Page 74 of Igniting Her

Because I heard her again.

The answers did not change because the room changed.

On B shift, Ellie became technically faultless. If her captain ordered ten feet, she moved ten. If command told her to hold, she held until released. She called conditions early, reported every change, and never let instinct outrun the radio by so much as a breath. The precision earned approval she could not feel.

Her new captain watched her after a warehouse alarm that proved to be a failed compressor and said, “You know you are allowed to make a decision without waiting for me to put it in your mouth, right?”

Ellie coiled a length of hose. “Trying something new.”

“Does it suit you?”

“Not even a little.”

That almost sounded like her. The captain seemed to hear the difference.

She did not press.

Shift change became the dangerous hour. A and B crossed in the apparatus bay beside open compartments and half-finished coffee. Ellie learned which minute would put Cassie in her office for turnover and which route took Ellie from the bunk room to the parking lot without passing the interior window.

Sometimes the route failed.

Once, Cassie stood beside Engine 12 while Mo briefed his relief on a pump gauge that had begun to stick. She wore her uniform exactly as she always had. Her hair was secured. Her voice was level. Ellie crossed the far end of the bay with her duffel on one shoulder and felt Cassie’s attention reach her before she looked.

Their eyes met across the quint.

Cassie gave one professional nod.

Ellie returned it and kept walking.

The exchange occupied less than a second. It ruined the rest of the day.

News of A shift reached her anyway. Stations were built to move information through walls. A remark started at the pump panel, crossed the kitchen with the coffee, and arrived in the bunk room stripped of the name of whoever had first said it.

“Everett all right?” the B-shift engineer asked after their second tour. He was checking the fuel log and did not look up.

Ellie kept her attention on the trauma bag. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“Missed dispatch calling command yesterday. Only a beat. Mo covered it.”

Cassie did not miss the radio. Not names, not assignments, not a change in wind under six other voices. Ellie replaced a roll of tape that did not need replacing.

“Long call,” she said.

Two shifts later, someone complained that Mo had begun sending food across the roster.

“He left stew in our refrigerator with Everett’s name on it,” a firefighter said. “Apparently if we see her touch anything except coffee, we’re supposed to notify him.”

“He needs a hobby,” Ellie said.

“He has one. It’s feeding captains against their will.”

The bowl remained in the refrigerator untouched until B shift ate it.

Another morning, Teak’s laughter carried down the stairs before turnover. It stopped when Cassie came out of the office. Ellie did not hear the words that followed, only the gentle, irritated cadence Teak used when concern had failed to get permission. Cassie answered once. Teak looked toward Ellie across the bay and then away.

The B-shift captain found Ellie restocking saline after midnight. “Your former crew is making the entire roster nervous.”

“They’re talented that way.”