Page 18 of Igniting Her

Her forearm lay across Ellie’s collarbone, directly above the heart trying to break through it. Her face was close enough that Ellie could see the darker ring around her irises, the damp strands at her temples, the faint line time had placed between her brows. For one heartbeat, Cassie looked at her without rank, discipline, or the careful blankness she wore like protective gear.

Heat. Want. And beneath both, so naked it sobered Ellie at once, fear. Not uncertainty. Not regret after the fact. Fear of the wanting itself. Ellie had spent years learning the difference between a person who didn’t want her and one who wanted her only while pretending otherwise. She could misread a room when pride got involved. She was not misreading this. Cassie’s eyes closed off. The change was instantaneous. The captain returned to her face before her body moved. She released Ellie’s wrist, lifted her forearm, and stood.

The gym felt cold where Cassie’s weight had been.

Cassie pulled the hem of her T-shirt straight. She smoothed the twisted fabric at one shoulder, then gathered the loose section of her hair and forced it back into place with both hands. The motions were precise enough to qualify as an emergency procedure.

Ellie pushed herself onto one elbow. Her voice had deserted her at exactly the moment it might have done the most damage.

Cassie did not look at her again. “Get some sleep, Ridge.” She crossed the gym and opened the door. Ellie had answers for commands. She had jokes for awkwardness and anger for almost everything else. None of them survived the silence Cassie left behind.

The door swung shut. Its latch caught with a soft, final click.

Ellie remained on the mat. The fan rattled. A weight settled somewhere in the rack as the building cooled, metal touching metal. Beyond the wall, Cassie’s footsteps crossed the corridor and disappeared toward her office. Ellie sat up slowly. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Her wrist still held the shape of Cassie’s hand. Beneath her collarbone, the pressure of that forearm lingered, not pain, not even discomfort. Evidence. She understood two things with a clarity she would have preferred several hours later and in another city. The ice ran over something molten. And Ellie was in serious trouble.

6

CASSIE

By seven the next morning, Cassie had slept for forty-one minutes. She knew because the clock on her desk had been visible when she lost the argument with consciousness and visible again when the coffeemaker started in the kitchen. Not enough time had elapsed for her to explain what had happened in the gym in her own mind. It was more than enough time, though, to decide it would not happen again.

The decision should have restored order. Instead, Cassie spent twenty minutes reading the same Coast Road report while her mind supplied details that didn’t belong in it: Ridge going still beneath her. Ridge’s pulse beating against the inside of Cassie’s forearm. The look on her face when she understood.

Cassie corrected a comma, saved the report, and left the office. She didn’t trust herself to read it again. Morning light poured through the open doors in long gold bands. Mo stood at Engine 12’s pump panel with a rag over one shoulder, checking the gauges before shift change. Priya and Jamie were replacing the medical supplies used on the cliff. Teak sat on the rear step of Rescue 12 with her walking boot extended and offered advice nobody had requested.

Ridge stood in front of the Calloway plaque. Cassie stopped in the corridor where the office opened onto the apparatus floor. Ridge had one hand tucked into the back pocket of her station pants. A narrow bandage still covered the cut beside her jaw. In daylight, she looked younger than she had on the mat and no less dangerous to Cassie’s self-control.

“You’ve all become impressively bad at answering one question,” she said to Mo.

Mo didn’t look up from the gauge. “That usually means people don’t want to answer it.”

“Or it means the answer is interesting.”

“Those things can coexist,” Mo said.

Ridge studied the plaque rather than him. Her usual grin was absent. “Teak said Calloway was one of yours. Then she tried to save me from the plumbing.”

“That does sound like Teak.”

“I’m not asking how Calloway died.” Ridge’s voice lost its teasing edge. “I want to know who she was. This whole station changes when I say the name.”

Mo’s hand rested on the pump panel. He glanced toward the captain’s office, not seeing Cassie in the corridor.

Ridge kept her eyes on the brass. “Who was J. Calloway?”

Teak’s commentary stopped. Priya’s hand stilled inside the open medical compartment. Jamie turned a sealed dressing over once without putting it away.

Mo set the rag on the running board. “Jules was⁠—”

“Enough.” Cassie’s voice struck the bay hard enough to make the word feel shouted, though she had barely raised it. Everyone turned. She could still stop. She could make the command ordinary, redirect them to shift turnover, and leave the damage small.

Cassie stepped into the bay. “Her name is not station gossip,” she said. “You will leave Calloway alone. Is that understood?”

The silence that followed belonged to another year.

The easy patience left Mo’s face first, replaced by a tired recognition Cassie knew too well. Teak stared down at the straps of her boot. Priya closed the compartment with care. They had not heard that voice in years. Cassie knew because she had not heard it either, not outside her own head, where it remained exactly as it had been.

Ridge’s expression emptied. No joke. No flare of temper. She only drew her hand from her pocket and stood straighter. “Understood, Captain.” The title had never sounded less playful.