Chapter Text
Boots are already on the pavement as the 118 fire engine rolls to a stop in front of the USC football stadium.
“Chim, Hen,” Bobby instructs, “check in with triage. Buck, Eddie, Ravi, you’re with me.”
My breath catches as I look around at the calamity that surrounds us as Bobby leads the way into the crowd. Game-goers clutch head wounds and hold their friends up as they pass by. “Dispatch says it’s a structural failure on the Bravo side of the stadium. The seats above the entrance hall collapsed during the fourth quarter.”
“Terrorism?” asks Eddie, taking the stairs two at a time. Buck’s eyes widen beside him.
“Crosstown Showdown,” Bobby replies as we emerge into the open stadium. Metal and cement are all that is left of the stands above the entrance hall. Blood and dust blanket the small crowd of scarlet and blue-clad students and staff that have stayed behind to help.
“H-Have you heard from-” Buck stutters, still full of worry.
Bobby nods. “Accounted for, don’t worry.”
A boy in a football uniform runs toward us, nearly tripping over a piece of debris. “You’ve got to help! My girlfriend, she’s trapped!”
Bobby nods to Buck and Eddie, and the pair run off with the player, then turns to me. “Ravi, spread out.”
“On it,” I hurry down the end zone, squinting against the glare of the bright November sun. Screams of pain and fear fill the air around me. It never gets easier to see people in pain. I clench my fists at my side, remembering that day on the bridge. Me and Buck, the only 118 left standing. My heart starts to race.
Someone bumps my shoulder, hard, breaking me from my trance as they rush past with an AED. A cheerleader counts out loud as she gives compressions to a fallen student. The blood that stains her brown hair matches her crimson and gold uniform, and I feel as if I’ve known her my whole life, though she could just have one of those faces. I remove my helmet and run over, dropping to my knees in front of her.
“Switch,” I order. The cheerleader complies, allowing me to resume compressions. She flexes her blood-soaked hands before removing the Ambu bag from my backpack without a moment of hesitation. “How did you…?”
She half-smiles. “Some people spend their gap year backpacking through Europe. I spent mine at LA dispatch.” She squeezes the bag with one hand and opens the AED kit with the other, removing the adhesive with her teeth. It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. “Switch.” I take the Ambu bag and watch her continue compressions. A curl rolls from her shoulder as she pushes onto the man’s chest. She looks up at me expectantly through her brow. “Charge it…?”
“Oh! Right…” I charge up the device. “Clear!”
She removes her hands and the man jolts. I put my fingers against his throat. “Pulse is weak, but he’s back.” I press my radio. “Panikkar requesting Level 1 RA backup and a stretcher to the goalposts.”
“Coming to you, Ravi,” Bobby’s voice crackles over the radio.
The cheerleader smiles, relieved. I pass her an alcohol wipe from my backpack for her hands, and for a split second, our fingers graze. My cheeks run warm. “Thank you, by the way, uh…” I hesitate, not sure of what to call her. The man on the ground between us wheezes in agreement. She opens her mouth to answer, when:
“May!” Bobby yells, running over with a backboard. “What are you still doing here?! Are you alright?!”
May squeezes Bobby’s shoulder as we move the man onto the backboard. “I wanted to help. This isn’t my blood, promise.”
Bobby frowns, but doesn’t argue. “We’ve got this covered. You should evacuate with the other civilians.”
We lift the backboard and make our way toward the exit, but May follows after us. “Cmon, I’m way more than just a civilian. Let me help!”
“No, May.”
“But Dad-” May starts. I whip my head in her direction. DAD?!
“Now, May. That’s an order.” Bobby stops in his tracks, his tone his final warning.
“...Fine.” May glares at him before stomping off toward the civilian holding area, her ponytail swaying as she disappears around a corner. We pass the man over to triage and head back toward the stadium.
“So… ‘Dad,’ huh?” I choke out.
Bobby squints at me confusedly. “My… stepdaughter?” Oh god. I just spent the last five minutes giving goo-goo eyes to my captain’s daughter. I knew she looked familiar.
I’m saved by the bell as the radio crackles to life on our chests. “Buckley and Diaz requesting a ladder to the Bravo side. We can’t see shit… we’re gonna have to go in from above.”
I hurry away from Bobby as quickly as I can, not even asking for permission as I speak into my radio. “Be there in five, Buck.”
“Better see you in three, Rav.”
I quickly shut the engine door behind me, exhaling sharply as I sink into the seat. Focus, Ravi. If you’re ever gonna make it onto A-shift, you have to focus. No distractions. I pull down the visor to grab the keys, but find a photograph tucked into the strap: Bobby, Athena, and their family. May smiles back at me, carrying one end of a moving box as a younger boy who I can only assume to be her little brother takes the other end. I wrench the keys from the visor, shut it, and start the engine.
“Gosh, I hate that picture,” a voice groans from the backseat. I swerve out of surprise as May sits up in the rearview mirror, resting her chin on the shoulder of my seat.
“M-May!” I gasp, “What are you- your dad- er- Cap said you should-”
“Bobby says a lot of things,” May smirks. “Whether or not I listen is a whole other story.”
I grip the steering wheel and sigh as I pull off to the side of the road. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I want to help!”
“And I want to keep my job!”
“Ravi!” Eddie urges over the radio. “We need that ladder, yesterday!”
May raises her eyebrows at me in the mirror’s reflection. “You heard the man. Besides, isn’t it better for you to keep an eye on me for your captain’s sake?” She reaches across my body to unhook the radio from my chest and holds it in front of my mouth.
I bite my lip, resisting the urge to smile, and wrap my hand around hers, clicking the radio. “On my way, Eddie.” May grins as I start the engine once more. “Buckle.” She does as she’s told.
Buck waves the ladder truck down from the grass and directs me as I back it up against the side of the stadium. “Ed and I are gonna harness up. You’re on ladder.”
“On it.” I’d usually be annoyed at Buck giving me orders, but right now, I could use the distraction. I hop out of the truck, looking over my shoulder into the backseat. May is nowhere to be seen. Great. I get to work extending the ladder over the side of the stadium as Buck and Eddie harness up. I lower them into the tangled mess of metal bleachers and concrete, keeping my eyes trained on the taut cords holding them to the ladder.
The captain’s daughter appears next to me, tightening her ponytail. I jump at the sight of her, another scolding on the edge of my lips before I notice the nervous expression on her face. “Any word on how many they’ve pulled out of the rubble?”
I shake my head mournfully. “Haven’t heard from all of your friends?”
May shrugs, blinking away tears as she looks away. “My friend Zoe wasn’t sure if she was going to make it to the game today. Her little sister’s in town visiting, and football’s not really her thing, but Zoe hasn’t answered our groupchat confirming that they’re okay.”
“If they’re here, they’re in good hands,” I reassure her, nodding toward the end of the ladder.
“Help! HELP!” a voice screams from the rubble. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge as I try to locate the source of the sound.
May grabs my forearm, her face suddenly pale. “Eloise.” She races toward the dilapidated stadium.
I speak into my radio as I drop the belay button and hurry after her. “Panikkar to IC, Panikkar to IC, requesting additional units to my location. We hear someone in the rubble. I repeat, someone’s down there!”
“Buckley, Diaz, what’s your status?” Bobby’s voice asks over the airwaves.
“We do not have visuals,” answers Buck.
“Eloise!” May yells toward the crumbled wall. “ELOISE!”
“Panikkar to Buckley,” I bark into my radio, “I believe we’re looking for someone named Eloise.”
“And Zoe,” May croaks out, her eyes searching frantically. “Ellie’s twelve and Zoe’s a junior.”
“Panikkar to all units, Panikkar to all units, we’re looking for a twelve-year-old girl named Eloise and her older sister Zoe.” I can hear Buck and Eddie start to yell their names over the side of the wall. Silence.
“Help us, please!!” A small voice calls. May’s eyes widen as a hand appears through a hole in the debris.
We run over. “Ellie, it’s May,” she squeezes the small hand. “Where’s Zoe?”
“She’s stuck!” The girl sobs. I can barely make out her features through the gap. “It’s too heavy, I can’t lift it! She’s bleeding!”
May looks around, then points toward another gap in the rubble. “Do you think you can fit through here?”
“But what about Zoe?”
May’s face crinkles with sadness, but her voice never falters. A true dispatcher. “The firefighters are here to help.”
I nod, putting my hand on May’s shoulder to try and calm her. “Ellie, right? My name’s Ravi. My friends and I are gonna help your sister, but I know that she’d feel much better if she knew that you were safe.”
“O-Okay.” A blonde head appears through the bigger cavity, and May and I pull the young girl out as an RA unit pulls up behind the ladder truck. Her knees are pretty scraped up, but other than that, she’s fine; it seems her sister took the brunt of the fall. I pass Eloise off to the paramedics, and by the time I turn back, I see May’s white cheer shoes disappear into the rubble.
“Shit,” I mutter, running back over. “May!” I whisper into the hole. No answer. I barely fit as I crawl in after her, finally finding her at the end of Eloise’s bloody trail. “May! You shouldn’t-”
Then, I see her. Zoe. Her arm pinned between two large pieces of concrete, a pool of blood spread around her. “Help me get this off of her, will you?!” May begs, pushing against the top piece. Zoe shrieks in pain. The debris around us shudders.
“May, stop!” I yell. “You could bring this whole thing down on top of us!” I pick up my radio. “Panikkar to Buckley and Diaz, Eloise is accounted for, and I’ve located Zoe about twenty feet in from the Bravo wall. I need backup.”
Static buzzes. “We’re on our way.”
I rip a piece off of the bottom of Zoe’s tshirt and tie it around her arm as a makeshift tourniquet. “We’ve got this May, you should go.”
“I’m not leaving her!” She insists.
“It’s not safe! Bobby’ll kill me if-”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, please.”
“Eddie and Buck will be here soon. Go. That’s an order.”
“An order?” She guffaws, then softens, looking up at me earnestly. “You and I both know that Zoe doesn’t have that long. Let me save my friend.” As if on cue, Zoe’s head rolls to the side as she loses consciousness. “Zoe? Oh god, Zoe?!”
Adrenaline bursts through me as I jump to my feet and grip the slab, lifting with all of my strength. Metal creaks above us as May joins me, lifting the rock up an inch. I nod to her, allowing her to let go long enough to pull Zoe free before dropping it back down. The rubble around us groans, dropping rocks onto our heads. I throw my body over theirs as metal, glass, and concrete pelt against my back, surely leaving bruises. I don’t dare to breathe until it stops.
“R-Ravi?” May’s voice is muffled under my turnout.
I pull myself off of them, regaining my bearings before pressing my radio. “RA unit on the Bravo side, I need a backboard and C-collar.”
I leave the girls to retrieve them, getting confused looks from the paramedics as my head appears through the hole in the wall. May helps me load Zoe onto the board and crawls ahead of us out of the collapsed stadium. We watch with tired smiles as the ambulance doors close on Eloise and Zoe’s relieved embraced from inside.
May sighs. “We make a good team, don’t we, Panikkar?”
“You’re a pain my ass,” I chuckle, “But yeah, we do.”
“Ravi!” Bobby’s voice makes me jump. “There you are!”
“Hi, Cap,” I whip around, gesturing for May to hide. She flattens herself against the truck.
“What happened to waiting for backup?” Bobby has that half-stern, half-impressed look on his face, the one usually reserved for Evan Buckley. “Did you save those girls all alone?”
I clear my throat, stealing a glance toward May, who Bobby still hasn’t noticed. “I mean, are any of us ever really alone when we’ve got a team like the 118 behind us?”
Bobby laughs awkwardly. “S’pose not, kid. Nice hustle, but don’t go lone wolf again.”
“Thanks, Cap,” I nod, looking back toward May, but she’s gone.
…
Exhausted and dust-covered, we silently pile into the ladder truck a few hours later. “What’s this?” asks Bobby, cocking his head at a folded paper on the front passenger seat. It’s May’s. I know it. I yank the paper out of his hands and stuff it into my pocket, reaching for my seatbelt to cover the flush in my cheeks.
“That’d be mine,” I shrug. “Sorry for littering. Won’t happen again, Cap.”
Bobby squints at me and chuckles. “At ease, probie. I believe you.”
I hop out of the rig as soon as the engine shuts off, making a beeline for my turnout rack. I hastily change, only taking a peek at the note when I am safely behind the door of a bathroom stall. A cell phone number is scrawled onto the back of a flier. I smile to myself as I head upstairs for dinner with a pep in my step.