Page 179 of Controlled Burn
Middle school pep rallies. JV soccer. She was in the stands at a football game. Her at a fire academy ceremony, a firehouse picnic, bent over a rig. Cropped. Zoomed. Annotated.
"Jesus Christ," McKenna whispered.
Dean went still. "He's been watching you since you were a kid."
Talia's stomach rolled. Her eyes caught a corner photo—one she didn't even remember being taken. She was maybe thirteen. Laughing. A dahlia tucked behind her ear.
The smell of cafeteria pizza. The tray slipping. Her laugh—harmless, she thought. Until now. Until she realized he'd never let it go.
Pinned beside it was a newer shot—her stepping out of the shower, towel clutched to her chest.
The photos weren't just invasive. They were a timeline—a shrine.
McKenna squinted at the wall, and a thought curdled in her mind. They always worried about the loud guys, the violent ones. But it was the quiet ones like Brooks that built altars in silence.
Dean’s hand hovered over his radio. He wanted to tear Brooks apart with his bare hands. But before he could move—
Click. A light. Barely a flicker. And the sound of someone breathing where no one should be.
Brooks had heard them coming.
He stood in the back corner, hands raised, grinning like a man who'd already lost everything. The old burner laptop blinked behind him—still logged into the fake file marked REDEMPTION_FINAL.
"I knew you'd come," he said. "You never could resist finishing the story."
Talia didn’t speak. Just stepped forward, face unreadable. Her arm brushed Dean’s, holding him back from lunging. She didn’t need him to fight this battle. Not anymore.
McKenna's voice was razor-sharp. "You broke into the city servers. Planted surveillance. You've been collecting this shit for years."
Brooks smiled wider. "Only one girl ever mattered."
Dean’s chest heaved. Rage white-hot. But Talia’s voice cut through it, low and deadly. "Why me?"
Brooks shrugged. "You were light. You were loud. And then you became fire. I just wanted to own a piece of it."
"I was a kid," she whispered.
"You laughed when I dropped my tray," he said, softer now. "Eighth grade. Cafeteria. You laughed, and it wasn't cruel—but it never left me."
"You were perfect."
The door banged open. Flashlight beams carved the dark. Voices barked commands over static. In less than sixty seconds, the shrine became a crime scene.
The unit swarmed with activity—FBI jackets, local police, and evidence teams. A detective read Brooks his rights, voice flat.
But he didn’t resist. He leaned in toward Talia as if she were close enough to hear. His grin was thin, cracked. “We’ll always be connected. You and me. They’ll never unsee you.”
Dean lunged. McKenna caught his arm again, hard. “Don’t give him what he wants.”
Brooks just smiled like he’d won something. Because in his mind, he had.
Dean watched them bag the photos, the binders, the drives. Saw one officer carefully peel a sketch of Talia in turnout gear from the wall—drawn in ink, detailed, intimate. Wrong.
He turned away, bile rising.
Talia stood in the doorway as they led Brooks out in cuffs. His voice trailed behind him, singsong. "It was always going to end like this. Ashes, ashes…"
Talia didn't look back. She stared at the photo wall—at the younger versions of herself, pinned up like a trophy collection. Her skin crawled. Her jaw ached from clenching.
