Engine 295 was dying by inches.
I noticed it the moment I pulled into the lot—the bay door stuck halfway up, the mechanism grinding like it had gravel in its gears. Rodriguez was already on his phone, patience fraying around the edges as he talked to someone at Facilities.
"Deferred indefinitely," he said when he hung up. "Pending budget audit."
Shane caught my eye across the apparatus floor.
We'd been having this conversation without words for weeks now. The slow strangulation of a firehouse someone wanted dead.
"They sent people," Brian said, nodding toward the common room. "Suits."
I followed his gaze. Two men in gray, clipboards in hand, measuring the square footage of our living quarters like real estate appraisers at an estate sale.
They didn't introduce themselves. Didn't acknowledge us. Just wrote numbers in neat columns and took photos of spaces they'd labeled "underutilized."
"City Budget Office," Rodriguez said quietly. "Third visit this month."
My jaw tightened. I watched them photograph the kitchen, the bunks, the equipment bay—cataloging our home like inventory to be liquidated.
"Equipment request came back." Rodriguez handed me the form. Red stamp across the top: DENIED. "New thermal imagers, replacement hoses. We're supposed to borrow from Engine 302."
"302's across town."
"I'm aware."
I pulled out my phone. Started taking pictures. The suits with their clipboards. The denied equipment request. The bay door frozen halfway open.
Everything timestamped. Everything documented.
When Sloane and I built this case, I wanted evidence that they were deliberately sabotaging us.
A woman arrived at lunchtime, carrying Tupperware containers that smelled like garlic and basil.
"I'm Becks." She smiled, the expression crinkling the corners of her eyes. Middle-aged. Brown hair shot through with gray. The kind of face that belonged on a church bulletin board or a neighborhood watch committee. "I live a few blocks over. Thought you boys could use a home-cooked meal."
The crew descended like locusts on a wheat field. Brian was first, already prying open a container of lasagna. Rodriguez thanked her with the automatic politeness of someone who'd accepted a thousand community gestures over twenty years on the job.
I hung back.
There was something about her. The way her gaze moved around the station—not curious the way visitors usually were. Not impressed by the rigs or intimidated by the gear.
She was cataloging. Taking inventory. Noting where things were, who stood where, and how the spaces connected.
"Hard work you do," she said, moving toward me. Her voice was warm. Maternal. "Dangerous."
"Part of the job."
"Some calls must stay with you, though." Her eyes found mine. Held them. "The ones you can't forget."
The words hit somewhere deep. Somewhere I'd bricked over years ago.
"All of them stay with you," I said carefully. "That's what it means to do this work."
She smiled again. Patted my arm like I was a nephew she was proud of. "You're one of the good ones, Lieutenant. I can tell."
Then she was gone, leaving behind a table full of food and a crew singing her praises.
"Nice lady," Brian said around a mouthful of lasagna. "We should put her on the regular rotation."
