going to school?”
Wait.
“What?” I started to turn around.
Kess was sitting at the table, her knee pulled up. She was hugging her leg, and her head was cocked to the side. She was trying to figure out a puzzle in a magazine I had lying around. Jesus, she was stunning. A breeze was going through the room, and I was noticing every detail about how it was lifting some of her hair strands, making them wave in the air.
Goddamn romantic crap here.
My heartbeat was drumming thick in my ear.
There’s no way I’d heard him right.
He laughed, though. “You heard me. You’re coming here for three months, and then returning for your girl. Heckler told us where she’s going to college. I need a future college degree guy in the club.”
I swallowed. “What degree?”
“We’ll get into that later. Go and break the news to your girl, and then get down here. Heckler’s got something to say to you.”
I was sure he did.
My uncle said thirty minutes, but he was going to have to wait.
I went and told Kess the news, and I didn’t leave on my bike until later in the day.
Much, much later.
THE END
If you’d like to read more about Taz and Roussou’s crew system, read the Crew Series!
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Always Crew (August 2020)
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Fallen Crest Series
Carter Reed Series
Enemies
Ryan’s Bed
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SET FIRE TO THE SKY
* * *
A.L. JACKSON
ONE
Derrick
ONE MORE STEP would mean certain death.
But I didn’t hesitate. It was part of my job. What I’d been trained to do.
Most of all, I guessed, it was who I was.
My protective gear might have protected my flesh from the flames, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel like I was getting burned alive.
The world a thousand degrees.
But I was working on gut and desperation and hope. Holding the limp body in my arms and praying we’d gotten to her in time.
“Right. To the right,” the crackle in my ear instructed. “And make it fast, because the whole goddamn place is about to go up.”
Billows of black smoke eclipsed the light, my only sight coming from the flashlight of my partner leading the way out in front of me.
We worked our way back to the hole we’d cut in the side of the house, since the far wall was engulfed in flames. I knew we were only a few seconds from everything being consumed.
The fire howled, no sound but the roar that dulled my senses. Every step disorienting.
Adrenaline sloshed and spun and raced through my veins.
I had to get her out. I had to get her out.
A crash to my left sent a bolt of panic surging through my veins.
Part of the ceiling gave and crashed to the ground. Sparks flickered and leapt into the space. Air from my mask wheezing into my lungs, I increased my pace and angled to the side.
Undeterred.
There was too much at stake.
I had to get her out. I had to get her out.
Jordan was at the opening, his arm outstretched. “Hurry. You’re there, man. You’re there. Just a couple more feet.”
I shifted to the side so I could squeeze through, and this feeling came over me unlike anything I’d experienced before.
The raw need to make this right.
We broke through the hole and out into the night. Red and blue lights flashed against the blackened sky. I dropped to my knees as the other firefighters rushed us, taking the woman from my arms and rushing her to the paramedics waiting twenty feet away.
I felt stripped.
Bare.
I was grabbed by both arms and hauled away from the house that was quickly going up.
Incinerated. Consumed.
On my knees, I tried to get it together. To focus. But my mind was spinning.
It was too close. Too close. God.
My mask was ripped off, and I gasped for air.
“Hey, man, can you hear me?”
I could barely nod. “Yes. I hear you.”
“Are you injured?”
“No. I’m fine. I’m fine.”
The last thing I was concerned about right then was my well-being. The only thing that mattered was the woman. The woman who was surrounded by paramedics. Four of them bustled around her where she was laid out on the ground. They worked frantically. A stretcher was brought over, and she was lifted and placed on it.
I was on my feet. Moving that way. Drawn. I felt desperate to see her. To make sure she was really going to be okay.
The closer I got, the more frantically my heart pounded. Each step