Page 60 of Falling for the Firefighter
He tugs on his mother's sleeve. "Mom, can I walk with Miss Jo? She knows the secret way out."
His mother looks uncertain, protective instincts warring with the recognition that their son has found something to focus on besides his fear. "Danny, you need to stay with us?—"
"It's okay," I interrupt gently, meeting the parents' eyes. "He can help me navigate. Sometimes having a job makes the scary parts easier."
Danny's father nods slowly. "If Miss Jo doesn't mind..."
"I'd be honored to have such a brave navigator," I tell Danny, extending my hand.
Danny looks up at his parents one more time for permission. When they nod, he slips his small hand into mine with a trust that both humbles and terrifies me.
The return journey begins with Mac taking point, his broad shoulders cutting through the darkness ahead. I watch him organize the civilians—stronger adults supporting the injured woman, teenagers helping with the smaller children. His voice carries back to us, calm and authoritative, as he sets the pace.
"Single file. Stay close to the person in front of you. If you need to stop, call out immediately."
I bring up the rear, Danny's small hand gripping mine with surprising strength. The role reversal feels strange—following instead of leading, watching Mac's headlamp bob ahead while I scan behind us for threats that shouldn't exist but somehow feel possible.
"Why aren't you in front?" Danny whispers, his voice barely audible over the crunch of so many feet on loose stone.
"Someone needs to make sure nobody gets left behind." I squeeze his hand gently. "That's my job now."
The tunnel feels different on the return trip. Longer somehow. The walls seem to press closer, and shadows dance at the edges of our lights in ways that make my skin crawl. Every sound echoes strangely. Footsteps multiply. Voices bouncing off stone until I can't tell if what I'm hearing is real or just the mountain playing tricks.
Behind us, the passage stretches into absolute darkness. Nothing but black air and the weight of stone pressing down. My father's voice whispers in memory:Never trust your back to the mountain, Jo. It's got a sense of humor, and not always a kind one.
Danny stumbles, his weight pulling on my arm. I steady him, feeling how his legs shake with exhaustion. The boy's been breathing smoke for hours and dealing with his fear in equal measure, but he doesn't complain, just looks up at me with eyes that trust me completely.
That trust sits in my chest like a physical weight.
The smoke grows thicker as we progress, seeping through cracks in the ceiling where the fire burns above. My mask filters most of it, but I can still taste ash on my tongue. Can still smell the familiar scent of burning pine mixed with something else—something chemical and wrong.
Accelerants. Someone engineered this hell.
"Mac." I call softly, not wanting to alarm the civilians. "Smoke's getting worse."
His acknowledgment comes back immediately. "Picking up the pace."
But the children are struggling. I see it in the way they lean against their parents, in the increasing frequency of stumbles and whispered complaints. The woman with the sprained ankle moves with visible pain despite Williams' support.
We're moving too slowly.
The mountain groans around us—a sound like settling timbers but deeper, more fundamental. Stone is adjusting to heat and pressure, expanding, finding new configurations as the fire above changes everything. Dust sifts down from overhead, visible in our headlamp beams like falling stars.
I know that sound. It's the same one I heard the day before Sarah's accident, when unseasonable rain saturated the trail above Crystal Falls. The mountain is warning me that something is wrong.
I ignored it then.
Now my skin prickles with awareness, every nerve ending attuned to the subtle vibrations traveling through stone. The mountain is trying to tell me something.
"Mac," I call again, more urgently. "We need to?—"
The rumble starts deep in the mountain's bones.
Not the gentle groaning, but something massive and final. The passage shudders around us like a living thing screamingin pain. Loose stone rains down, pinging off our helmets and shoulders.
"Cave-in!" Mac's shout echoes ahead of us. "Everyone down!"
Scout's warning bark comes a split second before Mac's shout—her superior hearing detecting the subtle shift in stone that precedes catastrophic failure. She pushes Danny and me, shoving us back as rock crashes around us.
