Page 5 of Let it Burn
The guys groan, shoving back chairs and grabbing gear, but Maddox gives me one last look. No smirk this time. Just a nod. The kind that saysI get it.
And yeah. He’s right.
Because my body might be here. But my head? My heart? Still back in that apartment with her.
Chapter 3
Lena
By the time I drag myself into the Silvertown Hollow Clinic, the morning light feels like an accusation, prying into all the cracks I’ve tried to seal shut. Last night, I lay there in the dark, too tense to sleep, too haunted to do anything but stay in bed. The shadows on the walls kept shifting like they had something to say, and every time the wind brushed against the taped-up window, I thought he’d come back. I thought maybe this time, Zeke wouldn’t be there.
I thought work would be a distraction, but my scrubs feel wrong—too stiff, too heavy. I move like I’m wading through water, everything slow and muted. But I show up anyway. I always do. It’s the only way I know how to stay invisible: keep moving, smile on cue, and never let anyone look too closely.
Marla our head registrar, notices, of course. She always does. “Rough night?” she asks as she hands me a clipboard, her voice soft and even. She’s the kind of nurse who doesn’t push, but she never misses a thing.
I try to smile, but it feels thin, brittle. “Didn’t sleep well,” I say.
She studies me, her brow drawing together slightly, but she doesn’t push it.
Silvertown Hollow is the kind of place where nothing stays quiet for long. One crack in the surface, and people start poking. So I keep my head down, stay busy. I check vitals, change linens,hand out meds. I laugh when I’m supposed to. I pretend I’m fine because it’s easier than explaining why I’m not.
But no matter how hard I try, I keep drifting. My mind keeps pulling me back to last night—back to the sound of glass breaking, back to the terror crawling through my skin like a living thing. Back to Zeke.
I shouldn’t have pushed him away like I did. He didn’t deserve that. He was trying to help. He was the only reason I wasn’t hurt—or worse. He came into my apartment and didn’t hesitate. He didn’t ask questions or look for explanations. He just acted. He protected me.
And I shut down.
It’s not that I didn’t want him there. I just didn’t know how to let him stay. I’ve spent months rebuilding a life where no one knows me, where no one gets close enough to see the cracks. Letting someone in means giving them a map to where it hurts, and I’m not sure I’m ready for anyone to see that, not even him.
Still, I can’t stop thinking about his voice. The way it wrapped around me like armor. The way his hand hovered near mine, steady but never intrusive. He didn’t flinch when I screamed. He didn’t run when I shattered. He just stayed.
“Lena, we need you out front in the waiting room, Rhoda is on her break.” Marla says.
“Okay,” I say heading there.
I’m reaching for a patient’s chart when a sharp burst of laughter cracks through the clinic. A young boy leaps off his seat in the waiting room, knocking over a stack of magazines in his excitement. It’s nothing, just a harmless, playful moment. But my body reacts before my mind catches up. I flinch hard,the chart nearly slipping from my hands as every muscle in me tightens like a wire being pulled too tight.
My heart stutters. My breath locks in my chest. For one horrible second, it’s like I’m back there—back in the apartment, the sound of shattering glass and pounding footsteps crashing through my mind. My vision blurs at the edges, but I force myself to hold on, to breathe, to remember where I am.
The boy’s mother apologizes with a sheepish smile, and I nod, trying to seem unfazed. But inside, I’m trembling. My fingers dig into the folder I’m holding, knuckles white against the plastic.
And then, like a thread pulling through the chaos, Zeke’s face slips into my mind.
Not the fear. Not the man who broke into my home. My firefighter neighbor, Zeke.
The weight of his body as he stood in front of me, a silent wall between me and everything I couldn’t fight. The low rumble of his voice telling me I was safe, like safety was something he could summon with nothing but presence and conviction. The memory steadies something inside me that I hadn’t realized was still shaking.
I can’t explain why it’s Zeke that lingers, why his presence burns brighter than the fear. But it does. Even now, with my scrubs clinging to my skin and antiseptic stinging my nose, it’s the way he looked at me—with quiet focus, no expectations—that wraps itself around my thoughts.
Maybe it’s because, in that single moment, he didn’t ask me to be strong. He just stood beside me while I shattered.
By early afternoon, the weight behind my eyes becomes impossible to ignore. I’ve been running on adrenaline and stubbornness all day, but I can practically feel my energy leaking out of me. I lean on the counter at the nurses’ station, watching the steady rhythm of the clinic continue without me, and I know I won’t make it to the end of my shift.
Marla glances over from the printer, and I prepare myself for more questions.
“Want to take the rest of the day?” she asks, like she’s offering me something more than just time.
I hesitate. The truth is, I don’t want to go home. The thought of walking into that apartment, with its broken lock and shattered glass memories, makes my stomach twist. But where else would I go? I guess that’s the downside of building a life where no one knows me.
