Code Red

Jack

The alarm tore through Station One before dawn.

I opened my eyes to the ceiling of my office, disoriented for less than a second before the tones repeated through the building.

Apartment fire.

Multiple callers.

Possible occupants trapped.

I pushed out of the double bed against the far wall and crossed the office while dragging on my uniform pants. Being lieutenant came with a few privileges: my own office, enough space for a desk and a small couch, and a real bed instead of one of the narrow bunks crowded into the crew’s sleeping quarters.

It didn’t come with more sleep.

We were twenty-four hours into a forty-eight-hour rotation, and the first half had already been relentless.

Buck came out of the bunk room fastening his pants.

“This is going to be brutal.”

“Apartment fires usually are.”

“I was hoping you’d lie.”

“You know me better than that.”

Jason and Charlie reached the apparatus bay behind us. I stepped into my turnout pants, pulled the suspenders over my shoulders, and checked the dispatch information mounted inside Rescue 33.

Four-storey residential building.

Heavy smoke showing.

Several residents still unaccounted for.

“Stay focused,” I told them as the bay doors opened. “We clear as many apartments as conditions allow. Nobody separates without calling it.”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Jason said from the driver’s seat.

Smoke was already visible three blocks away.

By the time we arrived, flames rolled from two windows on the fourth floor and climbed beneath the roofline. Residents crowded the sidewalk in pajamas, robes, and bare feet despite the freezing pavement. Police struggled to push them away from the entrance.

I stepped from the truck.

“Jason, assist the engine company. Charlie, help evacuate the lower floors. Buck, you’re with me.”

A woman broke through the police line and grabbed my coat.

“My daughter is still in there!”

“How old?”

“Six.”

Every call involving a child cut too close.

“Which apartment?”

“Four-twelve. Her bedroom is at the back. Her name is Lucy.”

I covered her hand briefly with mine.

“We’ll look for her.”

Her face crumpled.

“Please.”

Buck and I entered behind the attack line.

Heat met us in the lobby. Smoke had already filled the upper stairwell, and frightened residents stumbled downward while Charlie directed them toward the exit.

“Stay against the wall!” I shouted. “Keep moving down!”

Buck followed me upstairs.

By the third floor, visibility had dropped to almost nothing. My flashlight barely cut through the smoke, and the heat intensified with every step.

“Fourth floor’s deteriorating,” Chief Hartford warned over the radio. “You get one search, Madden.”

“Understood.”

Buck climbed behind me.

“He said one.”

“I heard him.”

“Sometimes hearing and listening are different things for you.”

We reached the fourth-floor landing.

The fire had control of the hallway ceiling. The building groaned around us, old timber shifting under the heat.

“Four-twelve is near the rear,” I said. “Take the right side. I’ll go left.”

Buck hesitated.

“Jack—”

“Move.”

We split.

The first apartment was empty.

So was the second.

Flames pushed through the kitchen of the third, forcing me back into the hall.

Hartford’s voice broke through the radio.

“All interior crews evacuate immediately. Roof instability reported.”

I kept moving.

“Madden, acknowledge.”

“Searching for the child.”

“That was an evacuation order.”

Then I heard her.

A faint cry beneath the roar of the fire.

“Lucy!”

The crying grew louder.

“I have her,” I radioed.

“Damn it, Jack,” Buck muttered. “I’m coming to you.”

Apartment four-twelve stood near the end of the hall. I forced the door and dropped lower beneath the smoke.

“Lucy!”

“Help!”

The voice came from the rear bedroom.

I found her wedged between the bed and the wall, wrapped in a blanket and shaking so badly she couldn’t stand.

“I’m Lieutenant Madden. Your mom sent me.”

“My mommy?”

“She’s outside waiting for you.”

I lifted her against my chest and covered her head.

Buck reached the bedroom door.

“Tell me that’s our girl.”

“It is. Let’s go.”

The ceiling groaned.

Not a warning this time.

A promise.

We ran.

The collapse began behind us.

“Buck!”

I shoved Lucy into his arms.

A burning section of ceiling crashed between us. Another beam struck the backs of my legs and drove me onto the floor.

My helmet hit hard.

For a second, everything went black.

“Jack!”

Buck tried to come back through the debris.

“Get her out!”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You have the child.”

“So?”

“So take her to her mother.”

The beam pinned both legs. I pushed against it, but it barely moved.

Lucy screamed against Buck’s chest.

“Go!” I ordered. “I’m right behind you.”

We both knew I was lying.

But Buck looked down at the frightened six-year-old in his arms and made the only choice he could.

He ran.

Hartford came through the radio.

“Madden, Buck is exiting with the child. Where are you?”

“Still on four.”

“Of course you are.”

“I’m pinned.”

The radio went silent for half a heartbeat.

Then Hartford’s command voice returned.

“Mayday. Firefighter trapped on the fourth floor. Rapid intervention entering.”

“I can move it.”

“Stop wasting oxygen arguing with me.”

I pushed again.

Pain shot down both legs, but I could feel my feet.

Smoke thickened around me.

My pass alarm started screaming.

Luca entered my mind first.

Fourteen years old, going on thirty, and currently furious because I refused to let him stay alone for the second half of my rotation.

Then Harlow.

Six years old. Loud, affectionate, endlessly curious, and convinced her father could survive anything.

Their mother appeared when it suited her and disappeared when it didn’t. My parents had helped me keep everything together, although Dad’s stroke had changed how much they could manage. Mom carried more of the childcare now while also helping him recover.

My children needed me to come home.

“Lieutenant!”

Jason’s voice cut through the smoke.

“Over here!”

Jason and another firefighter reached me first. Charlie appeared behind them, and together they lifted the beam high enough for me to drag my legs free.

“Can you stand?” Jason asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You were pinned beneath a ceiling.”

“Still fine.”

Charlie hooked my arm over his shoulder anyway.

We reached the stairwell seconds before another section collapsed.

Outside, Buck nearly knocked me down.

“You lied.”

“I improvised.”

“You said you were behind me.”

“I am now.”

Cass shoved him aside.

“Move before I treat both of you.”

Khloe crouched beside her and checked my legs while Cass examined my head.

I looked past them toward the ambulance.

Lucy sat inside beneath a blanket with oxygen over her face. Her mother climbed in and pulled her close.

“How is she?”

“Conscious when we loaded her,” Cass said. “Smoke inhalation and minor burns.”

“Good.”

Cass shone her penlight into my eyes.

“Hold still.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are the worst patient alive.”

“Alive being the important part.”

Chief Hartford appeared beside us.

“My office when we get back.”

Buck winced.

“That may hurt worse than the beam.”

I punched his arm.

Hartford’s lecture lasted fifteen minutes.

I had ignored an evacuation order.

I had forced a rescue team into an unstable building.

I wasn’t invincible.

My children deserved a father who came home.

“What would we tell Luca and Harlow if we carried your body out?” he demanded.

“That I was doing my job.”

His expression hardened.

“That answer won’t comfort them.”

No.

It wouldn’t.

“Next time, when I order you out, you leave.”

“Yes, Chief.”

We both knew I would still have trouble walking away if someone was calling for help.

In the kitchen, Cass and Khloe had started breakfast.

“How’s Lucy?” I asked.

“She was alive when we transferred her,” Cass said.

“Thank you, Cassandra.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“You know I hate my full name.”

“That’s why I use it.”

“You’re lucky you’re charming.”

Buck dropped into the chair across from me.

“Did you get suspended?”

“No.”

“If that were one of us, we’d be suspended.”

“You probably would.”

My phone rang.

Luca.

I answered before the second ring.

“Hey.”

“Dad, can I stay home tonight?”

“No.”

“You didn’t even think about it.”

“I’ve thought about it. You’re staying with Grandma.”

“It’s Friday.”

“You’re fourteen.”

“I’ll be at school for eight hours.”

“And alone for the rest.”

“I can handle one night.”

“It isn’t one night. It’s the rest of a forty-eight-hour shift.”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

“I’m being your father.”

He hung up.

Buck grinned.

“Teenagers seem fun.”

Jason glanced at him.

“You’re a teenager trapped in a thirty-year-old man’s body.”

“That feels judgmental.”

Cass set a plate in front of me.

Buck looked at her.

“Where’s mine?”

“On the counter.”

“You brought Jack his.”

“Jack nearly died.”

“I’ve almost died.”

“Try harder.”

Buck had barely reached his food when the bells sounded again.

He stared at the untouched plate.

“Every time.”

The multi-car pileup involved fifteen vehicles.

Ice, speed, and one driver looking at his phone had turned the highway into twisted metal. We worked for hours, cutting people free, crawling through broken glass, and handing patients to Cass, Khloe, and every available ambulance crew.

Most survived.

Two didn’t.

By the time we cleared, it was after three in the afternoon.

Luca called again while I stood beside Rescue 33.

I declined it and sent Mom a message confirming she would collect both children. She replied that Dad was having a difficult day after therapy but she could still manage them.

Guilt settled behind my ribs.

She was caring for my father and my children because I was here.

Before we reached the station, another call came.

House fire.

Possible occupants inside.

Buck looked mournfully toward the station.

“I haven’t eaten.”

“Deal with it.”

At the house, Jason and Charlie searched the first floor while Buck and I went upstairs.

We found an older couple trapped in a bedroom. Jason and Charlie emerged behind us carrying their terrified dog.

Everyone lived.

That made the hunger and exhaustion easier to ignore.

We finally returned to Station One after dark.

Buck ate enough for three people.

I finished paperwork in my office, pulled off my boots, and collapsed onto the double bed without bothering to change.

It felt as though I had been asleep for five seconds when the alarm sounded again.

Possible drowning at the lake.

A child through the ice.

Buck was our strongest diver. He suited up while Jason drove.

The father stood near the shoreline when we arrived, frantic and nearly incoherent.

“How long has he been under?”

“Five minutes. Maybe more. I couldn’t reach him.”

Buck clipped into the tether.

I gripped his shoulder.

“Bring him back.”

“I will.”

He entered the freezing water.

Seconds later, the line jerked.

We hauled.

Buck surfaced with a little boy locked against his chest.

Cass and Khloe began resuscitation on the shore.

For several terrible moments, the child remained still.

Then Khloe looked up.

“I have a pulse.”

Relief moved through all of us at once.

After the ambulance left, Buck sat inside Rescue 33 wrapped in blankets.

“He was six.”

“About Harlow’s age.”

“She’s okay, Jack.”

“I know.”

It wasn’t Harlow who worried me most tonight.

It was Luca.

His anger.

His constant push for freedom.

The weight he was putting on Mom while Dad recovered from the stroke.

By seven the next morning, our relief crew arrived.

I drove home exhausted enough to feel hollow.

Mom pulled into the driveway five minutes later.

Harlow ran through the door and launched herself into my arms.

“Daddy!”

“Hey, princess.”

Luca walked past me without a word, climbed the stairs, and slammed his bedroom door.

Harlow watched him go.

“He’s mad.”

“I gathered that.”

Mom carried their bags inside.

“He barely spoke last night.”

“Thanks for taking them.”

“I don’t mind, but your father had a difficult evening. Luca’s attitude didn’t help.”

My gaze moved to her face.

“You should’ve called.”

“You were working.”

“I’m still his son.”

“And you were saving people.”

She sighed.

“Your dad is recovering, Jack. It’s slow, and he’s frustrated. Luca is frustrated too. Maybe giving him a little independence wouldn’t be terrible.”

“Not for an entire shift.”

“No. But perhaps a few hours.”

I looked toward the ceiling.

“I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

After she left, I stood at the bottom of the stairs listening to the silence above me.

Forty-eight hours of fires, wreckage, freezing water, and people depending on me.

Now came the harder part.

Talking to my son.