Best Friend’s Brothers Read Online Natasha L. Black

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Still, the noise of running and loud voices didn’t die down. Frustrated, I flopped onto my back and took a deep breath. That was when I smelled the smoke.

It was sharp and acrid, a disgusting, gagging smell that made me cough at once. I threw off the blanket and went to look out my door. Remembering the camera and app on my phone I checked that. The app showed people rushing down the stairs by my door and clouds of dark smoke obscuring them, pouring into the hall outside my door. Nervously I looked down and saw smoke coming in underneath the door.

27

RORY

I was working out in the weight room of the firehouse when the alarm sounded. The dispatcher rattled off an address that sounded kind of familiar but I couldn’t place it. I put on my gear in record time and we headed to the blaze. We were about two blocks away when it occurred to me that it was the address of Julie’s apartment building. Suddenly I was sick with fear. I’d never been actually afraid on the job before. Cautious or reckless at times, yes, but fear had never gripped me by the throat before. She was in her apartment building and it was burning. I’d left her that voicemail earlier and maybe she was already home then, maybe a fire already burned somewhere at that time, not big enough to set off the smoke detectors but growing in size and seriousness with every passing minute. I cursed the voice of reason that was Jeremy for convincing us not to rush to her apartment and scare her like crazed stalkers when she didn’t return a text or call back. I hated that I’d listened, that I could’ve followed my instincts to go see her and make sure she was okay, and I would’ve had her out of that building before there was any danger.

I had to get to her. It felt more urgent than anything in my life ever had. She was mine to save, and I would be damned if I let her burn.

I eyed the horizon as we approached and saw as we pulled up in the water truck that the building was engulfed, the fire burning hot and fast as if an accelerant had been used.

I could see at once that the top two floors—Julie’s and the one below it—were the worst affected. We put on our respirators and our crew piled in clearing out the floors below. As we climbed, I could see the hallway completely engulfed in flames. I led my crew back down the stairs. The ladder truck had arrived just after us, and as the boys on the water truck struggled to get the leaping flames under control, the ladder was extending to rescue the people hanging out of their windows on the upper floors.

I hoped that she had evacuated down the fire escape outside the window—I knew there was one on the back side of the building because Darren had talked about putting an alarm and a new lock on it the other day. She was a smart woman and had survived worse than this. She’d survived all the abuse form Eric, had made something of her life. She’d walked into mine, and I’d never been the same after that. My brothers and I had never been as happy as we were with Julie. There was no chance I would let that go without a fight. If that meant walking through literal fire, I’d do it. I ran around to the back of the building to see if there were any recent evacuees who needed first aid or might have information on her. I had hoped that she’d be waiting for me out there in back of the building, smiling, her voice a little rough from the smoke inhalation but otherwise unharmed.

Instead, what I found was more terrifying than the out-of-control inferno itself. The fire escape was damaged. For an instant, fury flared in me that Darren hadn’t checked this and raised hell to have it repaired, refused to let Julie stay there at all until there were basic fire safety amenities in place. But that was my job, I was the firefighter, and I should have done a simple walkaround inspection of her building. It felt like a cinderblock to the chest, my lungs caving in at the sight. There was no way that anyone on the top floor could get out of that building with the fire escape in the condition it was—the floor platform rusted away, the ladder missing rungs.

I made myself stop and assess for a few seconds, scanned the windows of the two upper floors. I didn’t know which window was hers. I was, objectively, here to save all the residents, but I’d be damned if Julie wouldn’t be the first survivor I pulled from that floor. My crewmen had dragged people out windows on the third floor already and ambulances lined up as EMT’s administered oxygen to the people who’d been rescued.

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