Page 38 of Not For Keeps
I smirk. “Creative. I’ll give him that.”
“Creative my ass,” Seb mutters. “It was a symbolic ladder. For the record.”
Nathan steps out of his office just in time to hear that and lets out a sigh. “Drill starts in ten,” he says. “Try not to be idiots until then.”
With these guys, I don’t think we can make that promise.
We suit up, the mood light on the surface—jokes flying, boots thudding, gear shifting—but underneath it, I feel that familiar tension crawling its way back up my spine.
The drill is standard. Hose pull, interior sweep, extraction with a child dummy. Nothing we haven’t done a hundred times before. But I can’t shake the feeling of the morning. No matter how hard I try. I feel off. I feel different.
Like I’m wearing my skin wrong. Like my gear weighs more today. Like the air’s too thick, and I’m already halfway to drowning.
I force the images of my nightmares out of my mind. Focus, Mateo. This is your time to be the version of you everyone expects. Cool, calm, and collected.
I need to be the Mateo they all know they can trust to be there. The one they can count on. The one Maya calls strong.
This is time to put on my best show.
So I square my shoulders. I check my gloves. And I walk into the smoke like it’s nothing. I’m not unraveling from the inside out. Definitely not.
I step inside the drill structure, and the second the smoke hits my face, my lungs tighten. It’s not really smoke—we use nontoxic training fog—but it doesn’t matter. My body reacts anyway. It’s as if my brain knowing the difference doesn’t matter.
I move forward, eyes scanning the dim hallway, dragging the hose behind me, steps practiced and sure. But nothing about me feels sure. Nothing about me feels right today. The hallway bends, and for a second, I can’t see the training dummy at the end of the room.
My breath stutters. My heartbeat pounds in my ears. Andthat’s when I see it. The shape. Slumped. Small. I force myself forward. I grab the dummy. My gloves shake.
It’s just a dummy. It’s just a dummy. I mumble to myself. I tell myself I’m here. In Lake City. I’m here with the rest of my crew. That this is now. That this is just a drill. So why doesn’t it feel like a drill? Why do I feel frozen in the moment of my past?
My grip on the dummy tightens. Too tight. My hands ache, gloves creaking against plastic limbs that don’t weigh nearly enough to feel real. But my body doesn’t care one bit. My body doesn’t care that this is fake. It reacts like it’s real.
Fuck. My chest burns from the memory of a moment that changed my life forever. A moment that I shove down deep and won’t let anyone in on. Not Cap. Not Seb. Definitely not Analyse.
My world is a broken hourglass, unable to move forward because of the shame I refuse to let go of. The failure that follows me like a second skin.
I stagger back a step, the hose still trailing behind me, and suck in a breath that doesn’t quite reach the bottom of my lungs. My helmet feels too tight. My gear feels too heavy.
It’s not real.
It’s not real.
It’s not?—
“Rodriguez! You good?” Cap’s voice crackles in my earpiece.
I force a breath in. Nod, even though he can’t see me. “Yeah. Moving.”
I haul the dummy over my shoulder, every muscle screaming. Push forward. Each step is harder than the last. Just finish. Just get through this.
The door opens ahead, daylight streaming in like a slap to the face. I break through it and lower the dummy to the pavement, my breaths ragged.
I did it. I passed. But deep down, I know I didn’t really make it out. Not really. Not in the way I need to.
The sunlight doesn’t feel warm. The air doesn’t feel fresh. Everything feels too damn loud. Too damn sharp. Too damn bright. Seb claps a hand on my back as I step out of the way, cracking some joke I don’t catch. I nod like I heard it, like I’m fine, and move toward the benches at the far end of the bay.
Helmet off. Gloves off. But I still feel a weight heavy upon me. I sit. Elbows on my knees. Palms over my face. I reach for my phone without thinking.
My thumbs hover over the screen. I don’t know what to say. Don’t know how to explain the knot in my chest or the way today cracked something open that I’ve been duct-taping shut for years. I type out a quick message and place my phone down beside me.
