Page 64 of Controlled Burn
He thought of Watts glaring over her coffee. Jake was smirking like a devil who knew too much—Ryan’s anxious glances. Reyes staying silent.
He thought of Talia. Laughing once, grease on her cheek, cross-legged on the ladder truck bumper, her smile making his chest ache. If he’d just kept his distance… If she goes down for this, it’s on me.
“Nothing outside the norm,” he said.
The reps nodded. Closed their folders. Thanked him.
And left.
The air in the station didn’t warm.
The crew scattered.
Only Watts lingered, pointedly slow with her clipboard. She brushed past him in the hallway, her voice a whisper laced with venom.
“You should’ve picked a less obvious rookie.”
He didn’t answer.
Couldn’t
Later — Drill Yard
The sky glowed orange behind the burn building. Smoke coiled in the air like the memory of something better. The sharp, bitter tang of scorched wood rode every breeze.
Talia hauled hose like she was punishing the ground with every step. Her uniform clung to her, soaked through with sweat and effort.
“Advance!” she called, voice crisp.
Her jaw was locked. Her movements sharp. Controlled. Perfect. But inside, she was falling apart. She was already burning, every muscle screaming for release, every nerve raw with humiliation and anger.
Dean watched from the shadows behind the training tower.
The flames weren’t the danger. The real inferno was in him.
Because as he watched her work—strong, smart, unbending—he realized the fire was already inside him.
It had started weeks ago—a slow, smoldering heat.
And now?
He was too far gone to put it out.
There’s no coming back from this.
Chapter 23
Aftershock
Maddox
He hadn’t heard from HR in days.
It was the waiting that killed him. The silence between moments, the threat humming in the walls, the dread that hung over every call, every crew meal, every second spent pretending this wasn’t a fire with no way out. The last words from HR echoed like a radio transmission in a tunnel—static, unfinished, dangerous.
Dean kept his head down, posture perfect. Reports submitted. Radios tested twice. Turnouts triple-checked. He moved through the station like a ghost of the officer he’d once been—present, but only just. Holding on to the illusion that discipline could save him from what they’d set in motion.
But the air itself was poisoned now. Suspicion clung to the walls like oily soot after a stubborn overhaul, impossible to clean. The kind of rot that worked slowly, deep, until the whole structure was ready to collapse.
