Page 163 of Controlled Burn
He just stood in the rain, hood up, hands trembling, watching the sleeping firehouse—the building that used to be his whole life, now closed to him.
He looked up at the window he thought was hers. Rain streamed down his face. For a second, in the blur of glass and storm, he thought he saw her shadow move across the blinds. His heart stuttered. He blinked—and it was gone.
He wanted to storm inside. Wanted to tell her he was sorry. That he never meant to leave. That he’d burn the world to keep her safe.
But he couldn’t.
He’d lost that right.
He stood there until the flowers wilted in his fist, petals soaking up the storm, his breath fogging in the darkness.
The petals bled pink down his wrist as the bouquet collapsed in his grip.
He whispered her name.
“Talia…”
Then he turned and walked back to the car.
One last ember in the ash—
Still burning. Still hers.
Even if she never looked back.
Chapter 56
Darkroom
Brooks replayed the clip of Talia at the laundromat fire for the third time that night.
Helmet tilted back, chin set, voice steady as she called orders like she was born to lead.
The crew followed her. Not Maddox. Not McKenna. Her.
And she didn’t even flinch.
She was supposed to break. She was supposed to stumble under the weight. But instead—she thrived.
Brooks’s jaw clenched as he hit pause, the grainy image of her frozen mid-command.
She thought she was untouchable.
That’s why he’d built Unit 312.
Unit 312 didn’t look like much from the outside—just another corrugated steel door in a long row of climate-controlled rentals, the kind nobody asked questions about.
He paid in cash. Used a burner phone. Made sure the lease was under a fake name and that the cameras pointed just far enough away not to catch the hinge trick.
Inside, it was something else entirely.
He’d built it himself—layered drywall over concrete, sealed the floor with black epoxy, and rigged the ventilation. Old equipment lockers lined one wall, repurposed from city surplus. A folding cot. Shelves of survival gear. A workstation anchored by a salvaged desk and a tower of Frankenstein servers blinking like sentient things.
The faint hum of fans filled the space, interrupted only by the occasional drip from the unit’s old HVAC system.
The whole place smelled like scorched plastic, copper dust, and sweat—like a bunker built for obsession.
An RFID pad disguised as a breaker box locked the inner chamber. Motion sensors lit the perimeter with a delay. There was a jerry-rigged kill switch in the ceiling vent—just in case anyone ever found the place and tried to make it out alive.
