The Wright Way

Chapter 1

I can't see a thing in this damn smoke.

I duck down, where the air is cooler, and continue to move blindly, tracing my hands on the floor, the wall, and the occasional furniture. A bookshelf. A desk. I search underneath it but find only a few papers destined to go up in flames any moment.

"There's a desk," I call out.

Not that Mike cares about the desk, but he needs to know where I am. Searching the middle of the room, he only has my voice to orient himself.

"Nothing here," he says from somewhere in the smoke. Then he curses and something falls, the noise momentarily overriding the crackling of the fire in the kitchen and the distant cacophony of agitated voices.

"I got a chair," he calls after a pause. "The chair got me, more like."

"Okay," I say.

Where is she? We've checked the bedroom already. The bathroom? The kitchen is not an option. The fire had started there, so she would have fled—or she's dead already.

"A sofa," I announce as my hands encounter the leathery fabric. I get on my knees and push a hand underneath it. Not enough space for a young woman to squeeze into.

Maybe she's not here. Her friend downstairs was disoriented and hysterical, and I could smell alcohol on her over the stink of the smoke. They had a party. The guests left. She fell asleep. When she woke up, there was fire. Maybe her roommate had left the apartment before her, and we're searching in vain, risking our–

My hand encounters something soft on the floor, and my heart stops for a moment. I strain to see but the smoke is too thick. I pull my glove off and check again, and yes, it's a hand. My fingers travel up the naked arm up to the body curled into a fetus position.

"Got her!" I call out.

The renewed rush of adrenalin sends my heart into overdrive. I scoop the limp body into my arms and get shakily to my feet. She's light as a feather, and just as lifeless.

"Good job." Mike's voice seems to come from miles and miles of clouding smoke.

I head towards the exit, using the wall to find my way and verbalizing my progress to Mike so that he could follow. Outside the apartment, more of our guys drag the hose line up the stairs. They pause and press into the wall to let me pass as I make my way down with my burden.

One flight of stairs down, I'm beginning to be able to see her. Short black hair, eyes closed, pale skin stained with soot. A pang of recognition makes me pause, but no, it's not him. The hair looks similar, and the shape of the face. I look down, my feet feeling for the next step, her body obscuring the view. Her revealing night gown barely conceals anything, its silky material slippery under the fingers of my gloveless hand.

A sinner's gown.

I push the thought away and emerge into the night filled with flashing lights and running people. The ambulance is parked at a safe distance. A small crowd of spectators shout and cheer, and it takes me a moment to realize their reaction is aimed at me. I'm carrying someone to safety. I've seen others do it, but tonight, for the first time, I'm the one doing it.

"Put her down, put her down," someone says, and I lower her to the ground next to the ambulance, placing her carefully onto the shortly cut grass of the lawn. It prickles her naked skin but she's oblivious to it. I pull the hem of her nightgown down, concealing her underwear from the peering crowd. Then, two paramedics edge me away, kneeling next to her, and I can only see her hand lying limply on the ground, like a forgotten toy—the very hand that I found in the smoke.

"Coming in again?"

I turn and find Mike a few steps away from me, grinning through his mask, and I just nod.

It's only hours later, when I enter my apartment, that the noises begin to leave my ears and the adrenalin drains out of my body. The smell is still there, though, even though I've changed my clothes. It's clinging to my skin and my hair even in the haven of my empty home.

I sit down on the bed and rub my face and try to banish the image of the girl on the ground, a medical mask on her face. Maybe I'll call in the morning to see if she's pulled through. Or check the local news. Or maybe I won't. Sometimes it's better not to know. Maybe it was her punishment, after all. Her way of life that's caught up with her—the parties, the alcohol, the living alone in a big city.

I rub my face again, feeling tired.

They wanted me to go out with them, to unwind after the shift.

"You're joining us this time, period," Mike said to me when we were gathering the equipment under the wet, dirty building, the blackened windows of the top floor aimed at us like empty eye sockets. " This was your first time, wasn't it?"

Other guys made whooping noises and I grinned like an idiot, shaking my head.

"Come on," one of them yelled. "Make an exception, this one time. You saved the girl."

"You should go, Ethan," said chief Lagana. He was smiling at me, but his eyes were serious, as if he, unlike the others, had an inkling of what was going on in my mind. "You don't have to drink. Just hang out with the guys, unwind a little."

"No," I said. "Thank you, but no."

And here I am now, in my home that looks like a prison cell with its simple bed, table and a chair. It's not necessarily a bad thing, though. Cells work both ways. They keep you inside, but they also prevent the outside world from bursting in and swallowing you whole.

I must get some rest before I can face it again.