Crammed into the back of the rig, pressed shoulder to shoulder with Buck, staring out at the damage the earthquake had caused – Ollie was living her worst nightmare. While staring out at the wreckage, her brain couldn't stop going over what Evan had said before, and it didn't help that his cologne kept drifting through her nostrils, entangling into the thoughts. The only positive thing it was doing was keeping her mind off of the fact that the roads were bumpy, and that was only until something was large enough to knock all of her thoughts away.

    Turning her head, she caught eye contact with Chimney, who was studying her intensely. She raised her eyebrows at him, causing him to shrug, turning his head and looking away.

    Buck broke the silence in the rig, facing Eddie. "Is everything okay?" At the words, her eyes moved to her friend, noticing the way his brow was furrowed. It didn't take much for her to realize that he was probably thinking about Christopher, who was still at school when the earthquake happened.

    "Yeah. There's no service. Texts won't even get through." Eddie huffed, throwing his phone into his lap and looking up at Buck.

    The blonde's head tilted, curiosity framing all parts of his face. "Who you trying to get ahold of?"

    Eddie's face looked contemplative at first, as if trying to decide what to say, before he finally spoke. "My son. I'm trying to reach my son."

    "Whoa, you got a kid?"

    "You didn't tell them about Christopher?" Ollie butted in, her brow furrowing as she leaned towards Eddie. She couldn't judge much, especially with how little she had revealed about herself and how much time she didn't spend with the team outside of work, but it was still kind of a crazy thing to keep secret. Eddie wasn't like her, she knew that.

    The man gave her a look from across the way before turning his phone to show Buck a photo of Christopher. They got into a talk about him, Eddie explaining how his mother wasn't in the picture and Buck consoling Eddie that Christopher was most likely okay. Ollie had drowned out the noise by then, her hand clinging on to the handle of the door and her eyes shutting tightly as the rig rocked back and forth.

    Her eyes only opened when a hand was placed on her free arm, giving it a slight squeeze. Her head turned to look at Buck, who was looking at her with more softness in his eyes than she had seen in a while. It made her squirm in her seat, her hand moving off of the handle to tuck both of them into her turnouts, pulling her arm away from Buck. If she hated anything, it was pity. She had had so much in her life, she was tired of it.

    Even if his eyes felt nice on her, she couldn't handle it that way.

   
It took a while to get to where the call was coming from due to the wreckage in the streets. Buildings had windows blown out, parts of the structure lying in the streets, street signs and everything thrown everywhere. It was chaos.

    When they arrived and piled out of the rig, their eyes feasted upon a building, tilted towards the street rather than sitting straight up. Multiple stations were on scene, pulling away people from the building and helping look through the rubble that they could pull away, along with attempting to put up supports for what was still standing. As the firefighters stared at the mess, policemen were pulling a couple away from the building. Ollie listened to them scream about how their kid, Kat, was still stuck inside.

    It all felt too intense. Loud noises, voices muddling with each other, sirens echoing from around the city. It was an immense pressure on Ollie's shoulders, one that she knew came with the job and yet never disappeared, anyway. Her ears seemed to ring as she followed everyone to look for the incident commander, everyone's words seeming like a buzz among everything else.

    She took a deep breath as they walked up to the woman in charge of the scene. She went over the situation, about how it was a hotel inbetween checkout and check-in. Most of the staff and visitors had been rescued, but there were still a few stuck inside, including the child from before. They continued moving through a plethora of different information, like the building structure.

    After they were finally left alone, Ollie slightly leaned into Eddie to listen to Nash. He gave a small pep talk before telling everyone that they didn't have to go into the building if they didn't want to. Fortunately for him, he had a strong and stubborn team, and it didn't take long for everyone to agree that they'd do whatever they can – even if it made Ollie's heartrate pick up just a bit.

    Eddie had just asked where Nash wanted them before a police officer grabbed them, leading the way down the street. Glancing up, Ollie let out a soft gasp in surprise, her hand immediately moving to smack onto her mouth when she realized what she had done.

    A man had slid when the building structure had collapsed, smacking himself up against a window up on the eleventh or twelfth floor. From where they stood, it looked precarious. While windows tended to be made of thicker glass to prevent anything like weather causing issues, it definitely wasn't thick enough to support somebody's whole body weight, much less a grown man's.

    Eddie and Buck were talking about ways to get up to grab him, whispering among themselves. They were talking about getting up to the eleventh floor through the fourth floor, immediately offering themselves up to go rescue the man against the window pane. Nash gave them the 'okay,' and Ollie watched silently as they immediately skittered off.

    Her head snapped back to the captain as he explained that himself, Chim, Hen and Ollie would go into the rubble, seeking out any stuck survivors and escorting them out safely. She nodded to show she heard them, the blood roaring in her ears in determination. The ideas of earthquakes were frightening, and the entire day weighed down on her shoulders, but she knew she had to focus and get the job done, no matter how long it took her.

    She followed closely behind Captain Nash as he led the way into the fractured building. A couple steps in and they encountered their first corpse, only identifiable by the shiny red heels on her feet, left with a spray painted 'X' to mark as deceased. A few steps later, they encountered another firefighter leading an injured woman out, who told them about a teenager stuck underneath the rubble a bit ahead.

    The kid was a close call. A leg pinned underneath a fallen pillar, crushing his tibia and pinning him to the ground. It was a choice between amputation and risking his life, and he chose risking his life so that he could continue to play basketball. An airbag, a painful leg movement and some nice teamwork later, Jeff was passed off to the trauma surgeons, out and away from what was left of the restaurant.

    While crossing over a beam that served as their only way above a gap in the floor, Ollie's eye caught a twinkle of something in the crater. Curiosity growing the best of her, she reached down to grab it, her fingers closing over a child's shoe. Her mind immediately flickered back to the couple that had been yelling outside when they had shown up, her heart jumping into her throat. "Kat? Kat!" 

    When no answer was given, she looked up, eyes finding her captain. "Cap, we have a kid's shoe. The... the couple from before, they were missing their daughter, Kat. Can we figure out what color shoe she was wearing?" She asked rushedly, pushing her helmet up on her head as she clutched the shoe close to her chest.

    Nash nodded, stepping away to speak into his walkie while Ollie shined her flashlight into the crater beneath her, squinting her eyes for any sign of life. He got back to her quickly, walking at a brisk pace. "That's her shoe. Parents said she was on her way to the restroom when the 'quake hit."

    "Restrooms are cleared, Cap." Chimney noted.

    "Then where's Kat?" Ollie questioned, her head spinning with the multiple different scenarios that could have played out. She was brave and could shoulder a lot of things, especially being a firefighter, but she didn't know what she would do if she had to see the lifeless body of a six-year-old.

    The captain looked at her closely before nodding. "Okay, let's get USAR back in here with thermal cameras." He ordered, starting to moving his flashlight around in hopes of finding something, the same way Chim, Hen and Ollie currently were.

    She separated herself from the group, arms growing sore from the amount of times she had to physically vault herself over fallen debris but her determination all the same. Her eyes squinted when she shined her flashlight into the face of another firefighter, reading the numbers on his helmet. "221? You're not from around here." She noted, pulling herself over a larger piece of the building, ignoring the way her lungs burned.

    "All hands on deck, right?" He mused, and she gave a dry chuckle in response.

    Ollie continued looking around, slowly making her way back to the 118 firefighters, continuing to call out for the kid. Before she could move over the beam to join Nash and Chim, the ground started to shake again, an aftershock just a bit less stronger than the actual earthquake ripping through the ground. Rocks and dust from debris flew around her and she lost her balance, falling to her hands and knees.

    She attempted to move forward, to crawl to safety or closer to her team, but to no avail. Her captain's calls for her fell on deaf ears as she was tossed into the crack in the ground beneath the beam, her own scream cut off by a larger piece of foundation falling atop her, hiding her from the rest of the building.