Sirens sounded in the distance. The fire truck would be here soon. Soon enough? Probably not for Prita.
Fuck. Fuck!
But he still couldn’t move. He had to. He had to.
Something came barrelling out the back door and smacked into him, making him stumble back and almost fall down the stairs behind him. He caught himself on the banister, stopping them both from tumbling into the backyard.
‘Flynn?’ Prita stared up at him. In the glow of moonlight, he could see her face was covered in sweat, smudges of black marring the skin around her nose and in the tears streaming from her eyes. She wasn’t wearing anything over her face. She’d been breathing in the smoke!
‘Damn it, Prita.’
‘No time to tell me off now.’ She bent almost double, coughing, sounding like she was hacking up a lung. She managed to look up and squeeze out a breathless, ‘We’ve got to run. The fire was too big. I couldn’t put it out. It’s in the storeroom with the oxygen tanks.’
‘Ah shit.’
He grabbed her arm and was going to pull her down the stairs but she was coughing so much, she could barely move. Without thinking, he picked her up in his arms, slung her across his shoulder in a fireman hold and ran down the stairs just as an explosion sounded behind them.
He jumped down from the porch, a twanging pain in his knee making him stagger, almost dropping her. But he didn’t stop. He had to get away from the back door. The roar of the fire was hot and hard behind him. He ran towards the water tanks at the back of the garden. If he could only get behind them, they’d have some protection if the place blew. He’d almost made it when a strange loud pop, a rushing sound then a roar, had him leaping forward, head smacking into the side of the water tank and rolling until he and Prita were behind it.
The night lit up around them.
As he looked down at Prita’s soot-smeared face, the world turned black around him and the next thing he knew, he was lying on his back, someone calling his name.
‘Flynn! Flynn! Open your eyes.’
Sirens were all around him. Voices called out, their urgency grating along his nerves making him flinch away from them, away from the crackle and pop of burning things and the roar that only belonged to a large fire. But even through the noise, he could hear a voice—her voice—calling to him like a Siren song.
‘Doctor Brennan. Are you okay?’
‘Max. Go and get my doctor’s kit from my car. It’s open. Hopefully the fire didn’t get it.’
Hands on his face, his head, his chest. ‘Flynn, Flynn. Can you hear me? Open your eyes.’ Her voice sounded rough and she coughed-wheezed while talking. He wanted to tell her to stop, to take care of herself, but he couldn’t seem to make himself say the words.
‘Here Doctor Brennan. The fire truck from Walhalla is here and so is the CFA from Rawson. They’re working on the fire already.’
‘Thank god.’ Her hands left him and then she was back, a light flicking in his eyes.
‘Doctor Prita, you need to put this on. You’ve breathed in a lot of smoke.’ He knew that voice. It was Mac.
‘I’ve just got to help Flynn first.’ Her voice sounded rough and she coughed-wheezed a bit while talking. ‘Let me do my job, would you?’
‘What happened?’
‘He fell pretty hard, and I think he lost consciousness for a moment. Come on, Flynn, open your eyes.’
‘The ambulance is coming.’
‘It’ll take too long to get here. Let me just take care of him, okay?’ She took a gasping breath, then coughed again. ‘I’m fine. Oh for god’s sake,’ she said around her coughing. ‘Here, give me that. I’ll breathe in a couple of puffs if it’ll make you feel better.’
‘It will,’ Mac said, his voice dry. ‘Although the point is to make you feel better.’
There was silence for a moment and then, ‘There, happier?’ More coughing but not at all muffled by an oxygen mask.
‘You need more than a couple of puffs.’
‘I promise you, I’m fine. You and Max should be helping with the—’ A hacking cough. ‘They need you more than I do, Mac.’
‘You won’t be able to help Flynn if you pass out, Doctor Prita.’
‘I’ll take care of Flynn and then I promise I’ll have some more oxygen too.’
‘There’s two tanks. Two masks. Put yours on and then I’ll go.’
‘Oh, bloody hell, fine.’ There was some muttering and then a muffled, ‘Happier?’
‘A bit.’
‘Go. Just go help. Let me look after my patient.’
They must have gone then, because there was no answer, just the sound of Darth Vader breathing above him and the feel of cool hands running over him, checking his pulse and for breaks, cuts and burns, he guessed. Something was placed on his face and a sweet coldness filled his lungs on his next breath. Ah, that was better. It beat the thick, nausea-making smoke he’d been breathing in.
‘Flynn. Can you hear me?’ A muffled cough. ‘Squeeze my hand if you can. Open your eyes.’
His head ached, his throat felt like he’d chowed down on burning coal and then vomited it up again, even with the pure sweet oxygen filling his nose and throat and lungs. His knee and shoulder were throbbing like a son of a bitch. He could still hear the fire roaring and crackling in the background, eating everything in its wake, insatiable, leaving ash and emptiness in its path. The last thing he wanted to do was open his eyes and see it, see the devastation. But then she coughed violently and he couldn’t
