One o’clock, one more hour.
The last call of her shift was a minor traffic accident—no injuries, just paperwork and exchanging insurance information between two annoyed drivers. Maddox filled out the incident report with mechanical precision, her handwriting steady despite the exhaustion dragging at her bones.
One-thirty, shift over.
She drove back to the precinct and sat in the K-9 vehicle for three full minutes with the engine idling and Zeus watching her from the back seat. The PD building sat in front of her, familiar brick and glass, and somewhere inside was Jade.
“I have to talk about Titan today,” she said to Zeus, her voice quiet in the vehicle’s enclosed space. “Can’t avoid it anymore.”
Zeus’s ears swiveled forward, and his tail swished on the seat.
Maddox cut the engine and took a long breath in before getting herself and Zeus out of the vehicle. The walk from the parking lot to the building felt longer than usual. Each step forward required conscious effort, like she was moving through thick water. Zeus stayed close at her left side, his presence steady and grounding, and she was grateful he couldn’t ask questions.
Inside, the precinct hummed with its usual afternoon activity: officers coming and going, phones ringing, and the low buzz of conversation. Maddox moved through it without really seeing any of it. The hallway to Jade’s office stretched out in front of her, fluorescent lights too bright overhead.
One-fifty, ten minutes early.
That stopped her. She was never early to therapy and had made a habit of arriving exactly on time, a small way of maintaining control when everything else about mandatory therapy felt like an invasion.
But she wasn’t in mandatory therapy anymore, and today her feet had carried her here anyway. Now, she stood in the empty hallway outside Jade’s door with ten minutes to spare and nowhere to hide.
The door was closed and no sound came from inside. Maddox looked at it for a long moment, then moved to the chair against the opposite wall and sat down. The hard, molded plastic was uncomfortable and unforgiving, and Zeus settled at her feet with a soft groan.
She could leave. She could walk back out to the parking lot, drive home, and call to cancel the session, citing exhaustion or that she wasn’t feeling well and promising to reschedule.
She didn’t move.
Two o’clock arrived unceremoniously with the mechanical click of the wall clock at the end of the hallway, impossibly loud in the quiet corridor.
Jade’s door opened. She appeared in the doorway, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. Jade’s gaze moved over Maddox’s face, taking in what had to be obvious signs of a sleepless night, and her face visibly relaxed. Not pity—Maddox would’ve walked away from pity—but maybe understanding or recognition.
“Come in,” Jade said quietly.
Maddox stood. Zeus rose with her, and together they crossed the threshold into the office. The door closed behind them with a final click, and there was no turning back now.
Jade’s office hadn’t changed since last week. It had the same angled chairs, soft light, and snake plant on the side table. But somehow it felt different as Maddox lowered herself into thefamiliar seat. Zeus settled at her feet without needing to be told, his weight on her feet grounding.
“Rough night?” Jade asked, her tone even but her gaze careful as it moved over Maddox’s face.
“Nightmare.” The word came out flat, easier than Maddox had expected. “About my first K-9 partner.”
There was a fleeting change in Jade’s expression, a tiny movement that looked like curiosity. She didn’t lean forward or do any of the obvious therapeutic moves that would’ve made Maddox shut down. She just waited.
The silence stretched between them, but it didn’t feel pressured, just space.
“Titan,” Maddox said finally. His name felt strange in her mouth in this setting, a name usually reserved for the privacy of herself and Zeus alone. “German Shepherd, four years old when he died.”
“How long ago?”
“Eight years.” Maddox’s hand found Zeus’s head, her fingers moving through his fur. “During a deployment.”
Jade nodded once, slowly. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
The question was careful, offering rather than demanding. Maddox could say no. She could deflect, change the subject, or do any of the hundred things she’d done in previous sessions to avoid this exact conversation.
Instead, she started talking.
“It was a building clearance operation. There was a suspected IED inside, possible insurgent activity.” The tactical language came easier to her than emotion, so she stuck with it. “Standard protocol was to send the K-9 in first to detect explosives.”
