie shifted her hand to his shoulder. “Being a follower isn’t so bad. Jack—” she waited until he looked at her—“when it’s time for Jennifer to go to heaven, let her go with grace. That’s the gift you most need to give her.”

  He looked at her and in the silence Cassie finally saw if not peace, then at least acceptance.

  “Jesus loves her,” Cassie whispered. “Really loves her.”

  His hand brushed back her hair. She closed her eyes and relaxed into the touch. She was so thankful he believed. Where thi
s was going now… He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Get some sleep.”

  The one good thing about a hospital on a holiday weekend was that dawn came and lightened the room before a nurse appeared to interrupt the peaceful stillness. Cole could see the edge of pink in the dawn and could tell the coldness outside by the occasional brush of wind against the windowpanes. Cole heard footsteps in the hall and turned to look as the door was slowly pushed open.

  “Cole?”

  He raised his hand to warn Jack.

  Rachel was asleep. He’d been watching her for the last hour. She was asleep in one of the hospital chairs, curled sideways, her legs drawn up, her head resting against the curve in the high back of the chair. It had to be the most awkward place to sleep. It was a tribute to her fatigue that she slept without any sign of movement.

  Cole saw Jack’s expression soften and shared that reaction. Rachel had come up last night when they transferred him from the ER to a room, had helped in so many small ways to make the transition easier to accept. Just having her available to make calls for him had been invaluable. The burns weren’t too serious, but the smoke inhalation was enough to make him glad he was flat on his back. He thought they talked about her getting a lift home with Frank, but now that he thought about it, she’d just nodded as he gave her options.

  “I’m going to take Cassie home,” Jack whispered. “She’s getting stir-crazy at the idea of staying.”

  “Good. Thanks. You’ll keep her company tonight for New Year’s Eve? I don’t want her even thinking about going to the department party.”

  “I will.”

  Cole nodded toward Jack’s arm. “How’s the shoulder?” Cole still hated the memory of what he’d been forced to do to get Jack out.

  Jack stopped at the side of the bed. “It aches but I’ll live.”

  Cole raised his hand to his chin and looked at Jack enquiringly. “How bad’s my sunburn?”

  “Enough Rachel will want to sympathize but not enough Jennifer will do more than suggest you swallow aspirin.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He glanced at Rachel. “She stayed the night.”

  “She likes you.”