Colby's jaw flexed, a muscle jumping near his ear."It isn't on you."
"You don't know that."
His tone softened, but he didn't back off."Whoever did this, it wasn't you.And you standing here blaming yourself is exactly what they'd want."
Diaz glanced their way only briefly before focusing again on Anderson."Any sign of forced entry?"
"Front door was unlocked when crews arrived," Anderson answered."Hard to tell now what was open before the fire started and what burned through during.We'll sift through what we can, look for tool marks on any surviving hardware."
Diaz nodded once."Good.I'll need your report as soon as possible."
"You'll have it by end of day."
They moved a few steps away, still talking, voices dropping as they discussed perimeter, access points, and evidence-collection protocols.Sabrina barely heard them now.Each word dissolved under the roar of memory.
Smoke seeped under the door of the little caretaker's cabin she lived in at the edge of the property.The acrid bite of it in her throat as she stumbled outside, saw the glow through the inn's windows, and ran toward it instead of away because there were guests inside.Heat licking up the hallway.The sound the old stairs had made when she'd stumbled down them, the wood groaning and cracking like it knew it had carried its last set of panicked footsteps.
Her vision blurred, the ruins swimming in front of her.
Colby shifted, his body turning slightly so he blocked her view of the worst of the damage.He didn't make a show of it, didn't draw attention to what he was doing, but she felt the deliberate choice in every line of his posture.
"You don't have to watch every second," he said.
"Yes, I do."Her voice shook despite her best efforts to steady it."I have to stay until it's done."
"Sabrina."
"If I leave before it's all out, it'll feel like I abandoned it."She swallowed against the lump in her throat."My grandparents wouldn't have left.They would've stood right here till the last ember went cold."
"Your grandparents aren't the ones who nearly died in there last night."
She blinked at him, stung by the bluntness."You think I'm being dramatic."
"I think you're exhausted and your body is past its limit.That's not the same thing."He held her eyes, his gaze steady and unwavering."This isn't you giving up.It burned.It's out.You coming back here at all, after everything you went through, shows more loyalty than most people could manage on their best day."
The world tipped a little, the edges going soft.The outlines of the engines and people wavered like heat mirages.She noticed, distantly, that the smoldering pile seemed to sway.
Or maybe that was her.
"Okay," she said."Maybe I'm a little tired."
Colby's gaze sharpened, concern cutting through the careful neutrality."When did you last eat?"
She tried to remember.Coffee at the inn early yesterday morning, standing at the kitchen counter while she went over the week's reservations.A blueberry muffin from Maggie's around ten, eaten in three bites between checking in the Hendersons and fixing the stuck window in Room 4.After that, everything blurred into smoke and sirens.
"I'm fine."
He gave her a look that said he didn't believe her for a second.
"I don't want to leave," she repeated, but even she heard how weak it sounded, how her voice had thinned to almost nothing.
A knot of heat expanded behind her eyes, pressure building.She tilted her chin up and focused on the ruined front steps, the ones her grandfather had painstakingly refinished the summer she had her first date.He'd taught her how to sand the wood smooth, how to run her palm over it to find the rough spots that still needed work.
"If you're going to do something," he had said, his weathered hands guiding hers, "you do it right, kiddo.The house deserves that much."
The memory pressed against her ribs until it hurt to breathe.Her knees loosened under her, joints going liquid.
Colby stepped closer, his voice dropping."Sabrina."
