Her eyes flickered open and found mine.
Her brows pinched as she pulled in another shallow breath through the mask. She winced, instinctively trying to lift her hand toward her face, but I caught it gently.
“Easy,” I said. “Just breathe.”
Someone behind us shouted instructions. Water hissed as the team hit the main flame inside the truck. The twinkle lights decorating the awning sagged in melted loops, dripping plastic. Smoke curled dark and angry above the roof vent.
Jess’s fingers curled weakly into the fabric of my glove.
That tiny, unconscious hold hit harder than anything else tonight.
Behind us, the truck groaned as part of the vent collapsed inward. Water slammed into it, steam rising in thick clouds. The odor was sharp and bitter—burned insulation, ruined coffee grounds, melted plastic.
Her livelihood. Her pride. Everything she’d built.
Her eyes drifted shut again, not unconscious, just exhausted. Soot streaked her cheek in a messy line. A bit of melted garland hung from the truck door like a deflated party streamer.
I stayed kneeling beside her, her hand still wrapped in mine, oxygen mask hissing softly.
She was breathing.
She was breathing.
She was breathing.
And her truck… was gone.
I didn’t realize my breath had broken until Moose laid a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“She’s okay,” he said quietly.
I nodded without looking away from her. “Yeah. But her business…”
He grimaced. No reply necessary. We both knew exactly how bad the damage was.
Jess coughed again, softer this time, and my grip tightened around her hand.
I wasn’t letting go. Not yet. Maybe not for a while. The thought of what could have happened was enough to hollow me out.
But she was here. Safe and alive.
And I planned to keep her that way.
SIX
JESS
As a child, I almost drowned in the river behind my grandparents’ place.
It started as a slippery rock, one bad step, a sudden plunge. What I remember most isn’t the water—it’s the silence. The way the world went muffled and far away while my body panicked and clawed for the surface.
This felt like that.
Sound came back first, in fragments. A high, shrill keening that might’ve been a siren. Someone shouting something about pressure. The hiss of water. Boots on pavement. All of it warped and distant, like I listening from the bottom of a pool.
Then came sensation.
Cold concrete under my hip and shoulder. A hard edge against my spine. My lungs burned, raw and tight. Something plastic covered my mouth and nose, pressing into my skin, hissing with every inhale.
