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minutes before they lost a victim.
    Not on my watch.
    He pushed past Corey and found himself in another room. The source of the fire had to be here—the roar sounded like hell opening up. “We need a line in the west windows now!”
    Shattering glass and then a spray. Jagger moved on. If there had been a victim in that room, he wasn’t a survivor. Nobody could live through an inferno like that.
    “Hey Rookie, hold up.” Corey’s voice. “Watch your step in here.”
    “Wren from Firehouse 9 here. Where have you searched?”
    Two voices answered him, and Jagger thumped Corey’s shoulder. “Let’s get in there and find them before 9 does.”
    Smoke swallowed them as they inched into the flaming home. Pitch blackness surrounded Jagger and he felt cut off from the world as well as his team. But this was the time his instincts usually kicked in.
    He kicked something and it rolled. A ball, maybe? A child’s room?
    “In here,” he heard himself say.
    “We’ve got no visibility in here.” Corey’s intense tone rippled through Jagger’s skull.
    “I can’t hear you. What?” someone else said.
    One of his teammates bumped him from behind. “This is the womb of the house,” Gabriel said.
    Jagger’s skin prickled and he jerked forward, aware he could be falling through a hole in the floor or walking into a wall. But he felt a heartbeat in here—Gabriel was right.
    “Brian here from Ladder 30. I need a light!”
    “Where’s the stairway at? Has anybody found it?” another voice rang.
    Corey turned and spoke rapid-fire to the team. “Jackson and Wally down this hall. Find that stairway and alert the other ladders.”
    Water hit the house with a noise that momentarily drowned the rage of the fire. Then the beast doubled its efforts, roaring flames. A wall of heat almost knocked him flat.
    “I got a bed here,” Gabriel said. “Feeling under it now.”
    “I’ve got the closet. Searching. Fucking shit everywhere,” Corey ranted.
    Jagger felt along a wall and struck a large wooden piece of furniture hard. “Dresser.” He dropped into a crouch and felt between the furniture and the wall. When his hand touched flesh and bone, his throat closed off with relief.
    Jagger’s throat opened and he cried, “I got one!” Reaching into the small space only a child could fit, he wrapped his hands around the body and pulled it into his arms. He couldn’t see if it was a boy or girl, but he sure as hell could tell the child was unresponsive. Smoke inhalation. Seared skin—he swore he could smell it despite his mask.
    All in my head.
    Ripping off his mask, he shared his oxygen, holding his breath as he made for the door with the child in his arms.
    “This is Corey from East Street. We’ve got one victim and are heading out.”
    Jagger placed his mask over his face and gulped for air. “A child about fifty pounds,” Jagger announced, hoping like hell they already had the other victim to safety. He hadn’t been paying close attention to the constant chatter in his ear.
    Gabriel had called the room they were in the womb. The quiet part of the house. In the rest of the space, fire was eating everything in its path. Whoever found the other victim might not be dragging out a live person.
    “Wally here. Found a female. Story 2. We need a ladder. We’re bringing her out the window.”
    Jagger felt a rush of adrenaline as he made his way back through the smoke-clogged blackness toward the exit. He bumped into the couch and nearly fell over it. The child slipped in his arms, but he crushed the body against his chest and ran for it.
    When he broke into the air, water overspray hit his mask and droplets momentarily blinded him as much as the smoke had. The rescue units were running for him, taking the child from his arms and spreading him on a backboard in the grass.
    “Pulse?”
    “Feeling.”
    Jagger turned away, his stomach suddenly hollow. If he’d saved a child only to have him die, he would have a rough few weeks