Page 160 of Controlled Burn
Only that he hadn’t done enough.
The email from Stark had come three hours ago, language so sterile it made him want to laugh.
Pending review of the incident involving Firefighter Hastings, you are relieved of command with pay, effective immediately.
He should have put his fist through the wall. He didn’t. He just let himself burn.
At midnight, he hit the shower, turning the water as hot as he could stand. Steam choked the tiny bathroom. He braced his palms on the tile, let the scalding spray beat the regret out of him.
He wished it could.
But all he could think about was her.
Talia.
The way she tasted—salt and sweat and want. The way her back arched under his hands. The rawness in her voice when she called himcaptainwith more heat than respect.
He’d never felt so alive.
Now it was over.
The water hammered against his skin, and memory bled with it. Rachel’s perfume. Talia’s nails dragging his spine. Rachel’s silence. Talia’s laugh, rough and reckless. Both women ghosts, both women burned into him in ways he couldn’t scrub out.
He could still feel the blood on his knuckles, the crunch of bone, the sick satisfaction of making Jake bleed.
He’d do it again. No regrets.
But none of it mattered.
The system didn’t care about truth.
Only containment.
He let the water scald his skin until it ran cold.
Talia
The station was a wound that wouldn’t close.
Nobody spoke about Maddox, but his absence echoed—every time she walked the bay, every time she heard the tones drop, every time someone else reached for the clipboard that should have been his.
The gear room smelled like old sweat and diesel and something scorched, a reminder of every fire they’d survived and every secret they’d buried.
She kept her chin high, her clipboard tight in her hands. She ignored the sideways glances, the hush that followed her footsteps. Ignored the smirk Watts wore when she issued orders, the way Brooks lingered in doorways, the predatory patience in Jake’s smile.
But she saw the others, too.
Kennedy, finally meeting her eyes—something wounded but not broken in her gaze.
Reyes, stoic and silent, a nod that said:I’m with you.
McKenna, always on the edge. Watching. Ready.
She missed Maddox. Missed his steadiness. His quiet. His hands.
Missing him was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Not while the knives were still out.
But he was gone.
