Not that they wouldn’t go all just-in-case and get to looking. Speaking of which…
Captain Bridges’ voice filled Kellan’s ear from the two-way radio clipped just below the shoulder of his turnout gear. “Squad Six, we need a vent on this roof immediately if not sooner. Gates, you and Faurier get a move on. Hawkins and Dempsey, take primary search and rescue, Gamble, you and Slater ready the lines, and Walker and McCullough, back up squad on S&R. I want this fire knocked down before it grows any more teeth, people. Go.”
Gamble straightened to the top of his six-foot, five-inch frame, throwing a look from Kellan to Shae. “You heard the captain,” he said, but Kellan’s boots had already started to thump over the cracked asphalt.
“Yes, sir.” Sparing only the seconds necessary to grab his Halligan bar from its spot in Engine Seventeen’s storage compartment, he fell into step with Shae, who was right on the squad lieutenant’s boot heels on the concrete sidewalk leading up to the house. Under normal circumstances, Hawk probably would’ve come off with a smartassed quip in that slow, Southern drawl of his. But pleasantries—hell, anything other than locked and loaded intensity—fell to the wayside the second something went from a smolder to a burn.
This house definitely fit the freaking bill. “All right,” Hawk bit out, barely looking over his shoulder as he clanged past the waist-high chain link fence marked with signs warning NO TRESPASSING. “This place is goin’ up fast, so don’t dawdle. Dempsey, you’re my door man. McCullough, once we’re in, you and Walker hit the basement and sweep from the bottom up. Dempsey and I will start on the second floor and work our way down. We’ll meet you in the middle.”
“Copy, Lieutenant,” McCullough said, her green stare firm and focused. Their footsteps came to a halt on the timeworn porch boards just shy of the front door. Hawk’s tight nod at Dempsey translated to a nonverbal “breach it,” and Kellan’s gut tightened in a quick jab of anticipation. Dempsey put a punishing kick to the sweet spot in the lower panels, shock flashing both over his face and through Kellan’s veins when the damned thing refused to budge in its casing. A breach like that on a house this old should’ve had the door not just wide open, but halfway off its hinges. No way would the lock hold unless—
“The fuck?” Dempsey grunted, sliding the flat end of his Halligan between the edge of the door and the jamb to visualize the deadbolt. “There’s a steel-reinforced protector screwed into the doorframe.”
Kellan’s brows popped toward the brim of his helmet. Not only was the jamb fortified to the nines, but the deadbolt itself had to be two inches thick. “That’s a shit-ton of hardware for a residence.”
“It’s definitely not your momma’s turn-and-go,” Dempsey agreed, and Hawk spun another gaze over the covered main-level windows and the thick veil of smoke muddying the morning sunlight around them.
“Put those ridiculous breach skills of yours to work, Dempsey. We need entry like five minutes ago.”
“You got it, boss.”
Determination shaped Dempsey’s features, flattening his lips into a thin line as he turned back toward the door. Blood pulsed over Kellan’s eardrums in a white-noise whoosh—thump-thump, Dempsey finessed his Halligan into a space anyone else would’ve thought microscopic, thump-thump, a chock replaced it for leverage to create a bigger gap, thump-thump, the edge of his Halligan found the hairsbreadth again, rocking once, twice, a third time—
The rip and crack of splintering wood never sounded so fucking beautiful.
Hawk didn’t waste so much as a millisecond shouldering his way past the busted-in door and over the threshold after Dempsey, not that Kellan had expected him to. They’d already lost valuable time with the sticky breach, and anyway, everyone’s assignments were crystal. Squinting past the haze, he stepped inside the tiny, barely-visible foyer, primed and ready to find the point of entry to the basement so he and Shae could get to work.
A rush of heat slammed into his lungs, chased quickly by the dark, bitter taste of smoke in his mouth, and damn, they had their work laid out for them.
“All right,” he barked after he’d yanked his mask into place, the hiss of his regulator punctuating the words. “Let’s find a POE to the lower level.”