Page 118 of Honeyfires

"Can I at least check on Stevens?" The question came out like a pathetic plea, desperation bleeding through despite my attempts at composure.

Rodriguez's expression softened, just fractionally. "As a friend, not as a fellow firefighter. Make that clear. And Alves?" He waited until I met his eyes. "For what it's worth, I meant what I said at the hospital. Your call wasn't wrong. The data proved it. But the system needs to run its course."

I nodded, not trusting my voice. The system. Always the system. Even when you were right, even when you saved lives, the system demanded its pound of flesh.

He gestured toward the door. "Take the back exit. Less chance of running into anyone."

But the universe, it seemed, had other plans.

As I walked through the station one last time, carrying a cardboard box with my personal items—a few photos, some protein bars, a book Vera had given me about wildfire ecology—I passed the common area. The crew was back early, gathered around the coffeemaker, their voices stopping mid-sentence when they saw me.

Former colleagues. Friends. People I'd fought fires with, shared meals with, trusted with my life.

And not one of them could meet my eyes.

Miller stood by the window, his back to me, but as I passed, he turned his head just enough to nod. It was barely perceptible, a tiny acknowledgment that could be denied if anyone asked, but I saw it. Silent support from a man who understood what it meant to make the hard calls, who'd been there on that ridge and knew I'd saved his life.

Jackson was sitting at the table, his hands wrapped around a coffee mug, and when our eyes finally met, the expression on his face nearly broke me. He looked hurt, like this was happening to him, like my suspension was a personal wound. He was empathetic that way, always had been. He felt everyone's pain as if it were his own. His eyes were wet, and he looked away quickly, knuckles white against the ceramic.

Davids stood near the lockers, studying his phone with intense concentration, refusing to even glance in my direction. But Emerson, leaning against the wall beside him, caught my eye and mouthed a single word: Sorry. Considering I'd saved their lives two days ago, it was something. Not much, but something.

Stevens wasn't there. Still in the hospital, probably, still recovering from the smoke inhalation and the burns. His shoulders and arms would take time to heal. I’d have to visit him soon, make sure he knew this wasn't his fault, that I didn't regret pulling him out of that inferno.

The walk to the parking lot felt endless, each step echoing in the cavernous space of the bay. I'd walked out of combat zones with my head high, had left Afghanistan with my surviving squad members and our dead carried with honor. But walking out of this station, carrying a box of personal items like some fired office worker, felt like the lowest moment of my life.

Lower than returning home from war, suddenly unable to connect with my friends and family.

Lower than the nightmares and the panic attacks and the years of therapy I'd been avoiding.

Lower than anything I'd ever experienced, because this time it wasn't war or bad luck or enemy fire—it was my own people, my own system, turning its back on me for doing the right thing.

I sat in my truck for twenty minutes, maybe longer, unable to make my hand turn the key in the ignition. The sun beat down through the windshield, turning the cab into an oven, but I couldn't bring myself to move. Couldn't face going home to Vera and admitting that it was real, that I was truly suspended, that my career hung in the balance while bureaucrats and investigators decided whether saving lives was worth the price of disobedience.

My phone buzzed. A text from Vera: How did it go?

I stared at the words, my vision blurring. How did I even begin to answer that? How did I explain the humiliation, the shame, the way my former crew had looked through me like I was already gone?

Finally, my fingers found the strength to dial her number.

She answered on the first ring. "Petra?"

"It's done." My voice sounded hollow, even to my own ears. "I'm officially suspended."

"Come home." No hesitation, no platitudes, just those two words that somehow meant everything. "Come home, baby."

I started the engine.

By evening, the story had broken.

I sat on our couch, the one we'd picked out together at some secondhand furniture store, the one where Vera liked to curl up with a book. The TV was on—local news, the kind I never usually watched because it was always the same recycled stories and manufactured drama.

Except tonight, the drama was me.

"Firefighter Disobeys Orders, Homes Destroyed," the headline read, stark white letters against a red background that looked uncomfortably like flames.

They used my official photo. The one from when I'd first joined the helitack crew, all serious expression and intimidating angles, my tattoos snaking up the sides of my neck and peeking out from under my collar. I looked dangerous in that photo. Intense. Like someone who'd make reckless decisions and burn the world down without a second thought.

I watched myself on television, this strange alternate version where I was the villain instead of the hero, and felt reality fracturing around the edges.