She watched Engo and Ben disappear into the smoked-out doorway of the apartment block, then let her eyes travel up the building to the sixth floor, where an arm was hanging from the broken window, waving a towel in slow, desperate circles in the night air. She looked for Matt, but he was gone. Andy dropped the hose, saw the guy ahead of her on the line glance back, his eyes filled with annoyance that she was leaving him and two others with the weight of the hose.
“Hey! Hey!”
Andy ignored the calls, darted to the back of her station’s engine, and grabbed hold of a firefighter who was passing by. His turnout coat said he was from Battalion 9.
“They’re not going for the civilian,” Andy said.
“Huh?” The guy leaned in to hear.
“They’re not going for the civilian!” she roared. “Tell your chief. Fuck what Matt says. We need more officers up in the apartments!”
Something in her eyes must have told him. Andy watched him sprint away, turned, and reached into her turnout coat to grab the gun hidden in her waistband. It was then that Matt emerged from around the corner of the engine, grabbed her elbow to trap her arm inside the coat. He swung his hand up and knocked her helmet off.
“Lights out, Nancy Drew,” Matt said. He grabbed her skull and smashed it against the engine’s rear ladder. Andy’s legs went. Her last sensation was of Matt scooping her limbs up, bundling her body like a limp bag of clothes, and shoving her into the dark, wet space under the engine.