Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

Xavier

Waking up some hours later, my body felt less like it’d been run over by a truck and more like I had a hangover from a night of partying—way more manageable in my opinion.

Rolling to sit up, my ice pack, now warm to the touch, slid from my forehead and slapped down into my lap. The room was dark, thanks to my blackout curtains that I’d been smart enough to draw over the windows before crawling into bed.

My phone was somewhere buried under my covers and most likely had a message from Gage waiting for me that I’d answer as soon as I had some food in me.

After blinking the sleep from my eyes, I shoved the covers off of me to roll out of bed. The clock on the nightstand read six-thirty on the dot, which meant I slept almost a full ten hours without waking up once.

As impressive as that was, my body was definitely feeling it given the stiffness in my bones from not moving at all while I’d been passed out. Clearly I’d needed it, though.

Despite the still lingering headache, I did feel better. More clear headed. More in control of my emotions. Less likely to snap and go on a murderous rampage.

That last one might still be up for debate.

Heading into my bathroom, I took a quick shower and freshened up before going back into my room to retrieve my phone. Sure enough, there was a message from Gage wishing me a good sleep with a few emojis accompanying it.

To my surprise, directly under that was one from Dexter that simply read: ‘ Thank you, dad. I love you’.

“Ugh.” I slapped my hand over my heart while my body pitched forward, overwhelmed with both love and guilt that seemed to want to battle in trying to be at the forefront of whatever my emotions were trying to decide on how I felt.

Even though I knew in the back of my mind that Dexter didn’t hate me, a message like this was still a nice confirmation.

I hoped he didn’t regret telling me anything. I hoped that from now on, we could turn over a new leaf and start fresh—no more skeletons hidden in the closet.

Typing out a heartfelt reply back to him, I sent it on its way before tossing my phone back onto my bed and grabbing a fresh set of clothes to change into for the evening.

I’d give him the rest of the week to be by himself and then invite him over for dinner and a movie or something. With Christmas right around the corner, there was no sense in overwhelming him with a bunch of activities and running around the city trying to fill the awkward void left by him opening up to me.

Starting small after having gone through some major turmoil was probably best, even if he didn’t blame me for it. The last thing I wanted was for Dexter to feel like some kind of freak around me now that I knew his secret. That was a common thing for people to feel when opening up about trauma, yet I didn’t want that to happen regardless of the circumstances.

I’d been treated like a damn pariah after being forced out of the closet and outed to everyone around me. So, like hell I was going to let my kid have to go through something similar.

Since Kate and I were agreeing to work together now, I’d have to bring up getting Dexter into some form of counseling before he was off to college in a few months. It wasn’t good for him to fester on these horrible memories by himself. He needed an expert to help him work through everything to untangle the mess that had been done to him by someone he should’ve been able to trust.

No wonder he’d kept everyone at arm’s length.

Shaking my head, I made my way across my house to the kitchen. I was suddenly starving, having only eaten a small box of raisins on the plane ride over here that had tasted barely edible. Now that I was back on solid ground, I wanted something that was actually real food.

Passing by the police scanner I kept hooked up to the outlet in my kitchen, I flicked it on to listen to the tones while grabbing a box of pasta out of the pantry. This was the kind of familiarity that grounded me. The only thing missing was my boyfriend crowding up the small space while pretending he knew how to heat a can of red sauce on the stove.

Just as I was setting a pot on the stove to bring it to a boil, the radio went off again with another set of tones, followed by an automated message that said: “All units and medical personnel, please respond to eight-five-five River Street, Sacramento County.”

I whipped around. That was my street.

Jogging toward my front door, I ripped it open and stepped out onto my porch, facing east to where eight fifty-five was located only five houses down from mine. Black plumes of smoke clouded the sky, billowing up at a fast rate that meant the building that was caught on fire was burning fast .

“ Fuck .”

Of course I didn’t have any of my gear with me, but with no sounds of sirens nearby and no flashing lights on the street right outside of the residence, I was going to wager that the next unit on scene wouldn’t be there for another two minutes.

Which in the event of a fire, meant life or death.

Sprinting to my closet, I threw on the best thick clothing I had while shoving my feet into a pair of the only thick-soled boots in my closet. Grabbing another shirt off of a hanger, I used it to wrap around the lower half of my face in a makeshift mask. It’d barely help but until the trucks arrived, there wasn’t much else I could do.

Heading back to the front of my house, I found my spare axe sitting against the wall in the hall closet where I’d tucked it into the corner for emergencies.

The weight of it was comfortable in my hand when I gripped it tightly before heading out of the house with the door slamming shut behind me. People were beginning to gather on the sidewalk outside of their homes with the distant sounds of a truck blaring through the streets.

Judging by the way it was echoing against the houses, I’d say it was at least another mile and a half out.

Coming up to the burning house, the heat hit me hard. The fire was contained to the top floor, flames licking out of the open—or rather shattered—window while climbing up to the worn roof. Black smoke had collected on the bottom level, making it impossible to see inside to check if anyone was still in there.

A neighbor sprinted outside from the house next to it, a phone held up to her ear while she chattered on to dispatch.

I grabbed her arm to stop her from heading across the street. “Who’s in there?”

Her eyes were frantic. “I don’t know! They’re an older couple. I have nine-one-one on the phone!”

Older couple. That wasn’t good. That meant there was a potential for either mobility issues or pre-existing health problems. Or both.

“The car is in the driveway!” She pointed to the small car park next to the house. “I think they’re still in there!”

Two men from the house across the street were running toward the house—both of them touting leather jackets and bandanas over their mouths. I shoved the woman toward the street again, gesturing for her to wait on the opposite sidewalk while thanking her.

I brandished my axe to the two men, noticing one of them had a pair of heavy duty diving goggles on his head. “Let me borrow those!”

Either I was presenting with a ‘don’t question me’ attitude, or they were glad to have someone leading this thing, because soon I had a pair of goggles shoved into my hands and two guys ready to take orders.

While snapping the lenses over my head, I yelled at them both to get everyone off this side of the street so that when the trucks finally arrived, they were trying to crowd manage and get their lines hooked up to the fire hydrant at the same time.

They nodded at me and then sprinted off in opposite directions, corralling people as soon as they got close enough to them. The goggles were tight on my head, but gave enough suction that I wouldn’t be tearing up from the smoke burning my eyes.

Getting up to the house, sweat began to pour down my back and arms. Since the top window had already blown out and was creating a vacuum to suck all of the heat out of the top, breaking down this door wouldn’t run the risk of causing any kind of backdraft once I got it off its hinges.

My axe cut through the wood solidly, tearing off chunks with each blow. Thankfully, the entire house was old as dirt and gave way easily to a little bit of force from a sharp weapon.

As I pried the door open, smoke began to billow out around me, choking me even through the shirt tied tightly around my nose and mouth.

I stepped back to let the place air out for a few seconds, clearing out as much as possible before moving back toward the opening again.

“Hello!” I called out, carefully stepping inside.

The bottom floor was lit with smoldering embers. Pieces of furniture and all that was left of the carpet were still on fire but had a yellow-y golden hue to them and not the blue-hot like the top floor.

“Hello! Anyone in here!”

Barely above the crackling of the wood around me, I heard a soft cough.

Following it, I almost stepped on him—a man laying face down on the floor.

Tucking the handle of my axe into my belt loop, I bent and scooped my hands under his armpits. He was light compared to what I’d been expecting, clearly much frailer than his height suggested. He coughed again as I dragged him out, kicking back through the chunks of roof that had fallen onto the floor.

Where I found him wasn’t that far from the doorway, thankfully, and soon enough, we were back out onto the street.

My lungs burned as I sucked in fresh clean air.

The man in my arms choked and gagged when I set him down. His skin was blackened from the fire and ash that had been coating him by the time I’d found him.

“M... my,” the older man let out a deep, chest-y cough. “My wife...”

Behind me a truck docked, several firefighters jumping off and running over to me.

“Cruz!” One of them yelled. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

I wiped at my goggles, spotting Eddie, one of my old co-workers at the fire station. “Take care of him, I think there’s one more inside!”

“Hey, wait!” he yelled.

Before he could catch me and wrangle me back in, I sprinted for the open doorway once more, ignoring my training in waiting for my geared up co-workers to take it from here. There was something in me that was telling me that any more time wasted out here catching everyone up to speed was time wasted in pulling this man’s wife out of the wreckage alive.

Call it my intuition or hubris.

I slipped the axe up into my hands again and carefully ducked back into the house. There was no sign of the man’s wife anywhere, even as I traveled to the spot I’d found him at.

“Hello!” Calling out got me nothing, not even when I heard the telltale signs of water beginning to hit the side of the house to put it out.

“Xavier!” someone yelled into the house from the doorway.

Ignoring them, I continued further, choking as more smoke made it harder to breathe. If there was anyone following after me, I couldn’t tell. The sound of the wood paneling was loud as it burned, near ear piercing and making it impossible to think straight.

There was a doorway that led into a small kitchen, almost completely untouched from the rest of the fire by the awkward angle of the house’s layout. My heart picked up when I spotted a woman laying face down on the floor, facing away from me.

“Ma’am!” Setting my axe down onto the floor, I rolled her over to pat her face a few times. She didn’t flinch at all, not even so much as moved a damn muscle.

I bent down to see if I could hear her breathing, and the sudden cacophony of a ceiling coming down had me jumping back and pressing myself against the cabinets behind me. Debris and smoke suddenly filled the kitchen, making it hard to see where the hell it had fallen.

Waving my arm in front of my face did nothing aside from making me feel lightheaded.

The woman next to me groaned softly.

Oh thank fuck.

I scooped her up, noting she was a little heavier than her husband but not by much. I threw her half over my shoulder in a fireman’s hold while reaching for my axe and climbing to my feet. As I finally got closer to where I’d come from, I realized a large partition of debris blocked us in, the ceiling having fallen right outside of the entryway into the kitchen.

Looking around, my heart sunk when I discovered there was no other door leading outside—effectively trapping us like sitting ducks.

Fuck.

The window above the sink was our only escape.

Could we even fit?

We have to. There’s no other way.

I wasn’t going to die in this damn kitchen—nor was I going to let this woman die with me. As a search and rescue firefighter, I had too much experience under my belt to let something like a fallen ceiling blocking me from the point-of-entry to force me into giving up.

Not when I had a damn kid and boyfriend to get back to.

Shifting the woman’s weight on my shoulder, I swung my axe back and shattered the frame and glass all in one go. The glass shards exploded outward, leaving nothing but the remnant pieces still stuck to the frame that I scraped at with the back of my axe head.

It was an awkward angle but I managed to hoist the woman up off of me and out through the window. With a momentary wave of guilt, I shoved her out of the window and winced when I heard her hit the ground outside with a groan.

Well, it was better than burning to death in a fire.

I threw my axe out next hard enough that I knew it would miss her completely and then I catapulted myself up over the sink and onto the ledge of the window. She was on her side, facing away from the house, a pained expression on her face.

Carefully slipping down from the sill, my body pitched forward and I just barely caught myself before I face-planted onto the ground along with her. I was crashing from my adrenaline rush—cut short by the lack of oxygen to my damn brain.

The woman groaned again, clearly feeling how the fire was cooking us by being so close to it. Forcing myself up from the ground, I grabbed her arm and began dragging her around the side of the house, stumbling when above me, another window shattered and rained glass down onto us.

Using my body as a shield to protect her was only so useful when I began to grow dizzy once again.

“Cruz! You fucking idiot!” someone yelled.

My vision blacked out right when a pair of hands grabbed onto me.

“Are you suicidal!” the voice chastised.

Belatedly I realized it was Eddie.

And then I was gone.