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Chapter One
Dixon
Smoke billows through the room and searing heat creates shimmering waves, illusions, images that emerge from the flames that crackle and roar around me, crimson tongues that call to me. One in particular — a face, always the same face, with the same wound: a bullet hole above the left eye, a window into the brain of someone too good to have died the way they did — appears and beckons me.
It wants me to step into the flames.
I take a step deeper into the house, ignore the warnings of the other firefighters over the radio, ignore the screams of caution that ring within my skull, and answer the call that pulls me toward obliteration.
I don’t think; I don’t hesitate; I’m ready. Of all the men I’ve killed, there’s only one I see. Only one I regret. If I could trade places with that vision in the flames, I would.
Another step.
Then A hand takes my shoulder. I turn. A helmet with a respirator and visor that glistens with the glow of the flames stares back at me, cocked askew in surprise. The hand on my shoulder tightens; it says one thing: What the fuck are you doing?
I shake my head and raise my hand, thumbs up, and they take their hand off me.
This isn’t the answer. The flames won’t wash my conscience clean.
Nothing will.
The man in the helmet gestures towards a different room, away from the flames, toward a back hallway down which I can see several shut doors. Bedrooms, probably. The civilian who called this in said multiple people were using this shitheap of a home as a flophouse. I cast one more longing look toward the flames before going deeper. We have a mission: there’s a kid in here and that kid doesn’t deserve to suffer for my selfishness.
I have to focus.
Deeper we go.
While the air turns a glowing red-black with smoke laced with the wicked poison the addicts in this house were cooking up.
Deeper.
While the inferno simmers and sizzles and pulses like a living thing around me, calling to the darkest parts of my soul: step in, let me burn the pain away.
It’s tempting, even now.
I stumble over something soft and nearly fall. A body. Not moving, not breathing; I kneel for a moment, two fingers pressed against the scrawny, wasted neck — no pulse.
The other man with me — Jenkins is his name, though that hardly matters now — points to a door. It's slightly ajar, leaking a whining cry that slices through the churning cacophony of the fire. A baby.
I surge through the door, into a world of stifling heat and suffocating darkness. The smoke is solid here, a black sea flooding from the ceiling. My flashlight beam cuts through, revealing glimpses of a life paused mid-breath: scorched photographs on the wall, melted toys on the floor.
Then a crib and its terrified resident.
Wailing, kicking, eyes closed in terror, mouth open in a strident plea for help. The cries rip me forward as if drawn by a hook. I scoop up the child with more gentleness than I thought my war-hardened hands could muster. I grab a blanket from the bed, envelope the baby within its soft layers, and wrapped, the baby quiets down as if understanding that deliverance has come.
Jenkins is beside me, hefting on his shoulders a woman. The baby’s mother, probably. The house is collapsing around us now; timbers surrendering to flame like fallen soldiers on some forgotten battlefield.
"Move!" Jenkins gestures. He doesn’t need to. I have my reason to get out of here held tight in my arms. We race our way to the front door, the building groaning and croaking around us as fire consumes the rotting bones of this wretched house.
Through the exit, I throw a last look over my shoulder. There’s still that call, still that same, inexorable regret.
Maybe next time.
Chapter Two
Dixon
“Brothers, we’ve fucked around long enough. This is a discussion we should’ve had a long time ago, but I’ve let all your lazy asses have too much of an influence over me. That ends now.”
