"Come on, man. You have got to see this place." Kelly told Matt as they sat in Matt and Gabby's living room.
"What's so great about it, Sev? A racetrack?" Matt asked, not entirely convinced.
"Sure, it's just a racetrack. It's a racetrack that Benny and a few of his friends co-own. A place where we can drive race cars at 100 mph." Kelly grinned.
"Can we go today?" Matt asked, now on-board with the idea.
"That's what I'm talking about." Kelly grinned, his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Let's go!"
Soon, the guys were at the racetrack and being shown how to control race cars.
"Alright, I got this. This is easy." Kelly said.
"Sure you do, Kelly. Just seriously, both of you, do not ever go 120 around the turns. It's too fast and you'll crash. It cannot be done, don't try. Kelly, I am not going to be the one to tell your father that you crashed the car doing something stupid." Benny's friend told the guys.
"Ha, Okay, man." Kelly said, completely disregarding everything he said. The guys climbed into the cars and got ready.
Then they took off. They drove in circles, trash talking each other over their radios.
"Last lap, boys!" The man said, both men wanting to win.
"You're going down, Casey." Severide said, speeding up as he neared the curve.
"Slow down, Severide!" Casey yelled. But it was too late. Kelly lost control on the bend and crashed the car into the wall. Matt stopped his own car and jumped out of the window, running over to the mangled car with his friend trapped inside.
"Kelly! Kelly, can you hear me? Come on, Sev." Matt yelled, pulling his friend through the car window and onto the ground, ripping off his helmet.
"Casey. Casey, my leg. It's broken. It's broken, Casey." Kelly gasped, looking at his bone sticking through the race suit.
"I know, I know. Help's coming, just hang tight. What else hurts?" Matt asked, trying to examine his friend.
"Just my leg, just my leg." He said before he began wheezing, gasping for breath.
"Kel? Kelly, there's a lung injury. I think it's a collapsed lung. You need a chest tube." Matt said as all the other men who were at the track joined them, a few mechanics, still holding their supplies.
"I brought a first aide kit. How can we help?" One of them asked.
"Uh, you! Gimme that." Matt said, pointing to one of the mechanics who held a bottle of Windex before unzipping Kelly's suit and removing his shirt.
"I need disinfectant and a pocket knife." Matt commanded, taking the tube off of the Windex spray bottle before dumping disinfectant from the first aid kit in it. He repeated the process with a pocket knife from one of the men before looking at Kelly.
"Hang tight, Sev. This will hurt like hell." He said before slicing into Kelly's side. Kelly screamed in agony as paramedics arrived. Matt quickly shoved the tube into Kelly's side, causing him to yell more.
"Nice work." One of the paramedics said, observing the job Matt had done.
"I'm a firefighter, I know what I'm doing. He's got a collapsed lung and a broken femur. No spinal injury." Matt rattled off.
"Alright, let's load up."
-/-/
"He lives!" Matt said, entering his buddy's hospital room after his surgery.
"I always said you have 9 lives, but I'm beginning to think I do, too."
"We're a dangerous combination." Matt laughed, fist bumping Kelly.
"More like a couple of idiots." Stella said from the doorway.
