Margot is at the flash wall with a sketchbook open in one hand and a Sharpie tucked behind her ear. She's the other artist here. We've never talked much beyond hello and the occasional nod in the hallway, but three years in the same shop means I know her work and she knows my arm.
She glances at me as I pass.
"Hey, Teague. The koi turned out good. I saw the stencil."
"Vanessa doesn't miss."
"No she doesn't." She closes the sketchbook. "I'm heading out. Date night, if my girlfriend isn't stuck at the station."
"Firefighter?"
She looks at me, mildly surprised. "Yeah. Station 11. How'd you guess?"
"The schedule awareness." I hold up my phone. "I put the shift calendar in mine. Twenty-four on, forty-eight off. Only way to keep track. At some point my girlfriend says they might switch back to going in at night and I'll have to redo it all, but for right now this is the only way I keep track."
She laughs. Short, real. "I need to do that. I keep suggesting dinner on her on-days and she has to remind me she's sleeping at the firehouse." She tucks the sketchbook under her arm. "See you later. And, you know, if you wanted to meet up, double date since our girlfriends are firefighters, we can. My card is at the front if you want my number."
Margot leaves quickly and I make sure to grab her card on my way out.
The sun is out. Granger Street is doing its regular afternoon thing: people walking, a delivery truck double-parked,the coffee shop on the corner with its sidewalk sign. I pull out my phone and text Zoe.
koi is finished. vanessa says bring you in to meet her.
She responds in twelve seconds. She always responds within a minute if she's not busy, never longer, because Zoe Kimball does not let messages sit. She reads and she responds and she means every word immediately.
SHOW ME. also yes. also when. also i love that she wants to meet me.
Me:tonight. come to the bar. i'll show you in person.
i'll be there at 7. bringing enchiladas again because torres made extra and gave me a container and said "feed your person."
Your person. Torres called me Zoe's person. I should be bothered by this. Six months ago I would have been. The idea of being known, of being placed inside someone else's story, tracked and discussed and folded into a group I didn't choose, would have sent me walking in the other direction.
I'm not walking in the other direction.
I'm walking toward Anthem with a finished koi on my arm and a text from my girlfriend on my phone and enchiladas coming at seven, and the afternoon is warm and the jacket is heavy and the fish on my forearm is swimming upstream through water that moves, and for the first time in three years the current doesn't feel like something I'm fighting.
It feels like somewhere I'm going.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Zoe
The tones drop at 11:38 on a Thursday morning while I'm washing mugs in the kitchen.
I've been waiting for this. Not the medical calls, which I've run three of now and which taught me how to talk to people who are scared and how to read vitals. The medical calls were real and they mattered and I'm glad I had them first. But this is different. This is what I trained for. This is fire.
The electronic pulse hits and my body moves before my brain catches up. Mug on the counter. Towel dropped. Feet on the floor moving toward the bay. Around me the crew is doing the same thing, that coordinated flood I've watched from the outside and am now inside of, every person finding their lane without collision.
Torres is in the driver's seat before I clear the kitchen. Rivera is behind her. Walsh and Drew are gearing up at the lockers, moving in practiced rhythm, turnout pants and boots and jackets in a sequence so fast it looks rehearsed but isn't.Helena is a step behind them. Hayes is already at the engine, checking her radio.
I gear up. My locker is at the end of the row, last spot, probie position. My turnout gear is clean because I haven't worn it on a real call yet. I step into the pants, pull the suspenders, shrug into the jacket, grab my helmet. My hands are steady. My fingers work the clasps without fumbling. I've done this a hundred times in drills and the drills hold now, the muscle memory carrying me through the gap between training and real.
Cap comes through the bay. She's on her radio, getting dispatch details, her face carrying the focused calm that makes her Cap. She looks at me as she passes. One look. Brief, assessing, the same look she gave me on my first day when she said "welcome to Station 11" with no ceremony and all the weight in the world.
"Kimball rides," she says to Hayes. "Interior cleared for entry."
Interior cleared. She's letting me go inside.
