Chapter 1

"Shut the valve!"

"But Vince, there are still people trapped on the top floor!" I shouted at him.

Black smoke billowed out of the windows on the twenty-eighth floor. I could only imagine how desperate Diane Prescott must have been in there.

Vince Hudson had a cigarette dangling from his lips, its tip glowing and fading in the dark. He shot me a contemptuous glance. "Blake, are you the captain here, or am I? I told you to wait, so you wait."

He jerked his chin toward a balcony on the building next door.

A woman in a skimpy outfit was holding up a selfie stick, posing and preening for her phone camera, with the burning building behind us as her backdrop.

"That's Director Colter Prescott's precious niece. Big-time influencer, millions of followers. She came out specially today to get a taste of real life and film us brave firefighters in action."

"We've got to play along, understand? Once she's found her angle, then we go in."

"That's a human life! It's not a prop for your photo op!" My eyes had gone red with rage.

Before we set out, dispatch had briefed us. The fire had started in Unit 2801. The homeowner was trapped in the bedroom, and the flames had already cut off the exit.

Every second we wasted, their chances of survival shrank.

"Oh? Getting worked up, are we?" Vince laughed. He clapped me on the shoulder and leaned in close to my ear. "I heard the one trapped in there is that ex-girlfriend of yours."

His voice dripped with malicious amusement.

"Isn't that perfect? One big fire, and that embarrassing little chapter of your past burns away clean. You should be thanking me."

All the blood in my body rushed to my head. "Vince!"

"Watch your attitude!" His face darkened. "If you don't want this job, get lost!"

I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms.

Just then, Phil Cooper, the firefighter manning the hydrant, came over the radio, his voice tense. "Captain, the water pressure's unstable. Requesting permission to start the main booster pump!"

That was standard procedure for fighting a high-rise fire.

But Vince picked up the radio and drawled, "No need. Shut off the main water valve."

"What?" On the other end, Phil thought he'd misheard.

"I said, shut off the main water valve." Vince spelled out every word, his tone allowing no argument.

"Are we here to put out a damn fire or set one?" I couldn't hold back anymore and snatched the radio out of his hand. "Phil! Don't listen to him! Start the booster pump! All hose lines, get ready!"

Vince's face instantly turned beet red.

He shoved me away, and I stumbled back several steps into the fire truck.

"Blake! You want to stage a damn mutiny?" He jabbed a finger at my nose. "I can have you stripped of that uniform right now, believe it or not!"

The handful of new recruits were too scared to make a sound. A few of the veterans tried to step in and calm things down, but one glare from Vince sent them right back.

I looked at him, then at the flames growing wilder on that building, and my heart sank lower and lower.

"Captain, the fire's out of control! If we don't get water up there, the building's done for!" the spotter on the aerial ladder truck screamed, his voice going hoarse.

Thick smoke had completely swallowed the top floor and was even starting to creep downward.

"What are you panicking for?" Vince bellowed back impatiently. "Nobody's going to die!"

He turned and looked at me coldly.

"Blake, I think that woman's got you so bewitched you've forgotten who you are."

"Now, I'm ordering you to go move the cordon back about a hundred and sixty feet and clear out everyone who doesn't belong here."

He was trying to get rid of me.

"I'm not going." I stared him dead in the eye. "My job is to save lives."

"You've got some nerve!"