Chapter Text
It was 3 a.m. in the morning when the last burst of flame was extinguished from the building of the United Bank of Philadelphia.
The wind was blowing softly through Enid’s blonde locks as she was taking her helmet off, letting out a contempt sigh towards the sky. It was dark but clear of clouds and stars could be seen even from the middle of the city.
She was repacking the hoses, back in their storage compartments on the Firetruck, surrounded by her coworkers, exhausted but relieved that after hours they were able to successfully put out the mess that had happened.
After being done with repacking, and with a satisfied grin escaping her lips she moved her gaze towards her Captain.
“Good job Sinclair” nodded towards her Laura, a towering woman in her forties, with short and thick grey hair that encapsulated her warm brown eyes.
“Thanks Cap” smiled the blonde, full of pride as she took the compliment so hard to receive.
She had been in that station for almost a year and could count on the fingers of her hands the amount of tìmes she had received a compliment from the woman, but despite her harshness she had never made her feel worthless. And she was thankful for that.
“This was a very complex situation,” added the Captain while she cleaned her gear, “it’s the second time this week that a fire like this happens”, her eyebrows furrowed, pensive.
“Do you think there’s someone behind this?” asked a concerned probie.
Enid barely paid attention to the conversation as she checked around to make sure everything was in order, she lifted her eyes to the rooftop of the building that stood in front of the one that was half burnt and noticed a person observing.
The building was tall and made of dark bricks, so she couldn't really see much other than the shadow of a small figure that, in a blink of an eye, was gone. She shrugged, and finished cleaning up before lifting herself on the vehicle that was now ready to take off from the scene.
Thankfully in four hours her shift would be finished and the day after would be her rest day, so, as long as no other emergencies happened that night, she had finished the hard work and could rest.
The ride back to the station was full of chatter and conspiracies concerning a potential arsonist behind those two similar fires that had happened.
Enid was too tired to listen, and was well aware that if that was the case, the police department was taking care of it.
The next day she woke up at noon welcomed by a warm and sunny weather.
Enid was always in for a nice walk in spring , so it didn't take her long to decide to take advantage of the sunshine by walking to the library to get some new books to read, as she had finished the two that she had borrowed a couple of weeks prior.
She closed her building’s door with a loud clack before hopping down the four stairs that separated her from the sidewalk.
The birds were chirping on the trees that surrounded her and she realized that people probably had had the same idea as her since the roads were full of families, young and elderly people roaming around the blooming city.
She smiled and took a deep breath in, replenishing her brain of fresh oxygen.
The walk to the library wasn’t long, but she liked to take a more scenic route in the middle of a park that would extend the stroll of a couple of minutes, just to enjoy some greenery.
Nobody could take away her love for the outside, every occasion was right to take a walk or a bike ride. Even the rain had its charm.
As she walked in the library she was greeted by the old librarian at the desk, who always smiled warmly towards her.
“Good morning Enid, already back?” she asked, smiling under her glasses, writing down something on a notepad.
“Yes! I devoured this one by Murakami,” responded the blonde enthusiastically, extending her hand to give back the two books she had brought “I’ll get another one from him, I think” she smiled, before waving at the librarian and walking off towards the surrealism and fantasy section.
The library was silent, and an aura of suspension surrounded it. Hundreds of rows stuffed with books towered over Enid, who constantly felt as if something was bound to happen between those still walls; growing up in a very chaotic household, she craved the peace that came with silence, but could never completely relax in it, as it felt weirdly unnatural.
She was focusing on the titles in front of her grabbing whatever book captured her attention when she hit someone with her shoulder.
“Whoop! Sorry” she quickly apologized, giggling nervously, stepping back a little.
She was met by an intense glare and emotionless face, a sense of uneasiness crawling quickly in the back of her neck.
“Mind your steps,” said dryly the woman in front of her, moving her gaze back to the shelves.
She had intense dark eyes accompanied by even darker hair and an even darker outfit.
She would have been terrifying if she hadn’t been not much more than 5 feet tall.
“Yeah I’m clumsy, sorry again” tried the blonde, unleashing a shy grin. As she did so she noticed that the small brunette was holding a book that she had read recently.
“Oh! You’re reading Firestorm!” she pushed again, “I finished it a couple weeks ago, it’s crazy! It honestly blew me away on sooo many levels! Not really my usual preferred genre, but I couldn’t stop reading it and- hey!”, the brunette had started walking past her, completely uninterested in the attempt of a conversation, and especially indifferent to social rules.
“That’s rude,” said Enid, walking behind her “I was talking to you!”.
“You are loud and your opinion on this book is not relevant to me” retorted promptly the brunette, without slowing down the pace nor looking at the blonde, who was staring at her with unbelieving eyes.
Enid stopped walking, mouth open in disbelief. She scoffed, almost offended at the interaction. She watched as the small woman sat down at one of the desks, back straight and immediately focused on the book she had in hand. Not one inch of attention had drifted towards the blonde.
“What a weirdo” Enid mumbled to herself with a half smile, turning on her heels to walk in the opposite direction. Still slightly chuckling, embarrassed at the completely failed attempt to socialize.
She thought of her mother, who always claimed she was too energetic and loud to interact properly with people. She had almost convinced her, throughout the years, that she was impossible to like, but growing up and moving away from her made her realize that people actually loved her bubbly personality and how easily she made conversation.
Except this bizarre figure, now out of her line of sight.
She walked back to her apartment with her books in hand, mind drifting while she looked at the sun up in the sky, shining bright. She stopped for a second to enjoy once again the newly arrived sunlight: she was tired of the cold and gloomy weather that had accompanied the city the past few months, but thankfully April brought warmer temperatures that Enid craved insatiably.
Growing up in San Francisco she was used to warmer and sunnier climate, especially in summer and during her childhood she used to spend the days at the beach playing with her four older brothers who found a particular pleasure in tormenting her.
Once one of them had pretended to be a shark under her surfboard, she had started panicking and swimming frenetically to try and escape a merciless death before a loud roar of laughs had echoed from behind her. She never surfed again.
Another time, while she was napping on her beach towel, her brothers had dug a hole where, when she was passed out enough, they threw her savagely and had started covering her whole body in sand. She had spent hours trying to get rid of all the sand in her hair.
Despite the torture she had been put through, she missed her childhood years, and how her family treated her at the time. But too much had happened since, and she couldn’t bring herself to go back to the west coast to visit them.
Her hands were slightly shaking in emotion as she tried to put the keys in the lock to open the door of her apartment. She sighed walking in, and threw her coat on the hanger without paying too much attention to it.
She sat down on her couch and spent the rest of the day reading and calling friends, fully resting her body and mind before another shift would start the day after.
It was the end of Enid’s 48 hour shift when the station received an emergency call.
The whole squad shot up from their chairs and was ready, into the firetruck, in seconds.
“Command, Engine 1, we have a working fire in a Mansion on 19th street” cracked the truck's radio.
“Copy that” responded the driver to the communication, “12 minutes max” he added as he stepped on the gas, turning on the siren and leaving the station.
The drive was fast and as they reached the location it was evident to the crew that the fire was from the same origin as the two they had dealt with in the past couple of days.
The hose team worked quickly to tame the fire and Enid soon after entered the building with two other firefighters, while it was still holding, to make sure that no one was left inside.
The smoke was thick and dark and was beginning to become impossible to see properly.
“Sinclair here, heading to Charlie” she said to the radio. She was always the one who checked the back first and called for additional help if needed.
She checked every corner of every room, the doors were already half burned as well as the furniture, but thankfully in this mansion everybody seemed to have left in time.
“Charlie clear” she reported to the team through the radio.
But in the moment she exhaled a sigh of relief, a loud rumble echoed from the upper side of the house.
“Emergency traffic!” echoed her colleagues' voice through her helmet. She had to get out of there before the building would collapse on her head.
Her breathing was controlled but her heart was thumping heavily in her chest, if she ended up trapped in the debris it would be a mess to get her out.
She was about to turn around as she heard a loud noise coming from the basement.
“SHIT” she screamed, she had just checked there! Had she made a mistake, was someone stuck?
She freezed for a second but finally decided to jump downstairs and check a second time, she could feel the heat starting to creep in despite her gear.
As she reached the basement floor she noticed that the small window in the top right corner was open and two feet disappeared just as her eyes had laid on them.
She didn’t have the time to scream at the person that another loud rumble echoed from upstairs and a pile of rubble fell where the person was a second before.
“FUCK!”
She jumped towards the window, completely oblivious to the fact that the whole first floor had collapsed over the ground floor.
She tried moving the debris from the window to check if the person had been able to save themselves but they were too heavy.
“Sinclair, report position” she heard her Captain say from the radio.
“Charlie, basement floor” she answered immediately “I think someone left the building from the back” she then added, her panic not perceivable from her words.
“Do you have a way out?” asked her captain, but Enid didn’t have time to answer as the ceiling above her started cracking rapidly.
She was barely able to crawl quickly under a table when the whole ceiling crashed down, shattering everything underneath it.