We go through the rest of the supplies. She calls out items. I confirm. The routine is muscle memory. We used to practice this in high school when she swore she’d be a paramedic someday.
Funny how she made her dreams happen.
Funny how mine only ever included her.
When we finish, she steps out of the ambulance. Cold air sweeps in, brushing over my skin like a slap.
The captain calls her back for the rest of the tour.
She pauses in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame. Snow swirls behind her, catching in her hair, turning her into something I can barely look at without feeling gutted.
She says, voice steady but tight, “Thank you. Ramirez.”
There it is again.
Ramirez.
Not Axel.
It digs into me. More than I want it to.
She steps away, following Cole toward the training room.
I watch her go.
Her shoulders tense. Her spine straight. Completely unreadable.
Except I can read her.
I always could.
And right now?
She’s rattled.
Same as me.
The second she’s out of sight, I press both palms to the cold metal of the ambulance bumper, bow my head, and breathe like I’ve just outrun a wildfire.
Ten years of ghosts just walked back into my life.
And I’m not ready.
But God help me—I’m not letting her disappear again.
Chapter Three
Savannah
My first shift back at Devil’s Peak should feel like the fresh start I convinced myself I was ready for.
Instead, it feels like my skin doesn’t fit.
Everything is too familiar—scuffed tile floors, distant radio crackle, the faint smell of coffee and diesel—and at the same time completely foreign, like I’m walking through a photograph instead of a real place.
But the real reason my nerves won’t settle?
He’s here.
