Derek Moss had walked into burning buildings two hundred and thirty-seven times.He had never once hesitated at the door.Tonight was no different. The Grandview Hotel's east wing was fully engaged, third floor windows belching black smoke, fire licking up the curtains like a living thing. Guests streamed past him in the opposite direction, coughing, clutching each other. Derek pulled his mask down, checked his tank, and went in.The radio crackled in his ear. Two confirmed victims. Suite 318.He took the stairs two at a time, one hand on the rail, the other gripping his Halligan bar. The smoke thickened with every floor. By the second landing it was a wall of grey. By the third it was almost black. He dropped low, moving fast on instinct and training, counting doors along the corridor wall with his fingertips.311. 313. 315.The heat was immense. The carpet had started to melt.318.He drove his boot into the door beside the lock. Once. Twice. The frame splintered and the door swung

The slap came before he finished the word "Divorce".Not a dramatic, telegraphed swing, just a sharp, efficient crack across his left cheek. Erin's rings caught the corner of his mouth. Derek's head turned with the impact. He didn't raise his hand. He didn't step back. He just stood there and let the sting settle into his face like one more thing to absorb tonight. Derek couldn't believe his eyes, he had to blink twice to realize that he wasn't dreaming and that she actually just slapped him across the face, his face blank and cheek red. "Don't," Erin said. Her voice was ice. "Don't you dare."He looked at her. A trace of warmth crept into his heart. Maybe she still loved him deep down?A sigh of relief escaped his lips but the warmth was soon snuffed out by the next thing she said as she opened her mouth Her chest was rising and falling quickly, but her eyes were dry. Perfectly dry."You don't get to do this right now," she continued. "I have the Cambridge Ethics Forum in three we

The fire had its own weather.Derek felt it the moment they crested the ridge into Los Vangees County, a pressure change, a shift in the air that had nothing to do with altitude. The sky above the convoy was a sickly amber, lit from below by something that stretched across the horizon like a second sunset. Except this one was moving.They staged at the District 9 perimeter and hit the ground running.There was no easing in. No orientation period. The incident commander gave them their assignment in ninety seconds flat firebreak maintenance along Highway 12, relief support for the crews who had been on the line since yesterday morning. Derek shouldered his pack and moved.The next several hours existed outside of time.This was the thing civilians never understood about wildfire work, it wasn't dramatic in the way people imagined. It was grinding. It was clearing burning brush by hand in visibility so poor you couldn't see the crew member three feet to your left. It was the particular

Derek woke up and didn't know where he was.That lasted about four seconds long enough for his brain to run through the checklist. Ceiling too white, bed too soft, beeping to his left, IV in his right hand. Hospital. Okay. He'd been in hospitals before, though usually he was the one walking in rather than the one waking up in a bed.He turned his head.There were too many people in the room.His first thought was that something had gone wrong with Jacob West that the man hadn't made it, and these were lawyers coming to make sure a firefighter didn't cause problems. His squad was there, Brett by the window, two others near the door, but they'd been pushed to the edges of the room by strangers. A doctor with a stethoscope. Two large men positioned near the door with the stillness of people paid to stand near doors. A woman with a tablet. Two men in suits that had never once been wrinkled.And at the foot of the bed, an elderly man in a dark suit. White-haired, hands clasped, watching De

The entire VIP corridor went silent.The West family relatives and corporate executives who had been so aggressive only moments earlier were frozen in place. They couldn't connect what they were seeing — a pale, injured firefighter in a hospital gown, smoke still visible in the creases of his skin — with Jacob West's biological son, missing for more than twenty years.Fae stared at Derek too. The man who had helped her hold up an elderly stranger in the hospital lobby downstairs. The "true heir" whose return had been quietly terrifying her all day.The silence lasted about three seconds.Then the relatives rearranged their faces with a speed that was almost impressive. Contempt became warmth. A man who had been speaking to Fae like she was an inconvenience stepped forward with his hand extended and a smile that had no business being that wide."We've been waiting for this day," he said. "Mr. West, your return means everything to this family.""The whole family," Derek said, "just trie