The Firehouse's dispatch calls out Harris Sarkisian's number, twelve. As in Engine Company 23, Truck Company 12. He doesn't need to listen to anything else after that, just suit up and run. That's it. That's his job. But he listens anyway, as he races through the shop, shrugging into his heavy uniform jacket.

"—commercial and residential fire, 2404 East Kilbourne Street," the dispatcher calls out.

"Holy shit! It's the Avantgarde!" Harris yells, grabbing the rail guards to swing into the pump truck, booted feet first.

Colin, always the driver, rumbles just like his diesel engine. "So it is?"

"I had a date there the other week! My... ah... It's a fancy place." Harris trails off. Now probably isn't the time to tell his company that Avantgarde is his dad's 'best kept secret in Wisconsin' or that it was the twenty-second blind date he set up for Harris.

Colin doesn't seem to mind a bit of chit-chat, though. "Only the best for Milwaukee's finest, huh?"

"You betcha!" Harris catches his finger-guns in the long side-mirror of the Truck 12. Super-cringe, but at least Colin can't see him from the driver's seat.

Lt. Jung, however—that's the truck twelve's officer Lt. Jung!—misses nothing.

"At least five guests are unaccounted for. Probably more," Jung says, climbing in. "Buckle up, Sarkisian."

"Yes, Sir!" Harris calls in.

Jung's bushy brows furrow under the shiny dome of his bald head as he looks for flaws.

The rush of adrenaline exaggerates how funny it is, so giggles tickle Harris' throat. He dry-swallows. "I'm all strapped in, Sir."

"You want stickers, enroll in kindergarten." Jung's face smoothens as much as the deeply cut folds by his mouth allow.

Why didn't he just bite his tongue? Lt. Jung doesn't make wrong calls. If he called Harris out, there was a perfect, by-the-book reason for it.

Just like on the day when Jung pulled Harris' dead-beat mother out of the car first, and Dad ended up in the wheelchair.... This was swift decision-making under pressure at its best, most definitely not connected to Lt. Jung banging Mom in secret...

It's better not to think about it, just like it's been better to not mention it to anyone. Dad has suffered enough!

Mercifully, Colin lays on the horn and the truck takes off. Faster, faster, faster! Can a pump truck racing to a fire drive fast enough to outrun all his sad shit?

The cars scramble out of their way, turning into pale streaks next to the red engine. The sirens scream over Milwaukee for someone whose life is more effed-up than his. He can walk into the fire and fix it for them.

No, it's not easy, but it's simple, and he loves it that way.

Colin stomps on the brakes. The mountain of red metal and shiny nickel nearly rears up like a buckling colt. Nice!

"We're here," Colin says.

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Harris mutters, unstrapping. 

There is no mistaking this building for any other hotel in Milwaukee. The blocky letters on the four-story building spell AVANTGARDE, and if that's not enough, there's a hexagonal tower on the hotel's street corner, topped with a bronze cupola. A few days ago, when he was chatting up a girl over seared ahi-tuna, the façade wasn't covered in smoke and the windows didn't glow a savage, pulsating orange... but even burning, the Avantgarde is striking.

No wonder the gawkers press at the patrol lines, gasping and taking selfies. Even the cops dart glances between shouting and pushing the crowd back. The local newscaster swings her microphone like a conductor's baton, and her cameraman films Fire Chief Villarreal's arrival instead of the EMS setting up a triage shop. Wrong move for the Local News at Six. Despite the Chief's soap-worthy name and looks, his commands don't add drama.

"Hampton, Brady, Weiss. Sweep the ground and the second floor." The Chief speaks like he's ticking off items from a shopping list. "Jung, Sarkisian—do the third. Erdmann, Greysky, prepare to vent the roof."

"Aye-aye, Sir!" Harris shouts over the sounds of the mustering forces, but his attention is on the gear. The infrared device, ever flakey... come on, come on... check! Jung's wide back is already to him when he lifts his gaze from it.

The lieutenant is efficient, so marvelously efficient, a paragon! One day, he'll unmask Jung, and he'll do it without messing with dad's already effed-up life. One day.

Harris slaps his helmet on, cringing at the familiar pressure on his skull, but it slows down his racing thoughts too while he runs after Jung toward the building. He's ready to work.

The door sticks, he yanks and lunges in... to collide with a wall of solid flesh and thick, fire-resistant fabric. Jung has stopped just inside the lobby, arms folded behind his back, hands clasped, his chin is up. Harris hasn't had a chance to shorten his step, nothing. Is Jung whistling show-tunes to the sculpted molding on the ceiling or what?

Harris murmurs an apology, but Jung bites off, "Watch your step, boy." Then he unclasps his hands. "Let's wedge that door."

The alarms buzz through Avantgarde, but the lights have guttered out, plunging the hotel's interior into gloom. A rogue sunbeam slashes through the gap in the curtains to hit a wall mirror. The reflection lands on the empire-style chairs, perfect for dealing with the dumb door. Harris' mom would have gasped to see him crush it with his foot... His jaw tightens. Right now, this chair is wood and fabric, not an artisanal piece.

Ignoring the interior, Jung leads their way up the marble staircase to the mezzanine. Harris follows two paces behind his boss. Eyes up, eyes up, rattles through his mind, but his glance keeps sweeping the decor. Too bad he's the only one to see this gothic-quality stuff, before the fire turns it ugly.

By the time Harris climbs the narrower stairway to the third floor, Brady and Weiss locate four out of the five MIAs. This leaves one more unaccounted for guest somewhere in here.

Smoke thickens around him with each step until he walks through a soup of ash. But it doesn't matter. He'll walk through a nuclear fallout or a meteor shower to get something right today. Just one thing. One decision. One win. One!

Jung clicks the radio. "The stairway cleared up to the third."

The first tongues of flames lick the wall opposite to where they come from the fire exit. Burning flakes rain from the ceiling. Fluffy ash builds up in the corners.

"Work back from the tower suite!" Jung hollers. "We'll meet in the middle."

"Rodger that, ro—" The trickle from the oxygen tank tickles Harris' throat. He coughs. "Rodger."

With a resounding crash, Jung kicks in the closest door. "Fire department! Call out!"

The pause fills with the groans of burning stone, wood and plastic, nothing remotely human. The plastic makes the worst stink so far, even through the filter. Harris stumbles on. If their MIA is out there somewhere, he will turn Heaven and Earth to find them. To do it before there are human screams or the smell of charred flesh.

The pitch-black darkness cloaks his end of the hallway. "Anyone in? Call out! It's the Milwaukee Fire Department!"

Not a peep in response.

"Clear! Stand back!" Harris swings his foot and kicks at the lock with gusto.

He wants that wood to splinter under his boot...

... and the door swings inward so readily, Harris almost tumbles inside, dropping into a crouch to break the fall.

"Jesus H. Christ!" Why the hell is it unlocked?

Jung's voice chases him like a wasp. "Harris? Report!"

"I'm inside the suite!"

He straightens and... bingo!

The woman lays supine on the very edge of the king-sized bed, his for the rescuing. She's naked save for a strip of black lace over her butt. Her hair blazes red even in the low light as it stretches in a long plume to the other side.

"One female in." There's a tremble in his voice, but the static would cover it up. It's okay. He got here in time, right? Right? He lurches for the bed and draws his glove off to push the hair off the girl's neck.

First thing first: the airway's clear. Pulse? Here it is, a weak quiver under his fingers.

"Alive, but unresponsive," he describes the girl for Jung's benefit.

Also trapped and helpless. What? He thought that the air quality was better in the suite than in the hall, but he strains to breathe, strains to think.

Too slowly, his thoughts congeal into something sensible. Trapped: the girl in the suite is trapped, because she was staged after she's passed out. Helpless: the girl is helpless because she's nearly naked. Maybe it was innocuous, a sexy role-play. Then why was their door unlocked? Nobody wants to be interrupted when playing a burglar and a captive maid. And where is her partner?

"Jung!" Harris calls out into the radio. "Finding... finding anyone else?"

"No!"

"Don't think she was alone!"

"Check the suite!"

Another great call by Lt. Jung. "Call out!" Harris hollers to the room.

Nothing. Was the girl's partner a run-of-the-mill coward who's saved himself? Or is he hiding?

The blackout curtains are partially open and evening light filters through the gap, but it's not enough. Harris steps away from the bed and rotates in one place, pointing with infrared. If he had to hide, where would he go?

Under the bed? Kids often die like that, but no. Nobody's there.

The en-suite?

A walk-in closet?

"Milwaukee Fire Department! Anyone here?"

Harris tries the doors one by one.

The first is the walk-in closet, stuffed with fancy clothes. Harris shoves the frocks aside with his elbow, but there's too many. He jerks them off the hangers and tosses them on the floor. Nobody, neither a villain nor a lover, is hiding behind the girl's finery.

Next door leads into a giant bathroom.

"Hello! Anyone here?" Harris' boots scrape on the tiles, the injured building groans, and nothing else touches his hearing. "Call out!"

A fit of cough cuts his voice off. His chest... His chest catches onto something. A cord? What effing cord?

Something pops to his left, about as loud as a champagne's cork. The doors of the wall cabinet swing outward like it's a cuckoo clock. He stares at it while it moves—I'm an idiot!—so the mini-blast blinds him.

By the time he blinks the spots out of his vision, the wood's engulfed in flames.

"God!" He leaps out, slamming the bathroom's door shut behind him. Is this enough to contain the hazard in the bathroom? Away from the girl on the bed? He leans all his weight against the door. His heart pounds its way out of his chest. "Jung! Jung, come in! I've just... I nicked a tripwire. Some psycho rigged the bathroom!"

This is arson and it's his job to suspect it, but for the arsonist to get him like this for doing his job? That's just screwy, and it makes the fire personal. Like it's about this girl and him, the man who came to her rescue.

"Jung! Come in!" Why isn't Jung responding? He's losing it... he must be oxygen-starved. Harris bangs the back of his head against the door... stop this crap! "Jung! Can you hear me?"

Jung clicks twice to confirm that he's receiving.

What else did he expect? He's a firefighter, and not that new at his job. He should act instead of plastering himself against the stupid door and yelling into the radio like some chicken shit.

"One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Three-one-thousand." Harris' voice drops from shrill to steady, but his mouth is bone-dry. It's like all the moisture in his body rushed out through his pores as sweat. Its goopy layer glues the tee-shirt to his back under the fire-retardant overalls.

"Four-one-thousand." This trap isn't a killing kind. It's more like a practical joke. A sinister joke, but a joke.

"Five-one-thousand." His stomach is no longer clenched. He peels his back from the door and returns for the girl. "What kind of games are you into?"

Games can leave one broke and broken—don't ask him how he knows. Maybe someone has played a cruel game with this girl? Is this why his heart is pounding so fast, like she's calling for his help and he can't get there fast enough? Not just professionally, as in, 'Sarkisian, do your job to carry me to safety'. More like... she needs him to be a superhero.

"Sarkisian, come in!" Jung says over the hiss of static. "You aren't on a date today."

Blood drains from Harris' face. "Sir, the woman here, she... she might have been a victim of foul play."

"Later! Get out now."

Like it doesn't matter? Maybe Jung is right. Maybe, they're lucky, and the fire took care of their psycho arsonist already. But what's with his gut feeling that the girl needs to escape more than her burning room? Harris scoops her up from the bed, and she's lighter than a feather in his arms.

"I'm coming out with a carry-on."

A loud bang interrupts his shuffling progress to the door of the suite. The explosion silences all other rustling, hissing and crackling for a terrible second. The walls shake. Every ounce of Harris' strength goes into keeping his footing and his grip on the girl. Panic sweeps through him.

"Jung! Jung, come in!"

The sounds of burning resumes with a vengeance. The gap under the tower suite's door glows angry red. Is this the man-down alarm or the ringing in his ears? Did... did karma catch up to Jung for what he did to dad? Karma's a bitch.

"Sarkisian, you're cut off," Jung grunts into the radio after the scariest second today. "Go onto the balcony."

A sigh of relief escapes Harris, a deep, cleansing exhale. All three of them survived: Jung, the girl and him. Except, if the fire strikes the balcony before the truck's ladder, the day will end with another great call for Jung, and another loss for Harris. One ultimate loss. 

***

Great thanks to still_just_me (@still_just_me) for an amazing cover for this story!!!