Page 47 of Rival Hearts

Fortunately for them, the stairs were metal and the fire hadn’t penetrated the stairwell, so they made quick progress to the first floor.

She could hear her breath coming quicker as she worked and she felt like she could also hear her heart beating out of her chest.

Jett knew what she had to do. This was her legacy. She had been prepared her entire life for a situation like this, and she was going to make sure that she saved as many lives as she could.

As they made it to the first floor and opened the doors to the warehouse floor, Jett’s vision was totally obscured by smoke.

“Help!” Jett heard a call and tapped Leilani on the shoulder.

Jett turned towards the call with Leilani following her. They moved carefully, checking the floor for stability as they went.

They quickly found two women huddled together under a metal table coughing. A piece of the ceiling fell away and landed on the table with a bang.

Jett and Leilani were quick to act. Jett knew they had to get them out of there as soon as possible.

“Come here,” Jett offered her hand. “Hold my shoulder, don’t let go, let’s get out of here.”

Jett moved quickly, knowing that the longer they stayed in there, the more damage the smoke would do to their lungs. Between herself and Leilani they soon had the two women back through the warehouse doors to the stairwell where they had come in.

As they bust through the doors into the stairwell, they heard an almighty crash. The building was being compromised. Their stairwell was still fine- they had to get out of there. Leilani pushed ahead at the front helping one of the women as the second of the women started coughing heavily, to the point where she was struggling to walk.

Jett knew that the smoke was already doing its damage to her lungs. She made a decision—not the smartest decision for herself, but a decision to help these two women at any cost.

Jett handed the coughing woman her breathing apparatus, helping her on with the mask and hoisting the cylinder of compressed air onto her back like a backpack. As soon as she removed her mask, she could taste the heavy smoke in the air. Jett knew as she did it she was going against protocol, but she felt like it was her best chance of helping this woman.

The woman took a deep breath of clean air and seemed immediately to be improving.

“You need to get down these stairs and out of here as quickly as possible,” Jett said. “Run and I’ll be right behind you.”

Pieces of the walls and ceiling were already starting to crumble around them, and Jett knew that they really had to hurry.

Jett’s face was exposed, and she also needed to hurry out of the building for her own sake.

The woman nodded and turned away from Jett, focusing on getting down the stairs and out. Jett followed behind her with her fire hood pulled over her mouth and nose for some protection. She still held her helmet in her hand from where she had removed it to take off her face mask.

However, while Jett was focused on the woman in front of her, she wasn’t paying a lot of attention to her own surroundings, and as she neared the last step of the stairs and the woman rushed out of the exit, Jett felt a sudden dull and hot pain on the back of her head.

It was debilitating and she couldn’t focus on anything else as she stumbled forward and fell collapsing onto the floor of the warehouse.

Jett’s last thought was that this was the end as she lost consciousness.

13

RILEY

Riley was in the Emergency Room once again. She was excited for tonight when Jett was scheduled to come over and cook with her again.

Suddenly Dr. Mars burst through the doors to the ER with that look on her face that Riley knew well. That look on her face that meant that something big was going down.

“Everyone, listen up!” she called. “There is a big warehouse fire on the east of town. We need to be prepared for an influx of casualties! Expect trauma, expect smoke inhalation, expect burns, expect the unexpected!”

Riley felt her heart beating quicker. As a trauma surgeon, this was the kind of incident she lived for.

The staff began to make preparations and Riley knew that Dr. Mars was right. The one thing they could expect was to expect the unexpected.

Patients started coming in quickly, nothing life threatening so far, so Dr. Mars was quick to delegate them to lesser doctors than Riley. Riley assisted where she could, but was careful not to take over.

“Right, get this one to the OR and page Dr. Anderson for the surgery.” Riley felt in control of what she was doing, before suddenly, Riley heard a loud shout coming from the ambulance bay.

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