Safe. Alive.
And for one terrible moment, I saw another girl.
Eight years old. Blonde hair. Blue eyes wide with terror.
Emma.
I heard her screaming.
Then nothing.
The memory hit so hard I had to turn away. Brace my hands on my knees. Breathe through the tightness in my chest.
Seven years.
Seven years, and I still saw her face on every child I pulled from the flames.
"Stone." Shane's hand on my shoulder. "You good?"
I straightened. Pulled the mask off. Met his eyes with the blank expression I'd perfected over a decade.
"Good save," I said.
He didn't believe me. I could see it in the way his gaze lingered. But Shane knew me well enough to understand there were doors I didn't open.
"Good save," he agreed.
The family was loaded into ambulances. The fire was knocked down. Reports were filed.
I went through the motions.
It's what I did.
The diner was chrome and vinyl, unchanged since approximately 1973. Coffee strong enough to strip paint. A waitress named Dotty who'd been calling us "honey" since before any of us made lieutenant.
Shane and Brian had dragged me here after the shift. Tradition after a good save, they said.
I think they just didn't want to leave me alone.
They'd gotten protective over the years. Subtle about it, never pushing, but always there. Found family, Maya called us once.
She wasn't wrong.
We took our usual booth in the back. Brian slid in across from me, Shane beside him. Dotty appeared with a pot of coffee before we'd even opened the menus.
"The usual, boys?"
"Please, Dotty. And extra bacon for this one." Shane jerked his thumb at me. "He needs the calories."
"I really don't."
"You look like you've been skipping meals again." Brian's voice was carefully casual. "Ava noticed at dinner last week."
"I'm fine."
The look they exchanged said they didn't believe me.
A young woman at the counter had been glancing at Shane since we sat down. Pretty. Early twenties. The kind of bold that came from not knowing any better.
