Page 166 of Controlled Burn
The way she smirked in some clips. The way she gave orders. How she leaned into Jake during the hazmat call.
He was building a case.
Not for court.
For destruction.
A ping from one of his feeds. Brooks clicked open a live camera: the apparatus bay.
Talia stood alone at 4:00 a.m., hoodie pulled over damp hair, staring at the rigs like they were enemies. Her shoulders square, her body taut with the strain of leadership.
He leaned closer to the screen.
“You think you’re in control now,” he whispered. “You think they’ll follow you.”
He tapped the progress bar crawling across his monitor—EXPORT: 67%.
“Wait until they see what I see.”
He paused. One clip auto-played—a fire scene. She carried a child out of a smoke-filled hallway, coughing, stumbling. She didn’t see the camera.
He replayed it.
Then again.
Something twisted in his chest. Not pain. Not regret.
Something hot. Confused.
Something sacred.
He pressed his palm to the wall, felt the server’s vibration in his bones.
She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t cruel.
She was everything he couldn’t have.
An angel in turnout gear.
Not pure. Not perfect. Just out of reach.
And that made her holy.His thumb brushed the edge of her yearbook photo—sunlit, happy, utterly oblivious to the quiet boy across the cafeteria.
“You never even looked at me,” he murmured. “Not once. Not until now.”
He pressed the photo back onto the board—hard enough to nearly puncture it with the pin.
His pulse was steady now.
Back to work.
The video was exported. Progress bar crawling like a fuse.
Soon, the world would see what he saw.
Unless he changed his mind.
Unless he didn’t want her ruined—
