Page 19 of Controlled Burn
Watts blinked. “It’s not personal.”
“No? Sure feels personal.”
“I just said I wouldn’t have given that much.”
“Then you should’ve taken over. You outrank me. You sat back. Then you covered your ass.”
Watts looked away.
“You sat there and watched. Now you’re calling me reckless?”
“You’re overreacting.”
“I’m surviving,” Talia said, low and fierce.
She could’ve said more. About the lithium. The transfers. The HR complaints buried in red tape.
Back at the station, Brooks lurked near the bay doors, arms folded, watching like a shadow. Kennedy, all heart and nerves, hurried toward Medic 12 with a mug of coffee. Hastings shot Talia a reassuring look as he caught up with his crew.
“Don’t let her rattle you.”
Talia didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. She’d already been rattled. And she wasn’t going to let anyone see it again.
In this world, silence wasn’t weakness.
It was survival.
She turned and walked out, betrayal burning through her like fire.
And not for the first time, she wondered:
Was fire easier to fight than people?
Chapter 9
Pressure Valve
Talia
The second she walked in, the air changed. Her boots tapped against the concrete, each click slicing through the morning hush. Fluorescent bulbs overhead hummed, flickering like they wanted to shy away from her.
Watts sat on the bench in a sports bra, scrolling her phone like she hadn’t just tried to sabotage Talia’s credibility and abandon her in a fire. Her gear was half-stacked in the corner. Her helmet still smelled like the last blaze; she didn’t even go in.
Across the room, Kennedy hugged the farthest locker, eyes fixed on her phone, wishing herself invisible. The kind of girl who never wanted trouble, who’d fold in on herself to avoid the blast radius.
Talia’s pulse kicked up—not nerves, just something colder. Watts was slippery. Untouchable. Everyone was too scared to call her out because she’d run to HR if anyone so much as breathed wrong.
Talia had tried to be the better woman. She believed in women who rose—and refused to abandon the ones who stumbled.
But Watts didn’t lift women up. She dragged them down so no one could see her slip.
And Talia had had enough.
“Got a minute?”
Watts didn’t look up. “Not really.”
“Make one.”
