JULY

  At the station, the fourth of July was one of the busiest days of the year. Accidents with fireworks, people setting their wns on fire, car crashes from drunk drivers… the list was endless. And since fireworks were more popur at night, it guaranteed little sleep for the whole crew, so we all ran around half-awake.

  From the moment I’d stepped into the station, I was filled with dread, leaving me nauseous with anxiety when I wasn’t suffering from a hair-trigger temper. But even if I asked Cormorant to change my schedule, I didn’t want to let Garrett out of my sight for a moment; it was my job to keep an eye on him, and I was nothing if not duty-bound.

  Early on that sunny afternoon, we got a report of a fire at a middle school, and we all dropped what we were doing to load ourselves up into the apparatus. Inside, we usually had our favorite seats, but tely I did whatever I could to put as much space between me and Garrett as possible. Though I caught shit from DeShawn for taking his spot, it seemed like a small price to pay for the distance.

  On the way over, the rig filled with the usual chatter and ughter - except from Liam. No jokes, no teasing, no bragging; he was just pure, unadulterated tension, all bundled up underneath forty-five pounds of turnout gear. As much as I didn’t like Liam, I felt bad seeing him so wound up. After an uncomfortable silence, DeShawn was the first to break the ice.

  “Liam, you good, man?” He asked. “You seem quiet.”

  “Yeah! And it’s freaking me out!” Rob added. “Where’d you put the real Liam?”

  “Ah, guys, it’s nothing,” Liam replied, scratching his nose. “It’s just…”

  Liam paused. DeShawn and Rob gnced uneasily at one another, then to Garrett, and then to me. Finally, Garrett made a face like a light bulb had gone off.

  “Wait a minute… Liam, doesn’t your son go to the middle school we’re headed to?” He tilted his head to the side, as if reciting a fun little bit of trivia. “Or am I misremembering?”

  Swallowing thickly, Liam nodded. “Thankfully, he’s home today, but… it’s hard not to think about how if this had happened just yesterday, he could be in there. So…”

  I frowned at Liam in sympathy. When I wasn’t reliving Feliz’ death over and over again, I’d had nightmares where I’d answered a call, only to find I was headed to Mercy’s office or Cleo’s school. Even if his son was safe and sound, it had to have been hard for Liam to be on this call right now. If we were closer, I would’ve given him a pat on the shoulder, but all I did was nod.

  As if embarrassed by his own vulnerability, Liam scrambled to cover up the grimness that had taken up his features.

  “So we better do a good job on this one!” He yelled, determined. “I can’t have that little shit sitting around my house for more than a couple days! He’ll drive me crazy!”

  We all ughed, but all I had to offer was a halfhearted chuckle. As soon as I didn’t have to smile anymore, I looked over at Garrett, only to find that he’d already been watching me. When our eyes met, in that split second, the corner of his mouth quirked upward like we shared a secret. I didn’t dare look at him for the rest of the ride.

  At the school, residents from across the street were already lining up on their wns to watch us and the other emergency crews operate. Kids bounced around excitedly about the possibility of staying home from school for a few days while their parents csped anxious hands around their shoulders, as if their hands alone could protect them.

  The clouds of smoke that darkened the sky from the outside made the fire look worse than it really was. Inside, it was a retively little fire - it hadn’t damaged more than the room that it had started in - and it was short-lived and easily contained, which gave me an opportunity to investigate the rest of the scene.

  As I wandered the halls with Liam to survey the damage, nothing seemed particurly out of pce. The fire originated in the art cssroom, a room tucked away from most other areas of the school, so everything else had managed to stay safe.

  Without knowing Garrett’s motivation, I wasn’t really sure what to look for or what would count as evidence against him that couldn’t just be pinned on someone else. Whatever I came across, I had to be careful; everything was simultaneously a nail in his coffin or a strap on my straitjacket - no in-between.

  On our way out, I had given up finding anything noteworthy until I passed the trophy case. Then, I stopped.

  Behind the gss, all of the bigger trophies had stayed in their pces, but a dusty little outline indicated that something that once sat there was gone. As I jostled the door to open it, its lock stayed steadfast, as if the dispy case hadn’t been broken into, but simply opened. Upon closer inspection, I found sooty little smudges around the edges of the handle, though I couldn’t tell at a gnce if they bore the tell-tale spirals of fingerprints. Right as I was examining the dirty little marks, Liam came up from behind me and cleared his throat.

  “What’re you looking at, space case?” He asked sharply.

  “Check this out.” I tapped on the gss to draw his attention. “Seems like somebody’s taken something from this trophy case…”

  After spending less than a second looking where I pointed, Liam raised an eyebrow, then fttened his mouth dismissively. “So?”

  “Doesn’t that seem weird to you?” I cocked my head to the side. “Look— there’s even something on the gss. But when you try the knob… see? It’s locked. Which means it wasn’t broken into, and that means someone had to have had the key. But if you had the key—”

  “Jesus, here we go,” he sighed. “Can you save your crackpot theories for when we’re back at the station? At least there, it’s easier to tune you out.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him with unbridled contempt. Then, I shrugged. “Oh, sorry, my bad. I don’t know why I assumed you’d give a shit,” I said casually. “It’s not like your son goes here, or anything like that—”

  It was like a switch flipped. I couldn’t even finish speaking before Liam immediately shoved me back against the case so hard, the trophies inside rattled from the force. Though a shrill ringing filled my head, I didn’t even wince.

  “Whatever bullshit you’re on, you leave me and my kid out of it, or I’ll fucking end you,” he growled. “Capisce?”

  It took a few seconds for the ringing to subside, and then the buzzing began. In defiance, all I did in return was stare; the longer I stared, the harder the hive inside started humming against the walls of my chest, begging to be free.

  As much as I would’ve loved to finally punch Liam in the face - something I’d wanted to do ever since we first met - I knew I had to resist. When it was clear I had no intentions of retaliating, Liam let me go, turning around to skulk off as if he was too good to have a conversation with me anymore. After I shot one more gnce at the trophy case, I took it as a cue to rejoin the rest of the crew.

  I was the st to enter the apparatus, where an uncomfortable silence took pce as soon as I got in my seat. Knowing better than to point it out, I simply buckled myself in and turned my focus to the window, resigning myself to another ride where I didn’t have a word to say.

  The moment we got back on the road, the tension had lifted and the conversation came back to life, and everyone went on to chatter pointlessly about sports and politics.

  But for the rest of the drive, Liam didn’t take his eyes off of me.

  ? ? ?

  All throughout the evening, I kept to myself as much as possible even with DeShawn and Heather checking in on me. How ironic it was that after years of feeling distant from others, only now was everyone putting in all of this effort to show me that they cared.

  In passing, I wondered if this was how my father felt after his breakdown, completely alone in spite of everyone’s concern; for the first time in over eighteen years, I longed for his comfort, even if it was just a distant, pitying stare and a shot of tequi I was too young for.

  As I drummed my fingers against the wooden grain of the table, lost deeply in my own mind, a hand tapped me delicately on the shoulder.

  “Is everything okay, Manny?”

  I turned around to see Heather standing beside me, collecting everyone’s dishes after dinner. She motioned with her head, and we both looked down at my pte, which was covered in sagna that I’d left completely untouched.

  “You always said you loved my sagna!” She almost sounded a little hurt. “But you haven’t had a bite all evening.”

  “Sorry,” I said, forcing an apologetic smile as I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m, uh, not really hungry tonight—”

  “Your sagna’s wasted on him, Heather!” Liam interrupted. “What’s he need the fuel for, anyway? It’s not like he does shit around here anymore!”

  Despite the smile on his face, his tone held more mockery than amusement. DeShawn ughed along with him, but Rob let out only a brief chuckle before turning to me.

  “Yeah, speaking of, you haven’t really been in the gym tely either…” Rob’s eyebrows pressed together in concern before he poked my bicep. “You’re gonna waste away at this rate.”

  I passed my pte up to Heather. “I’ve just got a lot going on in my life right now. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we get it.” Liam took out a toothpick to dislodge something from his teeth. “You get a lot of women with that dark and brooding shit, Eeyore?”

  “Aw, Liam, be nice! You know, some girls like that kind of stuff!” Heather said as she set the pte onto the counter. Then, she pursed her lips in thought. “Though… they’re usually kind of crazy, now that I think about it.”

  “Ah, but crazy girls are the best!” Rob ughed. “The real question is: are you crazy enough to take them on, ese?”

  “Guys, guys, guys, come on!” Garrett interrupted. “This is Manny we’re talking about here!”

  His words were followed by a strange pause that no one else seemed to notice. His eyes flickered over to mine, and that pearly little smile of his took on a darker edge.

  “I think you’re underestimating how crazy he can get.”

  I shot up from the table so quickly that my chair fell back. Just as I was about to sm my fists down in front of Garrett, I froze in pce. Everyone else at the table was dead silent, watching my every move with eyes wide open.

  Heather had stopped right in the middle of putting the leftovers away, blinking quickly; Rob and DeShawn’s mouths had fttened to the point of being lipless; even Liam, who was enjoying my humiliation at first, looked upon me with nothing but disgust.

  Then, there was Garrett. Despite maintaining a facade of innocent surprise, behind his eyes lurked a sinister provocation. Daring me, just as he said he would.

  My hands, clenched tightly into fists, fttened on the table. This is exactly what Garrett wanted: a death by a thousand cuts. The only winning move was not to py.

  So without saying anything to further condemn myself, I left.

  Only a moment after I was in the hallway, I heard Cormorant make a brief appearance among them. When I heard him say my name, I bolted off back to my dorm.

  ? ? ?

  As the night went on, I holed myself up in my room, keeping my door shut tightly as the rest of the crew went about cleaning up, watching TV and winding down for bed.

  I wasn’t sure how long I could keep going on like this, constantly looking over my shoulder and jumping at shadows. How the fuck would I be able to do this for a few more weeks? Or even months? There had been cases where the arsonist went undetected for years - was I ready to deal with this for that long? Would I even be able to st?

  Between the investigation and whatever was happening to me, I was rapidly alienating everyone around me, and the loneliness was taking its toll. I still hadn’t spoken to Mercy since the party, and I feared that if I opened up more to Raja, he’d take back every word he’d said and disappear again. Who was I to turn to? Who was left?

  Staring headlong at my phone, I waffled between white-knuckling it through another sleepless night alone or swallowing my pride and reaching out to Dahlia for comfort. She didn’t know me the way others did, and somehow that made her a safer person to reach out to. She hadn’t seen what I was like, didn’t know what made me tick, didn’t know that I was a lost cause just yet. It wasn’t fair to her, yet I did it anyway.

  It didn’t take her long to pick up at all - the phone rang only once.

  “Mm, hey, Manny.” Usually when Dahlia picked up, her voice was smooth and direct, but this time it was a little husky. “What’s up? You don’t usually call me at night— did you find something out?”

  “Oh, no, I just… thought I’d see what you were up to.” My cheeks burned in embarrassment, hoping my desperation wasn’t obvious. “I know it’s kind of te, so if you’re not in the mood to chat—”

  “Nonsense, you’re fine.” She let out a yawn. “I’m just answering a few emails before bed. Really exciting stuff, I know.”

  Leaning back in my chair, I propped up my legs on my desk. “Can’t say I’m jealous.”

  “Funny you should say that— sometimes I get the impression you might enjoy a quieter job.” Dahlia clicked her tongue. “Perhaps you’d like an office gig with dozens of emails and water cooler gossip more than you’d think.”

  “God, are you kidding?” I smirked. “I wouldn’t st a day— I’d be bored to death.”

  She snorted skeptically. “Really? You actually like your job?”

  “What the— of course I do,” I said a little too quickly. “Where’s that coming from?”

  “Oh, rex. You just seem so tense all the time, I don’t see how you get much joy out of it. ” I could imagine her rolling her eyes. “Then again, I’ve never actually known anyone else in the biz to compare you to, so…”

  As she went on, I said nothing, lost in thought. Having joined pretty much right after leaving the military, I hadn’t actually stopped to think about whether I still wanted to be a firefighter after all these years. I’d pursued it not out of enthusiasm for the job itself, but out of a sense of duty - the same reason I’d enlisted in the first pce. If anything, firefighting had simply been an extension of that internal desire to serve others, but that didn’t strike me as a sentiment Dahlia would understand.

  “Well, even if it’s stressful, firefighting brings me a sense of purpose,” I replied quietly. “It’s all about helping people. That’s what I care about.”

  “You could do fundraising for a nonprofit, or be a surgeon that fixes cleft pates in third world countries,” Dahlia countered. “Not everything that helps others involves self-endangerment. That’s what makes it a telling choice…”

  “Are you trying to psychoanalyze me?” I tried not to sound pointed.

  “Only for fun.” From over the phone, she made a sound like she was sipping something. “I’m not trying to insult you, if that’s what you’re worried about. If anything, I think rather highly of you.”

  “Oh.” I blinked, feeling a little warm at the tip of my ears. I rubbed the back of my neck. “Um… thanks. Not sure what I did to earn it, but…”

  “Don’t be so humble. I understand how much you’re risking by being involved in the case.” She paused. “Actually… I can’t remember the st time anyone was willing to help me out as much as you have. So I really do appreciate it, even if it doesn’t seem like I do.”

  For the most part, Dahlia approached our conversations with a cool, distant veneer, so I never expected to see that mask of hers slip and reveal a momentary glimpse of sincerity. I couldn’t resist smiling.

  “Yeah, no, of course,” I replied, reaching for a pen on my desk to click absentmindedly. “Uh, that’s sort of why I called— not because I’ve got anything for you, just… you’re just about the only person I can talk to about it, which makes me kind of lonely, you know? I don’t have anyone else who’ll listen to me.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir,” she sighed. “Ever since I started working on my podcast, everyone I know just thinks of it like an eccentric little hobby. They don’t take it seriously at all! Especially Jin.”

  Then, Dahlia let out another sigh, this one much heavier than the st.

  “He’s hated the idea of it since day one, and ever since I focused on this particur story, it’s made everything worse. He even accused me of having a midlife crisis!” She ughed in disbelief, but it was joyless and bitter. “It’s fine, though— once the divorce is finalized, he can go off and find himself a proper wife who’ll actually clean his house and pop out his kids and live happily ever after. I don’t have to disappoint him anymore.”

  “Well, hold on— did you ever think that maybe he’s scared of you getting in over your head?” I suggested, moving my feet to the floor. “I mean, can you bme him? If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t want my wife getting too deep in this kind of shit, either.”

  “Oh, spare me,” she replied. “I’m not in any real danger, at least right now.”

  “Exactly: right now.” I sat forward in my seat. “But how many reporters die in war zones? Or get bounties on their heads because they covered the wrong story?”

  “My God, Manny, I’m just recording a podcast!” Dahlia groaned. “I’m not so arrogant as to compare what I do to people like Edward Snowden. Covering local stories the news stations won’t is hardly on the same tier as exposing government secrets.”

  “But you’re just getting started, aren’t you?” As I spoke, I began aimlessly spinning the pen on my desk in zy little circles. “Like, you’re always going on about this chemical fire shit. What if you’re picking a fight you can’t win? Are you ready for that?”

  “Ugh…” Her tone stiffened. “You sound just like him right now.”

  “Yeah?” I raised an eyebrow. “And what did you tell him?”

  “That none of that is relevant!” Her voice became tight and frustrated. “Let’s say I did start covering real news— even if it started getting me in trouble, so what? Manny, the life I lead right now is so— so monotonous, so pointless, I can’t stand it! I’m rotting at a desk forty hours a week, wasting my potential, and I’m supposed to pretend like it’s not eating me up inside?”

  The longer Dahlia went on, the faster I spun the pen on my desk. It felt a little analogous to my life: spinning, spinning, spinning…

  “I know I’m meant for something more than this,” she said. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to see things through.”

  “Whatever it takes?” I asked.

  Spinning,

  spinning,

  spinning…

  “Even if it’s dangerous?”

  Spinning,

  spinning,

  spinning…

  I pinned the pen into pce.

  “Even if it could kill you?”

  Over the line, Dahlia went silent. I didn’t make a single sound, not even a breath, trying to hear whatever I could from her end. What was she thinking right now? It was always hard to tell with her.

  Finally, Dahlia let out a very carefully crafted chuckle. “Do you always get so philosophical te at night?”

  Interesting - she was clearly deflecting. But rather than point it out, I let it go, ughing along with her as if I’d been telling a joke.

  “Nah— guess you just bring that part out of me,” I smiled, tossing my pen back into the cup in the corner. “Honestly, I’m just rambling at this point.”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you have a voice for radio? You’d make an excellent guest on my podcast.” She paused for another sip of her drink. “You should come by and record with me sometime.”

  “No, no, I’m good— I’d probably shit my pants from the stage fright.” I ran my hands through my hair. “Nice of you to offer, though.”

  “Oh, I understand. Being recorded while having a conversation is much scarier than running into burning buildings for a living.” Her sarcasm was obvious. “What was I thinking?”

  I ughed more genuinely this time. “Nice try, but I’m still gonna pass.”

  “You should know by now that I don’t take no for an answer, Manny,” she said. “It’ll take more than that to dissuade me.”

  Rolling my eyes, I smirked. “Shit, you’re always looking for trouble, ain’t you? One of these days, you’re really gonna get in too deep.”

  “But that’s what I have you for— that’s your specialty, isn’t it? Helping people out of trouble?” For a second, she sounded a little dreamy. “Like Superman…”

  I ughed. “So, what, does that make you Lois Lane?”

  She ughed, too. “What do you think?”

  I couldn’t help smiling stupidly as the growing warmth in my cheeks spread through my ears and down my colr. Before I could reply, I heard the doorknob squeak behind me, and I jumped forward in my chair.

  “Hey, um, I— I gotta go.” I straightened up. “It’s, uh, it’s been good talking to you.”

  “You, too,” she replied. Then, after a pause, she spoke again. “Hey, Manny?”

  “What?” My voice came out more curtly than I’d meant it to.

  “Feel free to call me whenever.” Her voice was unusually sweet. “I don’t mind the company.”

  “Cool, cool.” I nodded, still blushing a bit. “Um, I’ll talk to you ter, Dolly. Goodnight.”

  Now the call was over, leaving me alone in an anxious silence. Slowly, I got up from my seat and turned to face the doorway.

  To my surprise, there was nobody there - only a shadow that passed quickly by the door that had been left ajar.