As Ready As I'll Ever Be

Chapter 94

~Brielle's POV~
Alyssa and I were getting ready for shift, it's Saturday, so the kids just stay home. Jaxson and Kenzie will come over later to check on them.

"Mama. Are you working today?" Scarlett came in our room.
"Yea we are honey, go back to sleep, it's 6:45 in the morning." I told her. I took her back to her room.
"Jaxson, Kenzie, Peyton, Daniella, and Griffin will come by later ok?" I asked her.
"Ok Mama." She said.

Alyssa and I kept getting ready.
"Ow, what the hell?" I asked, as I was putting on my boots.
"What's wrong?" Alyssa asked me.
I flipped my boot over and a little toy fell out.
"Scarlett..." I chuckled.

We got in the car and left. Once we got to the firehouse, my mom came up to me.
"Severide, you're working at OFI today." She told me.
I was confused.

"What?.. I didn't get called or anything." I said.
"Vanmeeter called, said that you're working on a case with them. He said they need you." She told me.

"Ok... I guess I'll head over." I said.
Alyssa was confused, she gave me the car keys.
"I'll come back after this." I said.

I drove to OFI.
"Hey Brielle, thanks for coming." Vanmeeter said once I came.
"I don't really think I had much of a choice." I laughed.
"Yea, that was Seager's doing." He laughed.
"We have this case, that we think we could use your help on." Seager explained.

"Ok, what is it?" I asked.
She handed me the file.
"How come you guys didn't ask my dad to be here?" I asked them.
"The case... it's the place where Leslie Shay died. Your dad's best friend." Vanmeeter told me.

I looked at the address, and I remember that's the address I read on that file so many years back when Alyssa and I stole those files from the firehouse.
"The crack house fire..." I said.
Seager started explaining the case.

"So... this house got remodeled about 15 years ago... it never sold, and it eventually became abandoned again. The incident commander reported it as an accidental fire. But then we got an anonymous phone call from the arson hotline." She explained to me.

We listened to the phone call. It was a female.
"Hi, um... I know you guys are probably looking into that fire on that abandoned house on Kingsland street. But, you guys might need to look deeper, there's many more things than meets the eye in that place..." we heard the phone call.

I was confused.
"Who responded to this fire?" I asked.
"Firehouse 27. Even the firefighters thought this was an accidental fire." Vanmeeter explained.
"We're thinking about going to the site, should we go now?" Seager asked me.
I nodded.

We got to the site.
We looked around. This house was a 2 floor, but you enter the house on top the top floor.
"Other than burnt framing... everything looks intact and nothing out of the ordinary.." I said.
"Yea... how about you head downstairs and start checking that out? I'll make sure we aren't missing anything." Seager told me.

I started going down the stairs.
But they felt off.
"Severide? You ok?" Vanmeeter asked.
"Yea Captain, all good, just thought something looked off..." I said.
I kept walking down, when all of a sudden, I heard a huge snap and felt the stairs crumbling beneath me.

~Alyssa's POV~
We were all in the common room.
"Hey, do we know what case Bri is working on?" I asked Uncle Kelly.
"Not a clue. Vanmeeter or Seager never told me anything about a case recently." He told me.

I decide to call and check on her.
I went into the briefing room.
I called her a few times, she didn't answer.

That worried me a bit, she always answers her phone.
I was pacing back and forth, trying to call her.
"Hey sweetheart, is everything ok?" My mom came in.
"I'm not sure... Bri isn't answering her phone..." I said.