Burn Patterns (First in Line #1)

11. Marcus

Chapter eleven

Marcus

U pon entering the firehouse, my hands shook slightly as I gripped the incident report, my exhaustion turning the words into meaningless patterns. The bruises along my knuckles had darkened to purple, a testament to how tightly I'd clung to tools, control, and any sense of normalcy I could find.

Three fires in two weeks. Each one more precise than the last. Each one cutting closer to home.

Rivera's chili simmered on the stove, thick and fragrant, filling the kitchen with a scent that should have been comforting. Instead, my stomach rebelled at the idea of food. I hadn't managed solid food since finding the training log in my truck—since discovering my regulator had been tampered with, the sabotage clean and precise.

Surgical strokes.

I reached for my coffee. Cold. When had I even poured it? Had it been an hour? More? The protein shake Matthew left sat untouched beside it, the condensation pooling into a ring on the stainless steel table.

Barrett's voice drifted from the apparatus bay, discussing equipment checks with Peterson. Normal sounds. Routine sounds. But they felt wrong as if someone had shifted all the furniture two inches to the left. Even the kitchen's industrial coffee maker mocked me, its familiar sputter taking on a sinister rhythm.

I pressed my palm flat against the report, forcing my fingers to stop shaking. The motion pulled at my ribs—another injury, another mark left from training too hard and pushing too far.

Dad's voice echoed in my head: "Exhaustion makes you sloppy, son. Sloppy gets people killed."

But I couldn't rest. I couldn't afford to let my guard down when every shadow might hold a watcher and when my own station had become a hunting ground.

A newspaper slammed onto the table, shattering the illusion of solitude. "Jesus Christ, Marcus."

Michael's voice was sharp, cutting through my exhaustion like a blade. His SWAT-issue boots planted firm against the floor, arms crossed over his chest. His expression was unreadable, but the tension rolled off him in waves.

Matthew followed, his approach quieter, more measured—his paramedic instincts kicking in as he scanned my face. He didn't speak right away, but he was taking note of my condition. His gaze lingered on my bruised knuckles, slouched shoulders, and my too-tight grip on my pen.

I didn't look up.

I didn't need to.

I already knew what was coming.

Michael jabbed a finger at the newspaper, his voice edged with something close to fury."You made the news, dumbass."

I forced myself to glance down at the headline, though I already knew what it would say: FIREFIGHTER TARGETED IN FIREHOUSE SABOTAGE.

The letters screamed up at me, stark against the page, the ink slightly smudged where Michael's grip had crushed it. I swallowed against the tightness in my throat and reached for my coffee again as if pretending this conversation wasn't happening, and more coffee could somehow make it go away.

Michael scoffed."That's it? That's your reaction?"

Matthew stepped forward, moving with the same careful precision he used with patients who might bolt. He set a fresh cup of coffee beside my untouched one, the gentle placement at odds with the tension radiating from him.

"You could've told us,"he said, quiet but firm.

"Told you what?"I muttered, still staring at the article.

Michael let out a sharp breath and braced his hands on the table, leaning in."The rest of the story. Like why Walsh pulled you from active response. Or why Sarah's team is all over your truck."

I clenched my jaw, eyes locked on the ripples in my coffee. "It's procedure."My voice was flat."Nothing to discuss."

A short, humorless laugh erupted from Michael."Nothing to discuss? Are you fucking serious? Someone tampered with your regulator, Marcus. You could've died.

Matthew shifted his weight, rubbing a hand over his jaw."That's not procedure. That's personal. And you damn well know it."

Anger started to roll off Michael, a storm brewing beneath the surface. He straightened, raking a hand through his hair."Do you even hear yourself? Someone is trying to kill you, and you're sitting here acting like it's just another day on shift."

I shrugged."If they wanted me dead, they'd have done it already."

Michael's body went rigid, and I knew I'd crossed a line. His voice was sharp, a blade honed by years of SWAT training, of seeing good people end up in body bags. He took a step closer, lowering his voice."Someone's hunting you, Marcus. It's a game to them. You know what happens next?"

I didn't answer. Michael slammed his coffee mug onto the table, liquid sloshing over the rim, pooling into the creases of my report.

The metal chair screeched against the concrete as I stood, something inside me snapping." What, Michael? Do they get scared? Do I walk away?"My voice cracked on the last word, betraying everything I was trying to bury.

Michael's jaw tightened."No."His hands curled into fists at his sides."Then you get fucking killed."

Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating.

Matthew exhaled slowly, his posture shifting from medic to brother. His voice was calm and measured, but there was no mistaking the plea buried beneath it.

"Look, man. We're not saying roll over. We only want to help."

"I don't need help." It was a lie, and we all knew it.

Michael shook his head, letting out a slow, incredulous breath."You need to stop acting like you're fucking invincible."

His voice shifted lower but no less intense."Need to stop pretending this isn't getting to you. Walsh told me more details about the regulator. That's not—it's your air supply, Marcus. They got to it in the station . It's where you're supposed to be safe. You didn't tell us everything."

I looked away." Because it's my problem to handle."

Michael's expression hardened."Like Dad handled everything alone?"

I flinched.

"Like he pushed everyone away until—"

"Don't."

Michael's mouth tightened into a thin line, but he didn't back down."You're doing what he did. Running yourself into the ground. Thinking if you push hard enough and train long enough, you can outrun what's coming."

He'd carefully planned the words to land hard. His voice dropped lower and quieter, but it hit harder than any shout."We're not going to watch another McCabe burn out trying to prove something."

I clenched my fists, nails biting into my palms. "I'm not trying to prove anything."

"Bullshit."

Matthew sighed, rubbing a hand over his face."Let us help, Marcus, before it's too late."

The walls were closing in. I needed air.

I turned, pushing past them.

"Marcus."Michael's voice followed me."Don't do this. Don't shut us out ."

I didn't answer.

I couldn't.

Because they were right.

But stopping meant letting fear win. And I wasn't ready for that.

The door swung shut behind me, cutting off whatever else they might have said. Despite my efforts to escape, their worry followed me into the pre-dawn darkness.

***

I drove to the lake on autopilot, my mind stuck inlooped fragments of Michael's words. "Then you get fucking killed."

The street outside the station had been quiet.Too quiet.There was no early morning foot traffic or late-shift workers smoking outside the 24-hour diner across the road.

Even the usualhumof the city was off, like everything washolding its breath.

Someone was watching me.

Not in the way they had before—an abstract sense of being observed and studied from a distance. No, this wascloser. Heavier. More immediate.Like a hand hovering just above my shoulder or a whisper brushing my neck.

At a red light, I adjusted my rearview mirror. Mygut clenched. The angle was off.

I kept ittilted slightly upwardso I could catch trafficandwatch for anyone following me. But now it was lower, reflectingonly my eyes, shadowed and hollowed by exhaustion.

I hadn't touched it.

My knuckles tightened around the steering wheel. The forensics team had searched my truck methodically. Someone fucked with the mirror to unsettle me.It was a microscopic shift, enough to make me question myself.

The light turned green. I kept driving.

The lake would clear my head. It had to.

Lake Washington stretched black and endless before me, swallowing the thin glow of streetlamps along the shoreline. The air wasunnaturally still, with no usual breeze, as if even the wind refused to stir the surface.

I shouldn't be here.

The thought was immediate.Instinctual.My hands hesitated on the zipper of my wetsuit.

I pushed forward because this was mine.This lake, this ritual, and this control. He hadn't taken it yet.

The first plunge was a shock to my system.Colder than expected.My lungs clenched involuntarily as my body momentarily rejected the intrusion.

I forced a breath. Then another. And started swimming. Stroke. Breathe. Stroke. Breathe.

The rhythm should have settled me.Instead, it didn't sit right.My body resisted, and my movements were stiffer and less fluid. Thewater seemed thicker, dragging at my limbs in a way that had nothing to do with fatigue.

Ninety-seven.

I sucked in a breath.It tasted wrong. Metallic. Chemical. Like the inside of my SCBA mask before the air cut off.

Ninety-nine.

Somethingbrushed my foot. I kicked harder, swallowing the urge to twist around.

There was nothing there.

There had to be nothing there.

The water resisted more nowas if it were pushing back.Each stroke was likeclawing through tar, its weight pressing in from all sides.

One hundred two.

A loon called in the distance. A sound that should have been normal, but it wasn't right. Stretched. Distorted.It was like something mimicking the call or an imitation, just close enough to be unsettling.

My breath caught.And suddenly, I was seven years old again. Hands pressing me under. The cold of a pond in the early spring. Laughter above the surface—Tom Rogers and his friends, watching me struggle.

Kicking. Thrashing. Desperate for air.

Theweightof their hands and the certainty that this was how I would die—I surfaced, gasping.Choking.The lake'sdark fingersclung to my shoulders, trying todrag me back down.

I lifted my head mid-pull, treading water as I scanned the shoreline. It was empty, just shadows and early morning mist playing tricks with depth perception.

Your mind playing tricks on you, Marcus.

I forced myself to keep going, to maintain form even as my shoulders protested. The counting had stopped, replaced by a litany of everything I thought was wrong: the water temperature, the current, and how sound carried across the lake's surface, distorted and threatening.

My arms moved through familiar patterns—catch, pull, recovery—but there was no peace in it now. Only the growing certainty that I wasn't alone. That somewhere in the pre-dawn shadows, someone was taking notes. Analyzing. Waiting.

The water's resistance was stronger than the current, trying to hold me back. Each stroke required more effort than it should have, even accounting for fatigue. My body screamed at me to run, to get out, to acknowledge the unease pressing in from all sides.

When I finally dragged myself out of the water, my legs trembled, muscles pushed past exhaustion into something darker. I reached for my towel, dragging it roughly across my face, and then froze.

I saw it. My wetsuit bag wasopen.The zippergapedlike an open wound, spilling the contents onto the damp sand.

Myspare wetsuit had been slashed to ribbons. The cuts wereclean, almost surgical, and the edges curled as if the material hadbeen exposed to heat.

No.

And then I spotted the centerpiece. I didn't realize I was moving until I wasstanding over the mannequin.

He'd placed it at the edge of the trees, flames licking up its sides incontrolled, elegant arcs.Not a wildfire. Not chaos.A deliberate burn.A carefullycuratedact.

Mybadge number gleamed in the firelight, etched into the helmet.

Then, the mannequin moved. No. Not moved.Collapsed.

The legsgave out in perfect synchronicity, folding at the knees as if they had been positioned tofall like a firefighter trapped in a flashover.

The flames swallowed the last of it, reducing it tocharred plastic and molten cloth.

It was a statement. Aperformance. A preview.

I took a slow step back, my breath shallow and my pulse pounding at the base of my throat.

Footsteps. Behind me.

I spun, adrenaline surging—"James!"

His eyeslocked onto the burning mannequin while his usual clinical detachmentcrackedat the edges.

He exhaled sharply.

"Fuck."

My fingers curled into fists.I couldn't stop shaking.

James turned to me, his voicelow, controlled—but barely. "He was here."

"Yeah," I said, voice raw. "I know."

The mannequincollapsed fully, sparks flying into the damp air.

The hunt was over.

He was transforming me.