Nature Reserve, Sunday Evening,
Alice was getting too old for this shit. The snow was just finishing up its melting and while that made tracking easier in some cases, the rain that had started falling in the morning made it a freezing pain in the ass. She was pretty sure she was going to catch pneumonia at this point and she didn't think the arsonist in the woods. He was probably sneaking around town looking for his next target.
Alice had one squad, working from the southeast corner toward the northwest. Other squads were working from each corner, attempting to meet in the center, hoping to catch the arsonist in the process. They'd searched for nearly seven hours so far today after dredging the lake areas before they'd found him hiding in a tree and given chase.
The arsonist had laid some ground fire down and jumped from the the tree before taking off. Thankfully the water ground had firmed up a bit but Alice still purposefully ditch half her gear to keep up after yelling out orders to send the others around to surround the soldier on the run.
After a lot of chasing, she'd managed to finally catch up. She took the hardest leap she could and managed to get her arms around his shins to take him down. Unfortunately his muddy heels slammed her jaw shut on the left side and jabbed into her windpipe on the other. She didn't let go, at least until she was kicked in the head and that was only with one hand. The other fought to hold on, even ripping part of his pant leg and he fought to free himself.
They fought for along time, Alice unable to call loud enough to alert the others where she was. The arsonist had a dirty trick up his sleeve though. He wasn't just covered in water and sweat from the day, he was covered in kerosene. When he couldn't find an out, he set himself ablaze with his metal lighter. Alice had barely managed to get away before catching herself. Her eyes were wide and she had to think face but didn't know what to do. The burning man was thrashing around and screaming, obviously Alice's soldiers would head toward that but the man would be dead by then. So she stripped off her jacket and tackled the man, burning parts of her hands, arms and shoulder in the process as she rolled around, fighting him to put him out. He was dead within minutes and she was still fighting the flames, adrenaline having taken over in her horror at his actions, when Flask had dragged her off of the man and put out the spot on her upper arm that was started to catch that she hadn't noticed.
Once Alice's wits came back to her, she gave in and let Flask and Boxer bring her in to the hospital, dazed and in pain but refusing to be wheeled in. She walked in on her own two feet and when she finally sat down on a gurney in a trauma room to let them start cutting her singed clothing away to check her upper body, which was splotched with red blotching, some of it blistering, skin, she barely managed to stay conscious until they were finished, despite the pain medication they had started pumping into her almost immediately upon her arrival. Things after that started becoming hazy for Alice