InsaneJournal

It was entirely possible Jacob was too distracted to be good at his job right now. It would've been one thing to be at the club; no one needed his undivided attention there. But putting out fires was something else. Still, he cared about this job, deeply, and he was useless anywhere else currently, so he might as well do what he was turning out to be rather good at. 

At least, that's what he told himself, when he entered the burning building ahead of the hose team, mask on, and searched for survivors. The apartment building was small but the fire burned hot around him. Supports were already beginning to buckle. His team moved with practiced precision, but he snuck deeper into the building away from them. It wasn't entirely out of bounds yet, but it would be, as he hopped over some weak floorboards on the second floor and headed closer to the aura he could see with his eagle vision. 

When he busted down the door, he found a man cuffed to a chair, passed out from smoke inhalation. Jacob hurried forward. A quick scan of the area confirmed the floor wasn't weakened yet and they were alone. 

He took off the man's gag and checked his pulse. Faint, but still there. His attention turned to the cuffs and then the area around the chair. While this was obviously a trap, he couldn't yet figure out the point. Was it just to kill some poor bastard in a terrible way? There were easier methods. Jacob frowned and crouched by the chair. He always had a lockpick on him and it was a matter of seconds to pop off the cuffs. 

Fire crackled in the walls. It was getting hotter, fast, so Jacob started to reach for the victim, intent on throwing him over a shoulder. It was at the very last second that he reconsidered. This was a trap. What was he missing?

He ducked down and looked under the chair. Nothing. He frowned and kept looking along the floor at this level, sure there was something. 

It was oddly the smell that did. Serefin's "special" bottle of wine had carried a particular odor. Not bad, not even all that strange for a wine, but it was still one he'd never smelled. And his nose followed a line of wine droplets to the bottle wedged in a carefully concealed pipe between the stove and the counter. Mixed with the smell of wine was a distinct smell of gas. Another look with his eagle eyes and he finally spotted the thinnest string, leading away from the bottle trap to the victim. As soon as Jacob would've lifted the man, the string would have pulled taut and something horrific would've happened.

"Frye! What's the hold-up in here? Structural integrity is going to hell and we don't have a lot of time to wa--" Jacob's partner, Sullivan, came around the corner and into the room. His words cut off with a noise of surprise at what he found and he immediately moved to the victim.

"Sully, wait!--" 

Sullivan moved too fast, ducking a shoulder to pull the victim over it. Jacob lunged instinctively, back to the trap and tried to make himself as big as possible. 

There was a loud explosion of fire and debris that catapulted Jacob halfway across the room and knocked Sullivan and the unconscious man to the ground. Jacob's suit was on fire and his head was spinning, his stomach rolling with the impact he could still feel in his bones. Christ. Eventually, he took a shaky breath and rolled across the floor, putting out the fire as quickly as possible. 

"Shit, shit, shit." Sullivan cursing was a good sign at least. He rolled to his feet, checking over the victim and them himself."What the fuck was that?" 

Jacob told a half-truth, patting out the last of the flames on his hip with his big padded gloves. "Gas pipe. Think something was wedged in there." It wasn't a lie, and there was enough debris around the room that anything could have been jammed inside. Eventually, an arson team would search this room thoroughly. But not before the fire was out. And likely not before Jacob could sneak back into the remains of the building to remove any evidence he didn't particularly want to leave behind.

Obeying the law took time, obviously. Jacob had never had any issues disobeying the law for his own moral code. Or for the people he loved.

He glanced back at the ruins of the kitchen one last time, his brow furrowing. His back ached. But he was starting to worry his heart ached more.

This couldn't have been Serefin. There was no bloody way. He refused to believe it. This was some kind of set-up. A vendetta. First Ostyia, now this? Maybe it wasn't even Serefin's wine...

No, he knew that one was just denial.

Jacob pushed to his feet and lifted the unconscious man into a fireman's carry while Sullivan finally stood. 

"Hey, I can get him. You're hurt," Sully said.

"Just open the bloody door, mate," Jacob gritted through his teeth. The room spun but he was stubborn and reckless. Explosions were child's play. "Let's get a move on." 

There was shouting in the hall and the sound of water hoses being used. Sullivan propped the door open with his shoulder and Jacob hobbled past him. Everything hurt, but he moved with narrow-eyed purpose. He moved like an assassin who had a trail to follow.  Whoever was behind this, whatever they thought to gain, Jacob would find them and make them regret it.