“Come on,” she thought as she looked at her. She reckoned that she was not more than five years old and her heart went out to her. She felt her heart rate going faster as the paramedics loaded the two gurneys into the waiting ambulances. “I hope they make it,” she thought to herself.
“Don’t worry, miss. You did the hard job, we can take it from here,” one of the paramedics said.
“Are they going to be okay?” she asked, concerned.
“Their vitals are stable. And they will be in the emergency room in a few minutes,” the other paramedic said. “They’ll be fine.”
Macy forced a smile.
“Thanks,” she said in a soft voice as the paramedic closed the ambulance doors.
“Just what the hell do you think you were doing?” She heard a male voice ask angrily behind her forcing her to turn around, coming face to face with a tall dark haired man. If it were not for the tone in his voice, she might have found him a little attractive because the truth was that he was. He was probably one of the cutest men she had ever seen aside from Leo of course. His looks had her paralyzed for a short second before her mind snapped out of her trance. She looked at the man and suddenly became aware of him once more, his loud voice as he spoke at her. Quarreled her.
She wanted to tell him off, but she was a bit too concerned with the two kids in the ambulance. She had too many questions about the situation. Like why the kids were alone in the apartment before it went up in flames and somehow all those thoughts were too much for her to indulge his questions. All she could do was stand there and look at him.
“I was helping out which is more than I can say for your team,” she said.
“We were helping too, you know,” the man pointed out. “Or did you not notice the large fire truck in front of the burning building and the men trying to put out the fire?”
“And what were you doing about the kids trapped in the fourth floor who almost died of smoke inhalation?” she asked angrily. “Did your people even check the damn building? Did they clear it?”
“This was not an evacuation, missy. It was a rescue mission. We came out here to put out a fire,” he said in an almost annoyed tone. She raised an eyebrow over the other and shook her head.
“For a rescue mission, you were really taking your sweet time getting the kids out!”
“Where do you get off…” he started and she sighed loudly.
“I was just as useful as you were in this and you know it,” she said angrily.
“Well you should have waited,” he said in a slightly raised voice.
“What do you want me to say? What did you want me to do? Stand by idly and hope for the best?” she asked and he shrugged.
“That wouldn’t have been the worst idea in the world. I mean…you have no training in this,” he said angrily.
“Well, I hate to point this out to you but this is not my first rodeo, mister,” she said as she took off her suit and stuffed it into the hood of her car.
“You need to check yourself,” the man called out to her.
“No, you need to check yourself,” she said as she got into her car and started the engine.
“I have a feeling that this is not over,” Victor said and she smiled.
“That’s because it’s not.” She secured her seatbelt.
“Who are you anyway?” the man asked.
“Macy Yardling. Volunteer fire fighter. And you are?” she asked.
“Victor Racine. Actual fire fighter.”
The tone in his voice was condescending at best.
“When you said this is not over, you were right. Because this is not the last time we will be meeting like this, Victor, is it? So brace yourself.”
She did not need to look at him to know that he was staring daggers at her as she drove away. He knew that she was nothing more than a low income citizen who wanted to play hero. Like everyone else who judged her. She was not sure if she was irritated or pissed off as she drove away from the scene. She would have wanted to stay and see the team through putting out the fire but that man was just too much for her to handle. She had done her part and gotten two kids out of the building. And they were both going to be okay.
By the time she finally got back home, she was still angry with Victor. She did not understand where he came off thinking that he could speak to her the way he wanted. Even shopping for groceries, something that always relaxed her, was not enough to get her to calm down. If anything, she wanted nothing more than to bash his head in or something. Anything to get him to stop talking, from ever talking to her again. She was still upset when she made her way into the apartment. The entire place had a beautiful aroma and she could guess what it was before she even walked in.
“Lasagna?” she asked as he made her way into the kitchen. “How did you know?”
Leo smiled at her as she put her grocery bags on the counter.
“Well, for starters, you sent me a strongly worded text about a man who spoke to you like he owns the world or something of the sort and I knew you would want to comfort eat,” he said as he put a casserole dish on the counter. “And it’s good to go.”
“You went out?” she asked, surprised. She would have expected him to stay in and watch a whole lot of TV. Wallow a little in his misery.
“Your text was a little…incentive. You were there for me last night and I had to do something for you,” he said, smiling. She walked around the counter to where he was and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“You didn’t have to do this, you know. We could have ordered in or something,” she said and he shook his head. “I had a bad day at work but you are still dealing with Andre.”