Page 124 of Honeyfires

"Wait," she repeated, more urgently this time.

I stopped, my muscles tensing for the inevitable anger. But when I turned to face her, she wasn't wearing the expression I expected. Wasn't glaring at me with rage or grief or accusation.

She was crying.

Before I could process what was happening, she closed the distance between us and wrapped her arms around me in a fierce hug. I stood there frozen, my arms hanging uselessly at my sides, unable to understand what was happening.

"Thank you," she said into my shoulder, her voice thick with emotion. "Thank you for bringing my son home."

Something inside me just… broke.

All the composure I'd been holding onto, all the carefully maintained control that had kept me functioning through the visit, fractured and fell away, leaving me raw and exposed. My knees buckled, and suddenly I was sliding down the wall, Mrs. Stevens coming down with me, both of us crying in the sterile hospital hallway while nurses and visitors streamed past, carefully not looking at the breakdown happening in their peripheral vision.

"I'm sorry," I gasped out between sobs. "I'm so sorry he got hurt. I'm sorry about the burns, about the pain, about everything.”

"He's alive." She pulled back just enough to look at me, her hands gripping my shoulders. "Do you understand? My boy is alive. He's hurt, yes. He'll have scars. But he's breathing and laughing and making terrible jokes with the nurses. That's because of you."

"But the fire—I disobeyed—"

"You trusted your instincts." Her voice was fierce now, matching the intensity in her eyes. "You saved six lives, including my son's. I don't care what the news says or what anyone else thinks. You brought my baby home to me. That's all that matters."

She was thanking me. While her son lay burned in a hospital bed two doors down, bandaged and scarred because of a call I'd made, she was thanking me. I didn't know if that made it better or worse. Didn't know if her gratitude absolved me or just highlighted everything that could have gone wrong, all the ways it could have ended with Stevens in the morgue instead of in recovery.

We sat there in that hallway for I don't know how long, two women bound by trauma and fire, crying for different reasons that somehow intersected in the space between grief and gratitude. Eventually, she helped me to my feet, squeezed my hands once more, and went back to her son's room.

I made it to my truck before completely falling apart.

I came home emotionally destroyed.

Vera was in the kitchen when I walked through the door, music playing softly from her phone, something classical with violins and cello that usually soothed me. She took one look at my face and immediately turned off the stove, abandoning whatever she'd been cooking.

"What happened?" She crossed the divide between us in seconds, her hands cupping my face, searching my expression. "Petra, talk to me."

"Stevens." The word came out broken. "And his mother. She—" I couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't explain the complicated tangle of guilt and relief and confusion that had been living in my chest since that hospital hallway.

"Come here." She led me to the couch, pulled me down beside her, and gathered me into her arms. I went willingly, burying my face in her neck, breathing in her scent and safety.

We sat like that for a long time, Vera just holding me while I tried to piece myself back together. Her fingers combed through my hair, gentle and rhythmic, and gradually the shaking in my chest subsided to occasional tremors.

"Have you eaten today?" she asked eventually.

I tried to remember. Had I? There was coffee this morning, I thought. Maybe. "I'm not hungry."

"I don't care." She pulled back, her expression firm. "You're eating."

"Vera—"

"No arguments." She stood, pulling me up with her. "Kitchen. Now."

She'd made pasta, something simple with olive oil and garlic and vegetables. The smell should have been appetizing, but my stomach was twisted in knots, rejecting the very idea of food. She sat me down at the table, set a plate in front of me, and when I just stared at it, she picked up my fork and held it to my lips.

"Eat."

"I'm not a child," I protested weakly.

"Then stop acting like one and take care of yourself." But her voice was gentle, belying the stinging words. "Please, Petra. You haven't eaten properly in days. You're going to make yourself sick."

I opened my mouth, let her feed me a bite. Then another. Eventually, shame and the physical need for food combined to make me take the fork from her, to feed myself while she watched with barely concealed relief.