Things You Save in a Fire(5)

I stopped in front of the podium, eyes fixed on the plaque itself, trying to mentally Photoshop the person holding it out of the frame.

Was I actually going to have to shake Heath Thompson’s hand?

No. No way.

I could make myself do a lot of things, but I wouldn’t make myself do that.

I saw the plaque come my direction in slo-mo and clasped my fingers around it, trying to ground myself by focusing on how solid and heavy it was. What wood was that? Oak? Walnut? It weighed a ton.

Take plaque, move away. But before I could, Heath Thompson—Heath Thompson—grabbed my free hand. To shake. The way every other presenter had done for every other recipient.

Except he wasn’t every other presenter, and I sure as hell wasn’t every other recipient.

Heath Thompson had made sure of that.

The shock of his touch was like a burn from an electrical wire—sharp and mean and fast. It registered as pain somehow, and then, in response, on instinct, I looked up into his face.

There he was. Older and beefier and more hair-sprayed than he had been ten years ago, and wearing a smug city-councilman expression, as if the entire world existed for him to grandstand in.

I knew in that instant: He recognized me.

He’d just read my name out to three hundred people, so it stood to reason.

But I’d changed a lot—my hair was darker, and shoulder length now, and I’d worn it down when I was younger but now wore it tight back in a braid or a bun every day. I’d gotten contacts. And I had about twice the muscle mass I’d had in high school. Not to mention my dress uniform, its blazer buttoned all the way up with its padded shoulders and little crossover tie.

Something about that combination—his beefy, self-satisfied face, his pompous grin, his self-serving posture, and then, finally, the recognition in his eyes … Let’s just say it altered my emotional landscape. In a flash, my insides shifted from cold shock to burning rage.

There must have been a photographer there, because Heath Thompson was squeezing my hand, holding me in place, smiling offstage, and holding a pose.

Somewhere far off, I heard Big Tom from the crew shout, “Give ’em hell, Cassie!”

And then, just as I was congratulating myself for holding it together—for coping with such grace under the most astonishingly horrific circumstances—I felt something pressing against my butt.

Not just pressing against it, like I’d backed up to the podium or something. Cupping it.

The only thing it could possibly be was Heath Thompson’s other hand.

The fact of it hit, the flashbulb popped, and then that hand gave my butt-cheek a bold, entitled, proprietary squeeze.

And I lost it.

Given everything, it’s a miracle I didn’t literally kill him.

There was nothing else I could possibly have done. I turned and whomped Heath Thompson on the head with my oak-and-metal plaque so hard, I knocked him unconscious and gave him a concussion.



* * *



I NEVER WANTED to be a firefighter.

There are people who dream their whole lives of becoming firefighters. There are little kids who ogle fire trucks, and wear toy fire hats, and dress up in bunker gear for Halloween.

Boys, mostly.

I was not one of those kids.

In fact, on career day in kindergarten, I famously announced my goal of growing up to be the Tooth Fairy. Which I still think would be a great job.

I never even thought about being a firefighter before it happened.

And it happened essentially by accident.

I was on my way to med school, in fact, planning to be an ER doc. I was a freshman in college looking for a campus job, and I got recruited by a cute guy in my dorm to work as an EMT for the university. It was an easy sell. I needed practice working in medicine, and I also needed a job. Done.

Once I started working as an EMT, I didn’t want to stop—like I didn’t even want to go off shift. I loved everything about it, from the medical training to the sirens to the life-or-death moments.

It wasn’t just the adrenaline. There was something profoundly satisfying about helping people—about stepping into these terrible moments over and over and making things better. The feeling of doing something that actually mattered was addictive. I’d had lots of jobs over the years—dishwasher in a pizza joint, lifeguard, dog sitter—but I’d never had a job like that.

My roommate, in contrast, had a campus job serving fro-yo.

No comparison.

Being an EMT was a whole new world. It was glorious. I stuck people with needles, and pumped chests for CPR, and reset bones. My first week on the job, I helped save a physics professor in cardiac arrest with a defibrillator.

Not bad for ten dollars an hour.

All to say, it just turned out I had a knack for it.

When I wasn’t on shift, I was waiting until I could go back on shift. I worked holidays. I covered for coworkers. I dreamed about lights and sirens.

I did that for two years before my supervisor recommended I get certified as a paramedic and go to work for the city. All firefighters are EMTs—firehouses handle far more medical calls than fires, in fact—but not all are paramedics. It takes a year of extra training to get your paramedic certification, and you have to really love medicine to do it, or be “forced” because the department needs you.

I really loved medicine.

I worked as a paramedic for a year, and then, after graduation, another supervisor talked me into applying to the Fire Academy.