Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(85)

Scott Hayes hit him on the shoulder. “Done here. Let’s move her out.”

The hose was wound, the truck was moved back, and a moment later the Lexington truck had taken its place, her men willing and ready to jump into the fray.

Cain headed back to Scott. “You seen my cousin?”

Scott shook his head. “Put him on Engine Two, which was headed for the back of the barn. Heard it was quieter there.”

“You sure?”

Scott nodded, looking up at the flames that still jumped and spat. “How long till you think this roof—” Just as Scott said the words, Cain watched as the structure appeared to cave in, the front half of the roof collapsing into the middle of the burning structure as flames started eating their way quickly to the back.

“Fuck,” said Cain as he watched it fall.

A loud scream crackled over Scott’s radio. “Fuuuuuuck!”

Scott ripped the radio from his shoulder. “Uh, Fred? What’s happenin’ back there?”

“Fuckin’ roof just caved! 10-88, Code 1! Must have traveled from the second floor. We need trucks back here! Now!”

Cain’s eyes widened. “You said it was quieter back there!”

“Thought it was!” yelled Scott. “10-75 on sector Charlie. I need water on sector Charlie!”

Scott hurried off to coordinate trucks to the backside of the building as the hairs on the back of Cain’s neck stood up on high alert.

I liked puttin’ out fires. I liked feelin’ like a . . . a danged superhero. I would’ve done it forever. Woodman’s words from three years ago came screeching back into Cain’s head, and suddenly Cain knew where his apprehension was coming from: there’s no way that Woodman would stand down. No way.

With his heart in his throat, he raced around the barn in the growing darkness, jumping over apparatus and forcefully pushing other firefighters out of his way until he’d rounded the massive structure to find the back of the barn was in just as bad shape as the front. What he hadn’t been able to see from his vantage point at the front was that the barn peaked in the middle. The middle of the roof hadn’t quite fallen in yet, but both lower sides, in sectors Alpha and Charlie, had.

“Where’s Woodman?” he asked a probie he recognized from Apple Valley who stared up at the blaze with his mouth open.

“I don’t—”

The probie’s buddy stood beside him, and Cain grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to focus. “Where’s Woodman? Where the f*ck is Woodman?”

“He was, uh, he was with Logan McKinney.”

“Then where the f*ck is Logan McKinney?” he demanded, yelling over the licking flames and sounds of structural collapse inside the barn.

“I don’t know,” said the kid, shrugging helplessly.

Cain pushed him out of his way and continued through the crowd of firefighters until he finally found Fred Atkins. “Where’s Woodman?”

“Woodman? He’s ’round somewheres. Scott and I both told him to stand down.”

“Where’s Logan McKinney?”

“Logan? I sent Logan in fifteen minutes ago to set a monitor. He’s ’round here . . . ” Fred looked around, his brow creasing as he counted his men and didn’t see Logan among them. He nudged the guy next to him. “John, you seen Logan?”

“Logan? Nah.”

Fred pulled his radio into his hand. “I got a 10-66 on Logan McKinney.”

“And Josiah Woodman!” yelled Cain.

Cain laced his fingers behind his neck, shutting his eyes and trying to tune out the cacophony that surrounded him. Radio chatter, sirens, the fire itself, the structure collapsing.

“Speak to me, Woodman. Jesus, please speak to me!”

“Caaaaaain!”

He wasn’t sure if he’d imagined the sound of his name or not, but his eyes opened wide, and he ran from Fred Atkins toward the burning building. His boots crunched and skidded over the gravel just outside the mouth of the barn.

“Woodman?” he screamed, taking a look inside. It was a death trap, a full-on blaze of orange and blue, with beams strewn across the floor, at odd angles, slowly charring as the flames licked them into submission.

“Caaaaaain!”

This time there was no question. It was coming from inside, and it was Woodman.

Turning to the fireman closest to him, he grabbed the man’s lapels and said, “My name is Cain Wolfram. I’m goin’ in there for my cousin, Josiah Woodman.”

Then he placed his oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and ran inside.

***

Being inside a fire was something he wouldn’t wish on anyone, but there was a sort of beauty to it too—the orange-colored smoke, the pattern of the flames, the crisscrosses of black beams collapsed in triangles, backlit by orange and blue. The whirls of smoke. The ravenous flames eating, consuming, destroying.

With his mask over his mouth, he couldn’t yell very loud, but he didn’t need to. He found Logan McKinney almost immediately. He was facedown on the floor between what used to be stall bays. He looked unconscious, not wearing a mask. Cain didn’t stop to think. He reached down and hefted Logan onto his back, the dead weight forcing Cain’s muscles to work overtime, and ran back out of the barn as fast as he dared, stopping at the mouth of the barn and screaming, “Help him!” to the crowd of firefighters that had amassed there, waiting as Engine Three’s pipes were socked and opened. They rushed forward to take Logan’s body, and as soon as he was free of the other man’s weight, Cain turned and ran back inside.