Page 14 of Catching Fire

And Kalan was too dumb to even be talking to her. He had to remedy that right away.

Sebastian took another sip of the coffee, while waiting to see if Kalan’s minor personal crisis had passed. “He left a note in her office.”

Holy shit. Kalan pulled his phone from his pocket without even thinking.

“Wait until morning, dude. She doesn’t need you waking her up,” Sebastian told him, once again, putting his hand out to block the message Kalan had already started writing. Somehow, Sebastian, who had been off his rocker about Maggie just weeks earlier, had become the sage old man in the steady relationship. Once they’d settled in, it was clear that Sebastian and Maggie were meant for each other.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to take his advice. Sebastian had done something right after all.

Kalan was still trying to absorb the shock of the news when they both heard the faint sound of the phone ringing in the chief's office. TV shows tended to get it wrong—it wasn’t usually the alarm that warned firefighters to a potential alert—the phone rang in the chief's office first.

Ronan, Sebastian, and Kalan all looked toward the sound as though moving as one unit already.

Soft noises told them that Patrick Kelly, who was on as interim Captain tonight, had shuffled from the attached bedroom into his office. The conversation came through muffled, but the tone and the street name were clear. The three of them nodded knowingly to each other, already standing and moving toward their lockers as the alarm went off.

“Fully involved house fire!” Patrick yelled out as he emerged from his office already gathering his things. He rattled off the address and by then everyone was in the main room, moving toward the bay and the truck.

But as he heard the address, Luke Hernandez caught everyone’s attention by stopping dead and asking, “Are you sure?”

Chapter Nine

Seline adjusted her position again on the puffy, pale blue sofa. Her brain refused to fully process what she’d learned the day before. She was missing more work and getting further behind.

But no matter how much she moved, she couldn’t sit still and just breathe. She loved this couch; she’d picked it out so she could lean back and sink into it and read. She loved to be enveloped in the cloud of cushions and read her books.

It reminded her of one her mother had picked out. Though he’d always hated it, her father kept it after her mother had passed, just because it reminded him of her. He complained it was too hard to get out of a couch this soft, but Seline chose it because it reminded her of her mother, too.

Right now, though, her butt was barely on the edge of the cushions, her feet firmly on the floor. Her hands clasped in front of her as she leaned forward, the pad of one thumb running across the nail of the other as though it were a worry stone. She was doing everything she could tonotsink into her couch and disappear.

In her ideal world, she would have gone back to the uni and worked in her lab and been seen by the department chair. Or she could have emailed and reported results from home. Being seen as a good worker would get her in a better position. Dr. Morales had not been happy about the missed meeting.

But the FBI agents thought it unwise to go back to the place where the BRK clearly had access to her.

In fact, Watson and Decker were at her office right now without her, scouring the place. That made her nervous enough to recount her sins.

Left to her own devices, she still would have been late to the first meeting. But that would have been a forgivable sin. Instead, she'd been stuck in an elevator and missed the entire thing. She’d not been there when she was introduced, and it was clear to everyone that she was absent.

She’d missed all the personal introductions with everyone higher up the chain. She knew them, but there’d been an informal welcome lunch after the meeting—which she’d only found out about later. Seline was mad enough to spit nails. But at least the elevator was one of those things that just happened.

This was not.

Having the FBI in her office wouldn’t earn her any favors with the department. Tenure was security, but Seline didn’t have it yet. Her status was not secure and could be revoked at any minute.

She should be working right now. But instead, she was sitting on her couch, facing away from the window and the curtains she’d kept drawn since Decker and Watson had left earlier, and worrying.

She built the lab in her home so she could work while she was here. But she was not in any shape to be handling dangerous chemicals right now.

The doorbell rang and Seline jolted from her pity party. She hadn’t heard anyone come up the walk.

Her heart kicked up a notch, nervous energy fueling her, but at least answering the door was something to do. Surely, Sanders wouldn't come here and take her out of her own home?

The FBI agents were confident that his communication with her effectively took her off of his kill list. Then again they'd also been confident that he was long gone, but she’d seen him just down the street. So she wasn't putting a lot of faith in their predictions these days.

As she approached the door, she berated herself for not having a weapon handy. Watson had told her a weapon was more likely to get used against her than help her, but the agent hadn’t given Seline a chance to explain that her father had trained her from a very young age. Right now, she wanted a gun.

With a deep breath, she pushed up on her tiptoes because the peephole was way too high for any normal-sized person. Through the warped view, she spotted Kalan on the other side.Just what she needed.

But she threw the door open, grateful for the human contact even if it was him. He grinned slightly but made no motion to come forward.

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