Page 2 of Controlled Burn
I’m just not sure I can survivehim.
Chapter 1
Spark
Talia Cross had never belonged anywhere but in the firehouse.
Not the suburbs where she grew up—barefoot, broad-shouldered, and always too loud. Not in the swim team locker rooms, where other girls learned to love their bodies—while she learned to hide hers. And definitely not at the Academy, where every guy thought he deserved the spotlight, and every instructor saw her as nothing more than her father's shadow.
Chief Cross. A legend. A walking, fire-breathing, brass-polishing myth of a man. And her dad.
She was the only girl in a house full of testosterone—two older brothers, both louder and taller. But she was the one who soaked up every shift story, begged to go on firehouse visits, and memorized the difference between an inch-and-three-quarter and a two-and-a-half by the time she was ten. Her dad used to say she could tread water before she could walk, and that she was more at home in turnout gear than a dress.She remembered curling up in her dad's recliner, too small to hold the weight of his turnout coat but too proud to take it off. He'd let hersit through station dinners, absorbing the banter like gospel, learning early that the loudest voices weren't always the bravest. She loved the smell of smoke in his collar, the grease on his hands, the quiet pride in the way the guys nodded when he walked into a room.
She'd grown into her body too early. Soft curves, strong legs, a swimmer's shoulders, and a woman's hips before she turned fifteen. It made coaches stare and classmates whisper. She hated her body until her father taught her to own it—told her strength was beautiful, and fire didn't ask permission.
"Fire stations weren't built for women, baby girl, not in their walls, not in their history. You'll have to be louder, sharper, smarter. And they still might not respect you. But you make them."
So she did.
She learned to love the parts they told her to shrink. She lifted more, ran faster, pushed harder. She turned her body into a tool. A weapon. A shield. And when she showed up for work, she wore pink lip gloss and Chanel perfume like armor.
She was her father's daughter in every way that mattered. And that's what killed her the most.
He died three months before her final exam—heart attack in a structure fire. No goodbye. No warning. Just one call, one chief down, and the legacy left behind.
The day he died, she didn't cry. She went for a run instead, four miles in the rain, like she could outrun the silence. It wasn't until she stood in his office, untouched since the funeral, that it hit her. The smell of coffee and soot. His helmet still on the shelf. His radio cracked and half-charged. That was when the tears came—hot, furious, traitorous.
Her brothers had cried at the funeral. One moved to Florida, while the other entered the finance industry. Talia? She wore dress blues with his collar brass to graduation and stepped ontoher first rig the following week. She never looked back. She couldn't afford to.
She got a tattoo the day she passed her final certification—a sleeve of red dahlias that wrapped around her arm like a vine. His favorite flower. A quiet way to carry him into every call. The petals weren't just pretty—they were purposeful. Her dad's first helmet shield had been painted deep crimson, a rookie's tradition back in the day. She remembered tracing it with her fingers when she was little, the edges worn, the numbers faded. He used to say, "Red for the blood we give to the job—and sometimes, the blood it takes."
The artist asked if she wanted color.
She just said permanent like the hole in her chest.
The dahlias curved from the crook of her elbow to her shoulder, petals blooming over veins and sinew, each one a vow: to honor him, to outlast the doubt, to take the heat and keep standing.
Every time someone asked what it meant, she just said: "Legacy."
Talia was built different—grit in her knuckles, sarcasm in her teeth, armor in her eyes. She'd been underestimated, side-eyed, hit on, doubted, and dismissed. And every time someone called her "honey" or "sweetheart," she answered with fire.
But the armor came with cracks. In the quiet. In the locker room mirrors. In the sting of a stretch mark or the echo of her last name shouted across a fireground. She wore her confidence like turnout gear: heavy, hot, necessary. And even on the days it slipped, she knew how to fake it until the doors shut behind her.
There were moments, still, when the weight of it all crept in—late nights in the bunkroom that smelled like men and mildew, or after a call where the scent of burnt plastic clung to her skin like regret. But she never let it show. Not in front of them. Especially not the ones who expected her to break.
Fire didn't care if she was pretty. It cared if she could handle the heat.
And she could.
By the time she got assigned to Station 12, she was ready for anything.
The guys at Station 12 called it "the box"—a concrete tomb with no windows, no charm, and no patience for weakness. Rumor was, if you lasted a year here, you could survive anything. And Talia? She walked in like she had something to prove.
Chapter 2
Violation
They called Station 12 “the box” for a reason.
