Ashford had been waiting for anyone who came looking. He'd turned his office into a trap, and Erin had walked right into it.
Because Lena had let her.
Because Lena had trusted her expertise instead of her own instincts to protect.
Because Lena had finally learned to let go of control, and it had probably killed the woman she loved.
The foam trucks arrived with mechanical precision, crews deploying suppression equipment with practiced, efficient movements. But even as the white foam began covering the structure, even as the flames started to diminish, Lena knew it was too late.
Nobody came back from hell.
Lena found herself watching the foam operation through a tunnel of grief, barely registering the coordinated movements around her. The visible flames were gone now, but smoke still poured from the structure in thick, acrid streams, and the fire crews repositioned their equipment, preparing for interior assessment. They moved with methodical precision as they checked hose pressure, tested communication equipment, and coordinated entry points.
Professional, careful, and slow. Too fucking slow.
Every second they spent organizing was another second Erin didn't have. Another second she was breathing superheated air, if she was breathing at all.
Captain Hallie Hunter stood twenty feet away, her back turned as she coordinated with the foam truck operator. Julia was farther out, managing the perimeter and talking into her radio. The tactical teams had pulled back to establish a staging area for medical support.
Nobody was watching her.
Lena pushed herself up from the gravel, her legs unsteady but functional. The building loomed ahead, its windows dark and smoldering. The front entrance where the crews were focused looked like the mouth of a furnace, but the structure wrapped around to the side, where the smoke was lighter.
Erin's voice echoed in her memory from weeks of watching her work:Air flow tells you everything. Follow the cleaner air. It shows you the safest path.
She started walking.
Not toward the staged entry point where crews were preparing. Not toward the obvious routes that would get her stopped and restrained. Toward the side of the building where smoke moved differently, where the gray wisps suggested ventilation rather than trapped heat.
Her feet found their own rhythm, carrying her around the perimeter while voices faded behind her. The structure looked different from this angle—damaged and scorched but not destroyed. A side door hung partially open, probably blown out by the pressure of the initial explosion.
She’d found cleaner air.
Lena reached the door and paused, every rational thought screaming that this was insane. The air shimmered with heat, and the smell of chemicals and burning materials singed her nostrils. The very real possibility that the next step would kill her didn't matter anymore.
Somewhere inside this hell, Erin was dying.
The thought propelled her forward.
The interior hit her like a physical assault. Heat seared her lungs like molten metal, smoke blinded her and turned the world into a gray maze, and the chemical stench of accelerants burned her throat raw. She dropped to her hands and knees immediately, remembering Erin's lessons about air quality near the floor.
Breathe shallow. Move fast. Trust the air flow.
The hallway stretched ahead, lit by the orange glow of fires that were suppressed but not extinguished. Debris covered the floor—chunks of ceiling, pieces of furniture, the remnants of whatever Ashford had been doing in here. Lena crawled overit all, her tactical vest scraping against the concrete, her radio crackling with distant voices she couldn't process.
Heat pressed down on her from above like a living thing as sweat poured into her eyes. Her lungs rebelled against the toxic air, but she forced herself to keep moving, following the subtle currents that Erin had taught her to read.
Where would Erin go in a building like this? Where would she position herself for maximum safety while assessing the threat?
The back office. Away from the initial explosion, toward whatever exit she could find.
Lena pushed deeper into the structure, past offices with their doors blown off their hinges, past equipment scattered like shrapnel. The heat was getting worse, the air thicker, but she could hear something now over the roar of suppressed flames—a faint creaking that meant the building was still deciding whether to collapse.
She turned a corner and saw her.
Erin lay motionless beside an overturned desk, her fire-resistant gear singed but intact, her helmet several feet away. She wasn't moving or responding to the chaos around her. Just lying there in the gray smoke, unnaturally still.
"Erin!" Lena's voice came out as a croak, barely audible over the sound of the building dying around them.
