Page 150 of Controlled Burn
She stood alone at 4:00 a.m. on the apparatus floor, hood pulled over damp hair.
The trucks were quiet.
The station was not.
Let them come.
She no longer feared the fire.
She was the fucking accelerant.
Dean
Dean’s shadow stretched from the doorway, unseen.
He watched her—small frame wrapped in a hoodie, standing alone in the dark like she was daring the world to strike first.
Something inside him broke open at the sight. Not because she looked fragile.
Because she didn’t.
She looked like the spark itself.
And he knew, with a hollow ache in his chest—if she chose to burn, there’d be nothing left to save.
Chapter 53
Breaking Point
Hastings
It started with the silence.
Not the kind that warned.
The kind that opened doors.
The kind that crept in after the bay lights dimmed, after the rest of the crew disappeared into the hum of sleep or distraction. The kind of silence that wrapped around a man like a cloak, let him slip between rules, into cracks no one noticed.
Jake Hastings wasn’t a ghost.
But lately, he felt like one.
Maddox got the stares. Cross got the whispers.
Watts got a reputation.
Jake got nothing.
Not even Talia.
Especially not Talia.
She’d stared him down in front of everyone. Called him weak. Played him like a pawn. Then walked away like he didn’t matter.
And maybe to her, he didn’t.
But he’d show her.
