Reassure (Jay Halstead x OC.)

19

TW/// small mention of child death. Please don't read this chapter if that upsets you.

Reign was in agony. Her shoulder was aching with every slight shift in movement but she powered on, swallowing every wince as she carried victim after victim out of the smoking heap.

She had been to thousands upon thousands of apartment-building fires, but she had never seen this much carnage.

So many people at once suffering from burns and smoke inhalation injuries. The sheer quantity of people living in that crumbling dump of an apartment building was staggering. The firefighters fought tooth and nail to save as many as they could. But still, it wasn't enough.

One poor young woman had suffered almost 80% of her body being covered in third degree burns and one mother and child had been trapped in a failing elevator where they had horribly died.

That seemed to have really gotten to Cruz especially as when he and Reign had found them in there he had nearly collapsed at the sight.

So many people we're hurt.

So many people had already died.

And so many more probably would.

Then there was Stella and Pat.

Stella, her new friend, her sister in firefighting, the girl Reign knew Kelly loved....had suffered some kind of inhalation injury when she had been knocked back. The group was in shambles with Kelly riding with Stella in the ambulance to Med and the rest of squad accompanying him, Reign had to remain at the scene as acting Squad lieutenant. A leader without her team.

So she desperately worked in tandem with Casey on Truck and prayed for Stella to be okay. She hadn't known the other girl long but she was family and she meant a lot to Kelly, so Reign could tell there was only one of two ways that this would end. She would recover or Kelly never would.

After about an hour left on site, Reign staggered down the last step out of the building with a small boy clinging to her before she released him from her grip and into his crying mother's arm. She was shattered at the sight, this woman had just lost her husband.

As she watched over the mother and child weeping, she had to catch herself on the side of a rig. She had earlier nearly collapsed from the pain in her shoulder while carrying an old lady and now that she was once again down to near an ambulance, the suspicious looking paramedics kept shooting her an odd glance but she waved it off with her good arm.

She turned slowly inspecting the carnage before her as she felt the young mother suddenly burst forward and grasp her bad arm in a flurry of pins and needle pains. Her arm felt like a lead weight. "Ah!....yeah....no problem." She tried to get the thankful woman off of her subtly hiding her agony as she was thanked over and over.

She span out of the woman's desperate grasp waving in a "your welcome" gesture before she all but sprinted away. When she turned her head again was when she spotted Pat Halstead.

She knew he lived here now, in this heap. And she knew that Jay had been frantically searching amongst the firefighters and EMTs trying to find his father in all the chaos. So much so that Reign had had to restrain him from running up and rescuing his father himself when they caught word that he was on the top floor. But she never expected to see the man in such a state.

The old man was being brought down by Casey and Cruz as Hermann followed them down. He was clearly coughing and struggling to breath and as he walked limply between the firefighters he was unstable on his feet. "Dad!" She heard Jay nearly scream as he came barrelling out of the crowd of first responders.

It was as if he had materialised from the smoke with just his CPD windbreaker as protection from any falling debris.

"Nice smoke stack you put me up in ah son." Pat chastised through a wheeze as he swatted at the firefighters around him to put him down, and tried to fight the gas mask that Sylvie attempted to force onto his face.