Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.

-Robert Frost

Smoke. Thick, ashy smoke. The smell of it fills my nostrils and airway before I open my eyes to see that it has seeped into Jane's bedroom as well. The bed shakes as Jane jumps up. I must have fallen asleep while I was meditating.

"C'mon, Maur," she says.

"Is it the oven?" I ask.

"No."

I slip my feet into Jane's slippers and jog behind her to the door. She picks up Jo Friday, who is whining against the wall. Jane holds the dog in her right arm and touches the doorknob with her left. It's not until she opens the door to a smoke-filled hallway that I realize her apartment complex is on fire. I know, somewhere in my brain, that smoke is caused by heated air sweeping up water vapor and tiny specks of fuel, or the burning matter. But a part of me, probably the part that was just asleep, doesn't register that this smoke could be caused by fire until she opens the door and I suddenly can't see five feet in front of my face.

"Here, take Jo. When you get outside, make sure someone's called 911." Jane shuffles a shocked-stiff Jo Friday into my arms, turns, and takes the stairs two at a time. Her long waves swing across her back until I can't see her any more. The smoke between us is thick.

"Jane?" My voice rings in the empty hallway. Somewhere below me, I hear stairs creaking and a herd of panicked footsteps descending. I glance down the stairwell, then back up.

"Maura, go!" It is muffled. I hear her fist on wood, pounding hard and fast-her voice, strong and low. It's her detective voice. "Anybody in there?!"

My throat burns. My eyes sting. "I'm not leaving you!"

A door opens upstairs, and a few seconds later a middle-aged woman appears from the smoke, her hand over her nose and mouth. She moves her feet quickly, glances at me as she steps by.

Then Jane is in front of me again, and for the first time since jumping out of bed, her eyes meet mine. Her fingers grip my biceps as she speaks. Her voice is a rasp, almost furious whisper. "Maura, I took an oath to protect lives. Please let me do this."

"So did I! I'm a doctor!" I feel like I'm whining. I will not leave without her.

"They will need doctors outside. There are only two more doors. I swear I'll be right behind you." Her voice is filled with the kind of frustrated desperation that I feel flooding its way into my chest.

I cough. My eyes are welled to the point of blurred vision. I speak to a smoky, blurry Jane mere inches from my face. "Fifty to eighty percent of fire-related deaths are due to the inhalation of superheated fire gases."

Her palms grasp my cheeks, pulling my head to her lips. The kiss on my forehead is brash, and her next words even faster. "I promise I will hurry." She releases me.

I watch her turn around as her long legs skip every other step again. She pulls her shirt up to her face, and then she's gone.

I find myself standing on the sidewalk outside a golden, flaming building. Everything is hot: my lungs, my skin, my eyes. Jo Friday is shaking in my arms. A couple of dozen people mull around me in various states of undress—some standing stock-still like me, some crying into their hands, some pacing frantically. I search the crowd for Jane, even though I know she couldn't have beaten me out of the building. Somewhere in my brain I register a deep voice saying, I need to report a fire at 5th and Mission. Good, I think. Call the fire department. Jane told me to make sure someone had called the fire department.

My eyes finally focus on the fourth-story windows of the building in front of me, where shadows and the color orange fill the dark frames.
It feels like forever. It feels like I could have run to California and back in the time it takes for the fire department to arrive. Time stretches like molasses from a spoon as I pace the ironically damp patch of grass between the sidewalk and the street. A couple more people stumble out of the building, coughing. None of them have beautiful brown eyes or dimples from heaven. All of them look pained.

I should have told her to get on her hands and knees to avoid the rising smoke.

Sirens pulse the night air. Everything is too bright and too slow. Big men in thick suits hop from red brick trucks all around me. They hold out their arms and tell me to cross the street. Why are they walking? They should be running. Why are they not running?

My feet are planted. The flames lick the night sky and I can feel their heat on my face as I search the fourth story window for any sign of human life. Oxygen, fuel, and heat. That's all you need to create a fire.

"WHY ARE YOU WALKING?!" I say to no one in particular. Tears are streaming down my face. I turn and kick the root of the tree, the same root of the tree that Jo Friday likes to relieve herself on every morning. I spin to find a fireman holding his arms out around me.

"Ma'am?" The man's voice is distant and gruff. "I need you to step back. We're securing the area."

"Where is she?" I ask the fourth story window.

"Is everyone you know out of the building?"

"She said she'd be right behind me." She'd kissed my forehead. She'd promised she would hurry.

"What's her name?"

"Jane." Her name is a prayer on my lips. If the flames could reach the heavens maybe my prayers could, too.

"She's still inside? Where did you last see her?"

I look at him. "The stairway between the third and fourth floors. She's a decorated homicide detective with the BPD. She wanted to make sure everyone was out."

The fireman nods and jogs to another, who is unraveling a hose. He says something and points, and then walks back to me.

"We're going to find her, ma'am. But for now, I need you to step back and let us work."

I let him guide me across the street, where I find a spot next to a teenage boy who is recording the fire on his cell phone. Next to him, a woman is speaking into her phone in German.

"Has anybody seen a cat?!" someone yells from behind me. "She's orange and white! Anyone?! HAS ANYBODY SEEN MY CAT!"

I should have told her to tie a wet towel around her nose and mouth.

In a slow-motion, dramatic moment, the building heaves from left to right. I take slow steps forward as the crowd splits, half running up the street in one direction, half in the other. I am vaguely aware of squeezing Jo Friday tighter as two firefighters are slowly lifted into the air.

They break in a window of the second floor.

I shouldn't have let her go.

No one has exited the building since the fire department arrived. The flames leap to the rooftop, stretching to the crescent, waning moon. A loud popping noise penetrates the air and a few feet away from me, a girl screams. My stomach twists in every direction. My head feels light. I think maybe I've stopped breathing.

They break in the window of the third floor.

I should have told her I thought she was brave.

And then, I watch with flames reflected in my hazel eyes as the top floor collapses onto the third. The entire building heaves again. Ashes shoot into the air around me, smoke billowing out from the decrepitating structure.

"Jane!" I choke on tears and mucus and smoke and fear. It's not as loud as I want it to be. I want her to hear me. I want her to know I am waiting for her.

There is no more fourth window for them to break in.

"Jane!" I try it again. I can't see anything anymore, but I know people are looking at me. I know someone is telling me to move behind the yellow line. I know that she would have made it out if I would have fought for her to stay with me. Just stay with me. Why couldn't I have just asked her to stay with me?

My stomach twists hard, and I wretch over Jo Friday, onto the hot pavement, onto Jane's slippers. My head pounds. Tears squeeze between my eyelids and I am broken, sobbing on my knees.

"Oh, God…" I cry into the pavement. Gravel rubs my forehead. I beg for something to ground me.

But then male voices are yelling and I blink into the smoke to see someone climbing out of the third story window. Jane is being carried by a boy, an adolescent boy. He is holding her out the window, transferring her into the arms of the men in the lift.

Her body is still the entire slow ride to the ground. The boy collapses in the grass. A paramedic rushes to him. The firemen place Jane's body on the concrete and one of them checks her pulse. He tilts her head, clearing her airway. He administers CPR.

He checks her pulse again.

I should have told her I loved her.

He administers CPR.

He checks her pulse again.

I shouldn't have let her go.