Page 113 of Honeyfires

The front door opened before I reached it. Vera stood silhouetted in the light from inside, wearing one of my t-shirts and nothing else, her hair loose around her shoulders. She'd been waiting. Of course she'd been waiting. Probably staring at her phone for updates and my location, checking the news, trying not to imagine the worst.

I climbed out of the truck on legs that barely held me and walked up the stairs toward her. Toward home. Toward the only thing in my life that felt solid right now.

She took one look at my face and knew.

"What happened?"

I tried to answer. Tried to form words to explain the past eighteen hours, the impossible choice, the consequences. But all that came out was:

"Stevens is in the hospital. Six homes burned. I'm suspended."

Her face went through a dozen emotions in the space of a heartbeat—shock, fear, understanding, fury—before settling on something fierce and protective.

"Come here."

She pulled me inside, closed the door behind us, and wrapped her arms around me. Just held me there in the entryway, her petite body pressed against mine, her vanilla-coconut scent mixing with the smoke and ash still clinging to my clothes.

And I broke.

Not gently. Not quietly. I broke like something fundamental had cracked inside me, like every defense I'd built over eight years of fighting fires and swallowing trauma had suddenly shattered. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but shake and gasp and try not to drown in the wave of everything I'd been holding back.

"I don't know if I did the right thing," I managed between gasps that might have been sobs. "Stevens is hurt. Six homes. But if I hadn't called it, we'd all be dead. But what if I was wrong? What if Rodriguez was right and I just, I don't know, panicked? What if I—"

"Shh. Shh, baby, breathe." Vera's hands were in my hair, her voice steady even as I fell apart in her arms. "You're okay. You're home. I've got you."

But I couldn't stop. Eight years of carrying California, of carrying Lucas and Santi, of swallowing every moment of fear and doubt and trauma because that's what you did in this job. You stayed strong. You didn't break. You kept going.

Except I couldn't keep going. Not right now. Not with the weight of today pressing down on me like super-heated air.

Vera guided me to the couch, pulled me down beside her, and let me collapse against her chest. Her heartbeat was steady beneath my ear, her fingers stroking through my filthy hair, her voice a constant murmur of comfort and love.

"You're safe. You're here. I love you. You're safe."

Time became meaningless. It could have been minutes or hours I stayed there, shaking and crying and trying to remember how to breathe. Vera never moved, never stopped touching me, never stopped anchoring me to something real and solid when everything else felt like it was burning down.

Eventually, finally, the storm passed. My breathing evened out. The shaking subsided. I was left feeling hollow and exhausted and somehow lighter, like crying had purged something toxic from my system.

"I'm sorry," I said roughly, my voice shattered. "I didn't mean to…”

"Don't." She tilted my face up to look at her. Her eyes were wet too, I realized. She'd been crying with me. "Don't apologize for feeling things. Don't apologize for letting me see you."

"I'm a mess."

"You're human." She kissed my forehead. "You're allowed to fall apart sometimes. Especially after a day like today."

"Rodriguez was right about one thing." I closed my eyes. "I should have trusted him. Because of me, Stevens—"

"Stop." Her voice was firm now. "You saved your crew. You trusted your instincts, and you saved Brandon’s life. That's not wrong, Petra. That's never wrong."

"But the homes—"

"Would have burned anyway. You said the wind shifted. You said the fire was going to jump." She cupped my face in both hands, forcing me to meet her eyes. "You made an impossible choice, and people are alive because of it. That matters."

I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to believe her. But the guilt was still there, heavy and suffocating, mixed with fear about the investigation, about my career, about everything I'd worked for potentially going up in smoke.

Vera must have seen it on my face, because she kissed me. Soft at first, gentle, like she was afraid I'd break again. But I needed more than gentleness right now. I needed to feel something other than guilt and fear. Needed to feel alive, grounded, real.

I deepened the kiss, my hands finding her waist, pulling her closer. She made a soft sound against my mouth and shifted, climbing into my lap so she was straddling me, her thighs on either side of mine.