Page 71 of Burn Patterns

"You froze."

"You don't know shit about Tacoma."

"Oh, I know enough. I've read the reports." I leaned in, my voice sharp like the edge of a knife. "You hesitated. Two seconds too long, and your partner bled out in the time it took you to make up your mind."

Michael's eyes flashed, blind anger breaking through his controlled exterior. "You read about it. I lived it."

"Yeah, and a man died because of it."

I stepped forward, slamming my shoulder into his as I passed like I was daring him to hit me. Michael spun, grabbing my arm and yanking me back. Our faces were inches apart, and both of us were breathing hard.

"You think reading a report makes you an expert? You weren't there," he hissed, his grip iron-tight on my sleeve.

My expression flickered, bitterness seeping through. "I was there once. Sarajevo. Thought I could fix things with facts andlogic. You know how that ended? A six-year-old bled out in front of me because I didn't pull the trigger fast enough."

Michael stared, chest heaving, his fists slowly unclenching like it hurt to let go. A red mark bloomed on my forearm where he'd grabbed me, the outline of his fingers like bruises waiting to happen. I didn't care because I felt the same inside—already bruised.

My voice dropped, brittle and soft. "So yeah. I know what hesitation costs."

Michael's jaw remained tight, but his shoulders sagged—like the fight had drained from him in a single breath. He didn't look at me, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the crowd, past the noise, like he was staring at a ghost only he could see.

"When it happened," he muttered, voice rough as gravel, "I thought if I moved fast enough after, it'd be like I never froze. Like I could undo it."

His Adam's apple bobbed with the effort to swallow something thick and bitter. "But you can't outrun it. It's there when you wake up. It's there when you blink. Doesn't matter how many times you pull the trigger after—it's the one time you didn't that sticks."

He rubbed the back of his neck. Neither of us spoke for a long moment. The noise of the crowd returned like a wave crashing back in, distant and irrelevant.

Michael finally muttered. "Don't screw this up."

I nodded once, tight and controlled. "You, too."

Michael stared at me for a long moment. Then, without another word, he turned back to the crowd, his eyes scanning again.

It wasn't peace, but it was an understanding. We were on the same side.

The crowd near the swim start surged, and the rhythmic sound of waves brushing the shore blended with announcementsblaring from loudspeakers. I scanned the dense mix of faces, searching not for familiarity but for anomalies—the person who didn't belong, whose posture was too controlled, and whose attention focused in all the wrong places.

My gaze snagged on a figure about forty yards out, standing near a cluster of vendor tents. Gray jacket. He wasn't watching the swimmers or even the crowd. He was staring at Marcus.

At first, I couldn't be sure. Then, I noticed the subtle markers—the unnatural stillness and the faint curl at the corner of his mouth that wasn't a smile. It was too deliberate and too calculated. My stomach knotted, cold and tight.

The air thickened, and every breath became a struggle as if my lungs had forgotten how to function. My mind spiraled into a loop of images I couldn't escape—fire, smoke, Marcus's blood on his sleeve, and the burnt wreckage of what should have been safe spaces.

I wanted to move. Needed to. But my legs were rooted, paralyzed by the weight of recognition. Elliot. It was the ghost that haunted us everywhere.

His face wasn't clear, shadowed by the hood, but I didn't need to see it. I felt the gnawing familiarity, like a splinter you can't dig out.

Panic surged inside me, sharp and metallic, flooding my mouth with the taste of fear. Not only fear for Marcus. Fear for me.

Elliot wasn't only watching him. He was watching us. He knew how to get inside my head and tear me apart without lifting a finger.

"Michael," I muttered, sharp and low. "Near the blue tent. Gray jacket. He's watching Marcus."

Elliot's head turned slightly—not toward Marcus, but toward me. His eyes met mine for a second, and the recognition wassharp. He smiled. Not wide or theatrical—only a thin curl of his lips.

Michael's head snapped in the direction I indicated. He saw it, too. His jaw stiffened, agitation radiating off him as we pushed through the crowd.

We moved fast, weaving between clusters of spectators, dodging volunteers with clipboards. The crowd parted just enough to let us slip through, but as we closed the distance, the man moved, too—not running, but disappearing. He faded into the bodies around him like a puff of smoke.

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