Page 130 of Controlled Burn
She smiled. No teeth. “Takes a puppet to think that.”
He stood fast. Too fast. The room went quiet.
But he didn’t move further. Not yet.
She let him walk away. Let the tension build.
That night, Talia lay in the bunkroom alone.
Rain tapped the window like a metronome. The exit sign glowed green.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
She flipped it open.
A still image: her hand passing the USB to McKenna. Camera 3B. Timestamped. Cropped tight. No sound.
Brooks didn’t know the drive was empty.
He just saw what he wanted: secrets.
And beneath the photo, a message followed.
BROOKS:Another handoff. Getting sloppy, Cross.
Her lips curled faintly. Let him sweat.
She locked the phone, set it on the nightstand, and turned toward the mirror bolted to the dresser.
There she was. Face shadowed. Eyes steady. The faint pink burn on her cheek still raw.
She didn’t look scared.
She looked like someone waiting.
Watching.
Hunting.
Chapter 47
Flashover
Talia
Fear was easy. Familiar. Like smoke in the lungs—you learned to breathe around it.
But this morning, it wasn’t fear that sat beneath her ribs.
It was focus.
The kind that comes after panic, after shame, after being exposed and pawed and pitied and threatened. She’d cried enough. Scrubbed herself raw enough.
Now, she was done.
The next move would be hers.
