Branded: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World)

lowering herself to the ground, her eyes are glazed and she’s wobbly, gasping for some kind of clean air.
“Martinez! Get the fuck up here!”
I can hear him climbing the stairs as I look at the door, making the call in a split second to kick the center as hard as I can.
With each connection my foot makes with the door, the framing above begins to crack and it grows larger, spreading down the hallway.
“Goddamn.” I hear Martinez behind me. “How many do we have?”
“Just the one on the floor and she says there is a seventeen-year-old in this room. Locked door. Get her out. I’m getting the kid.”
“No!” she says, trying to scramble to her feet, but she collapses back onto her knees. The smoke inhalation slowly taking its toll.
“Carry her. Get her now!” I say loudly, with one final kick to the door, it bursts inward… and a flame explodes outward.
Everything happens in slow motion. A scream. Flailing arms and legs as I have to physically keep this woman from running directly into a room that is completely engulfed in flames. If there was anyone in there, they are long gone.
It’s a chaos I’m trained for, but a chaos you can never be prepared for. Pulling someone out of harm’s way as they realize the one person they wanted to save in the entire world is gone and there is nothing they can do.
She’s screaming, hitting me, and coughing up blackness from the thick burn no doubt coating her lungs.
Beams are falling, walls are breaking, fireballs in the form of burning insulation make getting her out of the house almost impossible, but we find our way, the three of us, to the front lawn of her home just as the entire top floor collapses into the bottom.
She isn’t looking. Her face is buried in the grass and sobs wrack her body.
The crew that stayed outside is aiming the hose, trying to get it under control as best they can but the damage is done.
“You have to go back in. We have to get him.” She tries to push herself up to her feet, but stumbles again, and I catch her around the waist.
“Don’t.” She pushes me again and flops over to sit on her butt, giving me a clear view of her face for the first time.
It’s covered in soot, sweat, and tears, but her eyes are bright blue. The kind of eyes that sear their way into your soul; beautiful and full of anger. They are covered by black, thick-rimmed glasses with the left lens completely cracked, but that doesn’t mean they hide the intensity in her stare. Her short, blonde hair is matted and covered with black dust. There’s blood over the left side of her face, smeared across her temple and cheek. She looks like she’s come out of a war zone, and to be fair, she has.
“We have to get out of here. We have to move now! This shit is coming and it’s coming fast.” I try to pull her up and into my arms.
“Don’t. Just don’t. You didn’t. You didn’t listen.” She wipes her face. “I tried to tell you he was in there.” She struggles up to her feet again and rushes toward me, pushing me back with both her hands on my chest. “I hate you!” she screams out then begins to sob. “I hate you.” She hits my chest over and over before collapsing into my arms. I hold her up, letting her cry into my chest before we finally get her to the medics and they take her away. Her voice echoes in my mind even after she’s gone though.
Normally, I’m able to shrug off things like this and move forward. In. Clear. Out. Onto the next call.
I try to do that for three days after pulling her from her house. There is so much to do, so many people in need of help. It’s a disaster no one could have predicted, but even with every moment my mind is occupied with the next call, I keep seeing her face and the hurt and anger.
Her life changed forever that night and it, at least in her mind, was at my hand.
That’s a feeling I can’t just shake off no matter how hard I try.

Chapter 1
Present Day
Isaac
“Are you going to win me a prize?” Isabelle asks with fluttering eyes. “Isn’t that what gentlemen do on dates?”
“When did I ever claim to be a gentleman?” I tease, sliding my arm around her as we step through the gated entrance to the main street area, where the Sunnyville Harvest Festival is in full swing.
Orange, red, and yellow decorations dot the store windows and balloons rise high above the light poles. The sweet, greasy smell of food that is so bad for you, but so damn good wafts in the wind.
If there is one thing this city does right, it’s the Harvest Festival.
“Fair point well made. You are definitely not a gentleman.” She slides her hand under my T-shirt in the back and scratches her nails over my skin.
Isabelle and I have been seeing each other on and off for a couple of months. I’m a little more off, and she’d like to be even more on, but that’s just not something I’m interested in right now.
She’s a nice girl, easy as hell to look at, and doesn’t make me want to stab my eyes out to be around. I figure that’s enough of a reason to keep seeing her, even if it’s just casually. I’ve known her since high school, so she’s a friend too.
“I need to check in with Grady and see where the booth is I have to man for a little bit,” I tell her. “Then I’ll absolutely win you a stuffed animal.”
“Oh, right. I forgot you had to do that today. Bobbing for apples?”
The fire department sponsors and works a booth every single year, and every member of the crew has to swing by and man