Her bar. Her future. Her fresh start. All of it is being reduced to ash right in front of her.
I force myself to turn away. I have to. I can’t protect her if I don’t do my job.
I push deeper into the scene, barking orders, directing crew members, making rapid decisions that will mean the difference between containment and collapse. This is my element, even when it’s tearing something precious apart. I work on instinct and training, the chaos narrowing into something I can manage.
From the corner of my eye, I spot Roz near the sidewalk. I grab an o2tank for her and race over. She’s soot-covered, hair plastered to her face, eyes red and wild with shock. She barely sees me, and the moment she sees Harper, she breaks, stumbling toward her with a sob. “I came to check on the repairs,” Roz cries. “Someone had broken in. There was—there was gasoline everywhere. I smelled it. I barely got out.”
Harper makes a broken sound and pulls her into a hug, Mason wedged between them, shaking. I see Harper’s shoulders heave, her face crumpling as the reality slams home in full force.
This wasn’t just arson. This was meant to destroy her.
I grit my teeth and turn back toward the fire, fury burning hotter than the flames in front of me. “Here. For her, as soon as you can. Just hold it over her mouth and nose, press this. I have to go.”
As I race back to work, anger sears every motion. Whoever did this made it personal. That makes it my personal mission to see them punished.
The fire fights back like it knows it’s been cornered. Every time we think we’ve got a line held, another pocket flares up, fed by gasoline that shouldn’t be there in the first place. The smell is wrong—sharp and chemical under the smoke—and it confirms what my gut already knows. It wasn’t only gasoline. They used something else with it.
Someone wanted this place gone. Not damaged. Erased.
“Back door’s fully breached,” Theo calls over the radio. “We’ve got forced entry and heavy burn patterns along the floor.”
“Copy,” I answer. “Focus on containment. Protect the neighboring structures. We’re not saving the interior.” That order hurts to give, and I don’t even own the place.
Water pounds against flame, steam hissing violently as it meets heat that refuses to surrender. I move checking lines, redirecting efforts, making sure no one gets sloppy under pressure. This is when people get hurt—when adrenaline overrides caution, and you forget that fire doesn’t care how experienced you are.
Through it all, I’m painfully aware of Harper and Mason watching.
I catch glimpses of them between movements, standing just beyond the tape with Mason glued to her side, her face illuminated by the blaze. She’s holding it together because she has to, because her son is right there and she refuses to let him see her fall apart.
I know that posture. I’ve seen it a hundred times in survivors. The rigid stillness. The clenched jaw. The eyes that don’t blink because blinking might let everything spill out.
I want to go to her, but I can’t. I do the thing she needs me to do most right now. I handle the crisis.
Gradually, painfully, the fire starts to give ground. The roar softens into something more manageable, flames beaten back enough that we can finally see the skeleton of what’s left behind. The roof sags but holds. The neighboring buildings are spared. The worst of it is contained.
“Knockdown in progress,” someone calls out.
I exhale for the first time in what feels like hours.
When the last major flare is extinguished, the scene shifts from chaos to aftermath. Steam rolls off blackened beams. The smell of wet ash hangs heavy in the air. We move into overhaul mode, checking for hot spots, making sure nothing reignites while the urge to run inside and see things runs high.
That’s when the fire investigator approaches me. Grant is calm in that way investigators are when they’ve seen this too many times to be shaken by it anymore. He gestures for me to step aside, away from the noise and the crowd. “We’ve got evidence of gasoline. Chemical analysis will determine what else was used,” he says without preamble. “Forced entry through the rear door. And there’s something else.”
He holds up a clear evidence bag. Inside it is a scrap of receipt paper, singed around the edges but legible. My stomach drops as I read the words scrawled across it.
You took everything from me. Now I’m returning the favor.— M.C.
Marcus Chen.
I close my eyes briefly, jaw tightening as the pieces snap together. This isn’t escalation. This is obsession. This is a man who decided blame was easier than responsibility and lit a match to prove it.
A sniffle catches my ear, and I turn to see Harper break down.
Her knees buckle, and she sinks onto the curb, hands covering her face as sobs tear out of her, raw and unrestrained now that the fire is out and the adrenaline has nowhere left to go. Mason clings to her neck, crying with her, his small body shaking as he buries his face against her shoulder.
I drop down beside her, pulling both of them into my arms despite the soot and sweat and chaos clinging to me. She collapses against my chest, fists clutching my jacket like it’s the only thing keeping her upright.
“It’s my fault,” she chokes. “I fired him. I should have known. I should have done something.”
