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I saw jackets for the two who came over to our table while on our date—Jim and Trish.
“Where’s East?” Jim asked, and I turned to listen and see what was going on.
“He and Lincoln are still inside.”
“He ordered everyone to evacuate.” Trish removed her helmet and was drenched in sweat and soot.
“Maybe he found something,” another firefighter said.
“We go back in.” Hastings was about to move, but the other guy halted him.
“No, we have our orders.”
“Like hell we do. I’m not leaving him in there.”
Just then another fireman came rushing over, tearing at his head gear.
“East is stuck, can’t get out. Fire has him trapped.” He was breathing roughly. “Ordered me out. We gotta get the lines.”
“Fuck that!” Hastings slammed his helmet on.
“You will stand down!” the fireman whose jacket I could finally read, Morgan, shouted. “I agree with his order, no matter how shitty it is. Get on the pipe, Hastings.”
I stared at the fire, waiting, hoping Easton would use what I’d given him. It was the only thing that would work.
When I was a little fae, Arachnis would shoot bolts of fire at me because he thought it was fun. One day, after finding me crying in her garden, my mother had explained that there were always ways to retaliate, and sometimes it wasn’t causing the other pain but instead, taking the source of the pain away.
She’d trained with me for days and days, and we’d used magic and nature to create a crystallized power that could extinguish Arachnis’s fire.
I’d never forget the expression on his face the day I’d first used it. I swore he’d cried for a week.
Hastings and Morgan were fighting, and the others were trying to get them to knock it off and get water on the flames just as someone came rushing from the building…a firefighter. I knew it was Easton.
“Look!” I shouted.
They turned in the direction I was pointing as Easton ran toward them only to collapse at their feet.
“Holy shit!” They quickly removed his helmet and gear. “I need a paramedic,” Morgan yelled.
“Let me see.” I kneeled beside him.
“Who the hell are you?” Morgan asked, but I was too busy ripping Easton’s shirt off to answer. I listened to the others while I assessed.
“That’s Finch, Easton’s boyfriend, and he’s a nurse too,” Trish answered.
“Boyfriend?” a few murmured at the same time, and I wanted to yell at all of them for outing Easton, and it would be dealt with for sure, but right now I needed to make sure Easton was okay.
“He needs oxygen.”
“Medic!” Morgan yelled again.
“Here, move aside, please.”
I didn’t have the equipment on hand to help, so I gladly moved away to let them work.
Easton was scanning the place while the paramedics were hooking an IV to his arm and shoving an oxygen mask to his face.
When he locked eyes with me, he lifted his hand.
