Page 76 of Controlled Burn
She didn’t remember falling asleep. Not really. The hours after Jake’s apartment were a blur of headlights and streetlights, flashes of bodies, sweat, and teeth. Somewhere, her Uber driver asked, “Rough night?” and she almost laughed.
She woke to the taste of whiskey and sex. Her thighs were sticky. Her lips were swollen. The sheets—someone else’s—still held the ghost of three bodies tangled together, her pulse echoing with aftershocks. The world was too quiet. Not peaceful—no, this was the silence that crawled under your skin and reminded you the night before had teeth.
She lay there a while, on her stomach, head buried in a pillow that didn’t smell like home, arm flung wide. Every inch of her ached: cunt raw, neck marked, lower back throbbing from the way Ryan had pulled her down, held her wide, told her to “take it, baby, fucking take it.”
Her mind flickered—Jake’s fingers, the stretch of both of them inside her, the sound of her voice—wrecked, wild, begging.
God, she’d needed it. She’d let go so hard she felt detonated. And for once, she didn’t flinch from the feeling.
She didn’t linger. She showered, scrubbed herself raw, dressed in last night’s jeans, lips bitten and red. She didn’t say goodbye to Jake or Ryan. Didn’t need to.
She just left. A new kind of empty. But not broken.
***
At the station, she walked in like nothing had happened.
Uniform pressed. Hair yanked back tight. Mascara cleaned up, lips still stained. Bunker gear—her shield, her armor. Her gaze dared anyone to look at her for too long.
Some of them did. Curiosity, hunger, and a few with that gleeful cruelty she knew too well.
Jake avoided her. Ryan kept his head down.
Maddox? He walked right past her in the bay. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Like she’d never been on her knees, begging him for more, like he hadn’t ever needed her at all.
Her body ached from him, too—from both nights. That was the worst part: her nerve endings still lit up for him, even when she wanted to hate him.
She tried to move on autopilot—checking trucks, reviewing reports, and completing drills. But every time her thighs brushed together, she remembered flashes of last night: Jake’steeth at her throat. Ryan’s hands bruised her hips. Her own voice, rough and unfiltered, begging for more.
“God, fuck me, both of you. Don’t stop—don’t you fucking stop—”
It looped in her head, sharper than any shame.
She was halfway through gear checks when Lt. McKenna appeared in the doorway.
“Talia.”
Her voice wasn’t sharp, wasn’t soft—just steady, a warning wrapped in neutrality. She nodded for Talia to follow her into the narrow hallway near the lockers—the kind of place where secrets hung in the air like smoke.
McKenna crossed her arms. “You holding up?”
Talia blinked, pulse a wild drumbeat in her ears. “Ma’am?”
“I heard.” McKenna’s tone didn’t rise, didn’t accuse. “The rumors. The… picture.”
Talia’s whole body went cold. The picture? Her mind flashed to Jake’s phone, to that moment in the apartment when she’d deleted the video herself—careful, final. There shouldn’t have been anything left.
“What picture?” she forced out, trying to keep her voice level, even as dread crawled up her spine.
McKenna studied her for a long moment. “Don’t play dumb. Word’s going around.” She lowered her voice. “You don’t owe anyone your shame. But you do need to survive this place. That means knowing where the traps are.”
Talia forced herself to meet her eyes, but her mind was spinning, panic bubbling beneath her skin. Someone else had it. Someone had taken a still. Or maybe Jake had sent something before she deleted it. Or…
“And if I already fell in one?” she managed.
McKenna’s gaze flicked toward the bay. “Then you climb. And you don’t stop. Just when you think everyone’s watchingyou? Trust me—someone else will screw up bigger. This place chews through scandals like firewood.”
A small, bitter laugh escaped Talia. “So I wait it out?”
