9. Marcus
Chapter nine
Marcus
M y turnout gear had melted in places, the edges fusing into shapes that would never quite come clean. Three hours of battling hell, and my body was paying the price. My arms were made of lead, my knees ached from kneeling in debris, and my lungs still hadn't adjusted to normal air. Even through my turnout coat, heat crawled over my skin like an itch I couldn't scratch.
Steam whispered through collapsed rafters, carrying particles that coated the back of my throat. The last crews cycled through overhaul, their tools scraping against debris in that familiar rhythm that usually meant we'd won. Usually, it meant we'd beaten whatever had tried to destroy the place.
In this case, we hadn't won anything. The factory burned precisely as someone planned—not enough to collapse, but enough to deliver whatever message they'd choreographed into its ruins.
"Lieutenant?" Peterson called across the debris field, uncertainty threading through his usual confidence. I turned to find him crouched near what had been a support column, his headlamp cutting through the lingering haze. "Can you verify something?"
The hesitation in his tone set off warning bells. Peterson was solid—fifteen years of service, and nothing rattled him. But now his hands hovered over something in the ash like he didn't entirely trust what he was seeing.
I picked my way across the factory floor, each step measured against unstable footing. The debris shifted beneath my boots, creating hollow sounds that echoed off warped metal. Peterson hadn't moved, still frozen in that careful crouch that told me he found something that didn't belong.
"Tell me what I'm looking at." My voice was neutral and professional, even as unease crawled up my spine.
"That's just it, sir." Peterson's headlamp focused on a cleared space in the wreckage. "It doesn't make sense. In this area, the burn goes cold right here. Like something was protected. And then we found..."
He gestured to what looked like a book, its edges darkened but its core somehow intact. Even before I got closer, my gut twisted with recognition. The size, the shape, and the way it sat perfectly centered in its pocket of devastation gave it away.
"Is that what I think it is?"
Peterson nodded slowly. "Standard issue training manual. Old edition—the kind they phased out more than five years ago, but sir..." He swallowed hard. "You need to see the inside."
I crouched beside him, ash crunching under my knees. The manual's cover bore precise, patterned scorch marks.
"The burns are deliberate." Peterson's voice dropped lower. "Each one marks specific sections. And the name inside—"
The sight of the familiar handwriting knocked the breath out of me. It was twelve years since I'd seen it, but I'd know the careful block letters anywhere. Dad had always insisted on marking his manuals clearly, drilling into us the importance of taking pride in our equipment.
"That's impossible." My voice was thin and distant. "This was in storage. In a locked box at the station. It can't—"
"It is." James appeared beside us, his presence both steadying and unsettling. The professor's usual precise movements were sharper, edged with something that might have been anger. "Which means they have access to more than your training routes."
I shoved the manual at him, needing it away from my hands before I crushed it. The urge to destroy evidence warred with years of training. "Look at the name."
James handled it with that careful attention he brought to every piece of evidence, but I saw the moment understanding hit. His fingers rested on the scorched pages, and that furrow appeared between his brows. "These patterns aren't random. Each mark highlights specific sections about—"
"Endurance training. Heat resistance." The words nearly choked me. "Everything Dad drilled into us about pushing past normal limits."
James turned each page with methodical precision. "The dispersal of the incendiary agent creates specific patterns around each highlighted section. Look—"
"Show me." I crowded closer, ash crunching under my boots. The factory's ruins groaned around us as metal cooled and contracted.
"These burns outline the sections about pushing physical limits." James's academic tone cracked slightly. "But it's the margin notes that matter. See how they've added their observations? Comparing your father's training methods to your current routines?"
He was right. Cramped handwriting filled the spaces around Dad's old highlights, creating a twisted commentary on everything from breathing techniques to recovery times. My stomach lurched as I recognized observations from my most recent training sessions.
James's voice dropped lower. "It's about your family now."
"Stop." The word came out sharp enough to make Peterson take a step back.
"Marcus—"
"Don't analyze this like it's just another piece of evidence." My hands clenched at my sides. "That's my father's writing. His manual. His—"
"I know." James didn't retreat despite my tone. "But if we don't understand what they're trying to tell us—"
"Tell us?" Something snapped inside me. "They stole his manual from storage. Marked it up like some sick research paper. Used his own words to—" I broke off, dragging a hand through my hair.
"You're too close to this. "
" Of course, I'm too fucking close. " I stepped into James's space, the heat from the fire still trapped between us."They're turning everything he taught me into their performance piece. Using his death as part of their artistic vision."
"Which is exactly why you need to step back."James didn't flinch, but his voice softened—not with pity, but something sharper. " Because if you don't, they win twice. First, by burning the building. Then by burning you down with it."
That hit differently. Not clinical. Not distant. Just truth.
"My father didn't raise me to back down."I swallowed hard."I don't get to step back."
James took a breath, his hands tightening on the scorched manual. " No, he raised you to survive. But survival isn't the same as running yourself into the ground to prove you're invincible."
Something cracked.
"You think this is about proving something?"My laugh was bitter but thinner, too."This isn't about me being invincible. It's about not letting his death be for nothing."
James's eyes softened, just a flicker. " His death wasn't nothing, Marcus. It mattered because he mattered. Not because of how you carry it like a weight on your back. You think your grief is a tribute, but all it's doing is chaining you to the past."
I blinked.
"And what about you?"I shot back, not ready to sit with the sting of his words. " You analyze evidence because it's safer than facing what's broken inside you."
James flinched just slightly. Then, he stepped closer, closing the space between us like a challenge.
"Maybe. But at least I'm not confusing grief with purpose."His words were quiet, lethal in their precision."You're not your father's shadow, Marcus. But you sure as hell act like it's the only thing that defines you."
Silence hung between us, heavy and charged.
Then softer, James added,"I'm not trying to pull you away from this. I'm trying to remind you there's more to you than this."
And for the first time, I didn't have an answer.
The factory's broken walls creaked around us, a counterpoint to my pulse hammering in my ears. James still held the manual like it was precious and dangerous, his fingers tracing absent patterns on its scorched cover.
"I can't step back from this. I won't."
"I know." Something in his expression cracked slightly. "But I can't watch you become their masterpiece because you're too stubborn to let someone help you."
"James—"
"So either trust me to do my job," he cut me off, "or tell me to walk away now. Because I can't keep pretending this is just professional anymore."
Movement caught my eye—a shadow in the second-floor window. Not the shifting dark of debris settling or steam rising, but someone watching. They stood perfectly framed against the broken glass like they wanted me to see them. Like they were waiting for my reaction.
My body launched into motion before conscious thought caught up. Training kicked in as I sprinted toward the building's entrance, calculating paths through structural damage even as adrenaline flooded my system. The factory's layout unfurled in my mind—central stairwell, second-floor access points, possible escape routes.
"Marcus!" James's voice followed me, but I was already through the doorway.
The ground floor was a maze of fallen beams and firefighting debris. Steam still rose from puddles where our hoses had fought the blaze, creating pockets of artificial fog that caught in my throat. My boots gripped the wet concrete as I wove through the obstacle course of our earlier battle.
The stairwell emerged from the gloom—but it might as well have been Everest.My boots hit the first step, and my thighs nearly gave out beneath me.I gritted my teeth and forced my body upward, dragging myself step by step.
The metal groaned under my weight, warped by heat but still intact. Halfway up,a sharp cramp locked up my calf, the muscle spasming so hard I stumbled. My knee cracked against the stairs, white-hot pain lancing up my leg.I sucked in a breath, shoved past it, and kept moving.If I stopped now, I wouldn't start again.
Wet ash sucked at my boots as I cleared the second floor. The space opened into what had been an office area, now transformed into a gallery of smoke damage and structural collapse. Broken windows created weird cross-drafts that moved steam and shadow in unpredictable patterns.
"Fire Department!" My voice echoed off scorched walls. "Show yourself!"
Nothing. Only the settling sounds of a burned-out building and my harsh breathing.
I moved deeper into the space, scanning for signs of recent movement. Years of fire scene investigation had taught me to read stories in disturbed debris. There were footprints in the ash, too fresh to be from our initial attack. The pattern was wrong for firefighting boots, showing someone who understood how to move through unstable terrain but wasn't wearing standard gear.
The trail led toward the building's north side. Each step carried me farther from backup, safety, and reasonable protocol.
A door hung askew ahead, its metal frame twisted by heat. Beyond it lay what had been an executive suite, its pretensions reduced to melted plastic and scorched drywall. The footprints ended at the threshold.
My radio crackled. "Marcus, report position." James's voice was measured and steady, fighting hard to mask his concern.
I keyed my mic but didn't respond.
The ceiling groaned overhead. I looked up as movement flashed in my peripheral vision. A figure vaulted through a broken window onto the external fire escape, their motion displaying intimate familiarity with the building's layout.
I lunged after them, but they were already descending with practiced efficiency. Their dark clothes blended with the shadows, but I caught glimpses of athletic grace in their movements. They'd studied how bodies worked and how they broke.
The fire escape's metal rang with their footsteps, each impact precise and measured. They weren't running scared. They were performing—showing me what they wanted me to see.
I reached the window just as they hit the ground. For a moment, they stood perfectly still, face hidden in shadow but body language radiating satisfaction. Then, they melted into the darkness between buildings with the same controlled grace they'd shown in their descent.
"Marcus!" James's voice was closer now. "Where are you?"
I stayed at the window, pulse hammering in my ears. The figure had moved like someone who'd studied motion professionally—an athlete or maybe a dancer. Someone who understood how bodies worked under stress. Under fire.
When I turned back to the room, something caught my eye. There, placed with artistic precision on a burned-out desk, sat my old stopwatch. It was the one that had disappeared from my locker weeks ago. The heat had warped its metal casing, but the display still showed the exact time of my best training run from last month.
My fingers closed around the twisted metal. It was warm from the fire, the ridged buttons pressing into my palm exactly the way they used to when Dad would time our runs outside the station.
Smoke curled through the rafters, but I caught something else underneath it—the faintest trace of burned plastic, like the casing on old cassette tapes when they melted. It smelled exactly like the summer our basement flooded, and Dad spent a whole week trying to salvage his collection ofSpringsteenbootlegs.
The memory hit sharp and fast—him cursing good-naturedly as he strung the ruined tapes across a drying rack and me perched on the stairs watching, not understanding why he cared so much aboutone moreversion of"Born to Run."
"Jesus." James appeared in the doorway, slightly breathless. "What happened?"
"He was here." The words were steady despite the rage building in my chest. "Watching us work the scene. Waiting to see how we'd handle his message."
James moved closer, eyes tracking between the stopwatch and my face. "You saw them?"
"More than that." I turned the stopwatch so he could see the display. "They wanted me to see them. To know they could access anything—Dad's manual, my equipment, this building. It's all part of their performance."
The truth slammed into me, sharp and unrelenting. They'd moved beyond observation. They were exerting a quiet, surgical kind of power, stripping away any illusion of self-control.
They weren't merely watching. They were inside every corner of my life and wanted me to know it.
"You need to pull back." James moved as if to touch my arm, then caught himself.
"Not happening." I clenched my fists, feeling the strain in my shoulders from hours of firefighting. "I'm not backing down just because some psycho is turning my life into their art project."
"Then I can't—" His voice broke.
"No." I stepped into his space, close enough to see the tension in his throat. "You don't get to fucking leave. Not now."
"Marcus—"
"You think you can walk away from this?" A feral growl underlined my words. "From me?"
His shoulders stiffened. "I didn't say that."
"Then say what you mean." I watched him at war with himself. "Because we both know you're already too deep in this."
James exhaled. "This is going to end badly."
"Then let's make sure it ends on our terms." Something inside me settled even as adrenaline still burned through my system.
He nodded once, just enough to acknowledge what we both knew—there was no walking away now. Not from the case. Not from each other.
The factory's ruins smoldered behind us, another piece in someone's twisted performance art. But they'd miscalculated. They thought using my father's memory would break me.
Instead, it had given me something else to fight for.