Skin Deep (Station Seventeen #1)(2)
Of course, she probably didn’t need the assist. Shae had operated Engine Seventeen since before Kellan had even set his baby toe in the firehouse for his first shift. She knew Remington’s streets as well as she knew her own reflection.
Case in point. “That’s up in North Point,” she said. “The neighborhood’s not pretty.” While the fact didn’t matter an ounce in terms of how hard they’d fight the blaze, it could have an impact on the scene.
“Mmm,” Gamble acknowledged. “Well, if we haul ass”—he paused to slide a glance at Shae, whose resulting grin Kellan could just make out in profile from his spot in the back step—“we’ll be first on-scene, so gear up and be ready to look alive. Squad and ambo are on our six, and Captain Bridges is along for the ride.”
“Copy that,” Kellan said, tugging the headset from his ears. Continuing the smooth circuit of his inhale/exhale, he reached down for his bunker pants, pulling them over his uniform in one methodical move.
“Must be a hell of a fire if all hands are on deck, right?” Slater’s dark eyes flashed wide and round from his spot next to Kellan in the step, giving away his jitters despite the guy’s obvious attempt at a poker face.
Ah, rookies. Still, while some guys might be tempted to haze a newbie for being a little rattled on his first big fire call, giving the kid shit for turning out to be human after only three weeks on the job seemed a touch indecent.
“Not necessarily,” Kellan said, trying to lead by example as he got the rest of his gear into place. “Bridges is a hands-on kind of captain, and squad goes on all the fire calls in the district no matter what.” Those guys weren’t elite for shits and giggles, that was for damn sure. “But it’s not a drill, so keep your head on a swivel and stay on Gamble’s hip. And Slater?” He didn’t wait for the candidate to acknowledge him, because Christ, the kid looked two seconds away from stroking out. “Breathe in on a three count and out on a five. You’re gonna need your legs under you all the way. You copy?”
Slater nodded, his stare turning focused, and what do you know, he actually took Kellan’s advice. Good goddamn thing, too, because they were about T-minus two minutes from rolling up on the scene of this fire, and if the thick column of smoke Kellan had spotted through his window was anything to go by, something was burning pretty good.
Time to go to work.
“Bridges is calling the shots on the two-way,” Gamble hollered into the step, five seconds before Shae pulled the engine to a stop in front of a two-story detached row home heavily blanketed by smoke. “Listen up for assignments and watch your backs. And each other’s.”
“Copy that,” Kellan said, his response weaving around both Shae’s and Slater’s as they gave up the same answer at the same time. Doing one last lightning-fast systems check on both his gear and his composure, he shouldered his SCBA tank, his muscles squeezing at the familiar burden of the extra thirty pounds as he hustled his way out of the back step to put his boots on the ground.
Whoa. A sheen of sweat burst between his shoulder blades despite the cool September weather. His pulse knocked hard against his throat at the sight of the thick gray smoke and angry orange flames licking upward from the first and second-story windows on the front of the row home, and even though it was tempting as hell to stare at the fire alone, Kellan was all too well-versed on how danger could spring from the most unexpected places. After cataloguing the immediate no-shit threat posed by the fire itself, he took a swift visual inventory of all of his surroundings.
Fairly well-kept house, although not so much on the neighborhood. Only a handful of onlookers, which would be a plus for securing the scene. No obvious entrapment—no one stumbling from the blaze in a panic about someone still inside and nobody shouting their guts out from a window or the roof. And wasn’t that another win, because with the smoke and flames funneling from the Alpha side windows, getting anyone out of the place would be a bitch and a half.
Not that they wouldn’t go all just-in-case and get to looking. Speaking of which…
Captain Bridges’ voice filled Kellan’s ear from the two-way radio clipped just below the shoulder of his turnout gear. “Squad Six, we need a vent on this roof immediately if not sooner. Gates, you and Faurier get a move on. Hawkins and Dempsey, take primary search and rescue, Gamble, you and Slater ready the lines, and Walker and McCullough, back up squad on S&R. I want this fire knocked down before it grows any more teeth, people. Go.”
Gamble straightened to the top of his six-foot, five-inch frame, throwing a look from Kellan to Shae. “You heard the captain,” he said, but Kellan’s boots had already started to thump over the cracked asphalt.
“Yes, sir.” Sparing only the seconds necessary to grab his Halligan bar from its spot in Engine Seventeen’s storage compartment, he fell into step with Shae, who was right on the squad lieutenant’s boot heels on the concrete sidewalk leading up to the house. Under normal circumstances, Hawk probably would’ve come off with a smartassed quip in that slow, Southern drawl of his. But pleasantries—hell, anything other than locked and loaded intensity—fell to the wayside the second something went from a smolder to a burn.
This house definitely fit the freaking bill. “All right,” Hawk bit out, barely looking over his shoulder as he clanged past the waist-high chain link fence marked with signs warning NO TRESPASSING. “This place is goin’ up fast, so don’t dawdle. Dempsey, you’re my door man. McCullough, once we’re in, you and Walker hit the basement and sweep from the bottom up. Dempsey and I will start on the second floor and work our way down. We’ll meet you in the middle.”