Page 149 of Controlled Burn
The shower scalded. Steam cloaked her shoulders. She braced her palms on the tile, head bowed.
She didn’t cry. Didn’t shake.
But part of her—the part that had survived this long—tensed with the thrill of what she’d done. What she’d become.
Power was messy. But it was hers now.
Her phone buzzed on the counter.
McKenna: Brooks bit. IT flagged him accessing the hallway footage. You were right.
Another: You okay?
She stared at the screen.
Then shut off the water.
And smiled at her reflection in the fogged glass.
Brooks
She was supposed to be his clean break.
He remembered her from school—brighter than she knew, louder than she should’ve been. She’d looked past him then. Never saw him.
Now she was back. In his station. On his rig.
Wrecking his second chance. Again.
Maybe it was fate. Perhaps she belonged to him, and just didn’t know it yet.
He opened his laptop, fingers hovering over the trackpad.
The folder was already there:Cross – Primary. Dozens of subfolders. Clips. Still frames. Screenshots of text threads that weren’t his. Snippets of audio ripped from comms feeds.
He played one at random. Grainy bay footage. Talia leaning against the truck, sweat streaking her collarbone, head tipped back in laughter.
Brooks zoomed in until the pixels blurred. Sat back. Watched her laugh over and over again until the soundless motion filled his skull like static.
She was everything he hated.
And everything he wanted.
McKenna
From the second-floor railing, McKenna watched the storm roll in. Coffee was cooling in her hand.
Something was building. Not just between Talia and Jake. Not just Brooks.
It was everywhere—in the static, the silence, the heat in the vents.
The second fire in forty-eight hours had been a warning.
This one?
This was ignition.
Talia
