Ashes of Us

Chapter 16 Liam

Three nights later, I was back in gear, back in the smoke, doing the only thing that ever quieted my head.

The house was fully involved when we arrived. Flames punched through the roof, smoke pouring from every seam, neighbors on the sidewalk with their phones out like this was a show. Standard residential fire… until the woman broke through the police tape screaming.

"My son! He's still inside! Please—his bedroom, second floor—please!"

Captain Carter didn't hesitate. "Sullivan, O’Brien… with me. Second floor, front right."

We breached the door and the heat slammed into us like a wall. Visibility was shit. I stayed low, followed O’Brien’s boots up stairs that groaned with every step, tried not to think about how long this place had been burning.

Carter pointed me left and I pushed through the bedroom door.

The kid was under a desk in the corner, curled tight, coughing. Six, maybe seven years old. Still conscious. That was good.

I moved toward him, boots crunching on broken glass.

Then I saw the photo frame on the nightstand.

It was a wedding photo. Bride and groom, big smiles, the kid front and center in a tiny suit holding a ring pillow. Professional shot, the kind of photo you put in your kid's room so he remembers he was part of something special.

The bride had blonde hair. Her smile was huge, genuine, the kind that reached her eyes. She looked like Piper. No, not exactly like Piper… but enough.

Enough that for one brutal second I was back in our apartment, staring at the engagement photo Piper had shoved in a junk drawer. Her smile had looked just like this—wide and real and trusting.

The kid reached for me, his small hand stretching out.

Complete trust. Like I was someone who saved people instead of someone who destroyed them.

I couldn't move.

"Sullivan!" Carter’s voice, sharper now. "You got him or not?"

The question snapped something back into place. I lunged forward, scooped the kid up. He was light, too light, his arms wrapping around my neck as I turned toward the door.

O’Brien was already there, clearing the path. "Move, move, move!"

I moved.

The hallway was worse than when we'd come in—hotter, darker, the ceiling starting to sag. I kept my body curved around the kid, one hand on his head, the other gripping him tight against my chest. He was coughing, face buried in my turnout coat.

"You're okay," I said, even though I wasn't sure he could hear me. "You're okay, buddy."

The stairs felt like they took forever. Each step careful, deliberate, O’Brien ahead of me calling out weak spots. My lungs were burning despite the mask, sweat pouring down my face, but the kid… the kid was breathing, and that was all that mattered.

We burst through the front door and the cool air hit like a slap.

The mom was there immediately, ripping him from my arms before I'd even cleared the porch. "Oh God, oh God, Mason—" She was sobbing, kissing his soot-covered face, checking him over with shaking hands.

An EMT appeared, tried to take the kid to the ambulance, but the mom wouldn't let go.

I stood there watching them, this family that was broken and whole at the same time, and felt nothing.

No relief. No pride. Just empty.

O’Brien clapped my shoulder. "Good grab, man."

I nodded. Couldn't find words.

Carter was talking into his radio, coordinating the rest of the suppression. The fire was under control now, mostly smoke. We'd gotten everyone out, and there’d been no casualties.

A win.

So why wouldn’t my stop shaking?

I was in the bay scrubbing soot off my gear when Carter found me.

"Sullivan."

Instead of looking up, I just kept working the brush against my helmet, watching black water spiral down the drain. My turnout coat was draped over the bench next to me, still reeking of smoke. I'd need to run it through the extractor twice.

"Good work today," Carter said.

"Thanks."

He didn't leave. Just stood there, arms crossed, waiting.

I finally looked up. He was still in his gear too, face streaked with ash, but his expression was calm and patient. The way he got when he was about to have a conversation you didn't want to have.

"You froze in there," he said, and it wasn’t a question.

My jaw tightened. "Kid's fine."

“I know… but that's not what I said.” He pulled off his gloves, tossed them on the bench. “O’Brien said you were standing there staring at a photo when we called your name. Said it took you a few seconds to respond."

"I didn't—"

"A few seconds in a fire, Sullivan." His voice was still calm, but there was steel underneath. "You know what that means."

I did. A few seconds was the difference between getting out and not getting out. Between a rescue and a recovery.

"It won't happen again."

"You're right. It won't." He sat down on the bench, heavy. "Because you're gonna tell me what the hell is going on with you."

I went back to scrubbing my helmet. "Nothing's going on."

"Bullshit." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You've been off for weeks. Taking every overtime shift. In the gym til midnight. O'Brien said you nearly dropped a barbell on your chest a couple of days ago.”

"I'm fine."

"You froze in a burning building today, Sullivan. That's not fine."

My hands stilled on the brush, and I stared down at the soot-black water pooling at my feet.

"How long?" Carter asked, quieter now.

"How long what?"

"How long have you not been sleeping? How long have you been running yourself into the ground?"

I didn't answer.

He waited. He was good at that, the tactical silence that made you fill it just to make it stop.

"A while," I said finally.

"How long's a while?"

"I don't know. Couple months. Maybe more." I set down the brush and rubbed my face with my hands, felt the grit of ash against my palms. "I'm handling it."

"You're not handling shit. You're barely holding it together." He stood up, grabbed a towel from the rack and tossed it at me. "This about your ex?"

My head snapped up. "How do you—"

“Captain Morrison called me when you transferred. Gave me the full story. Said you'd cheated on your fiancée, she called off the wedding, and you needed a fresh start." His expression didn't change. "Said you were a good firefighter but your head wasn't right. Asked me to keep an eye on you."

Great. Exactly what I needed. My old captain telling my new captain I was a fuck-up.

Carter rubbed the back of his neck. "When you first got here, you were intense. Focused. Took every shift you could, hit the gym hard, kept to yourself. I figured that's just who you were… one of those guys who works through shit by working harder. So I let it be."

He looked at me then, really looked at me.

"But these past few weeks? This is different. You're not focused anymore. You're scattered. Distracted. Something's eating at you, and today… it could’ve gotten you killed." He paused. "So I'm asking again. What's going on?"

I stared down at my hands. They were still shaking slightly, even though the adrenaline should have worn off by now.

"I saw her bakery," I said finally, the words coming out rough. "A few weeks ago. Someone brought in cupcakes from it for Miller's birthday. Didn't even know she'd opened one."

Carter waited.

"I drove to Riverside a few days ago, and… sat outside her place for like twenty minutes. Didn't go in. Just... looked." I rubbed my face. "Then I drove back here and tried to pretend I hadn't done that."

"But you can't stop thinking about it."

"No." My voice cracked. "I can't stop thinking about her. About what I did. About the fact that I’m not longer a part of her life, and that I can't just walk in and apologize because I don't have the right to do that to her."

“You're stuck."

"Yeah." I looked up at him. "I'm stuck."

Carter was quiet for a long moment. Then he sighed and sat back down on the bench.

“O’Brien said you were staring at something in that kid's room. A photo on the nightstand." He looked at me. "What was it?"

I didn't want to answer. Didn't want to say it out loud.

"Wedding photo," I said finally. "The kid was the ring bearer. The bride looked like—" I stopped. "It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. Because you checked out in the middle of a fire. With a kid's life on the line."

"I got him out in—”

"This time." His voice was hard now. "This time you snapped out of it fast enough. But what about next time? What if you freeze for five seconds instead of two? What if O’Brien isn't there to back you up?"

My stomach twisted.

"I've seen this before, Sullivan. Good firefighters who can't let something go. It eats at them until they make a mistake. And mistakes in our job don't mean missed deadlines or pissed-off clients. They mean people die."

"I know that."

"Do you?" He leaned forward. "Because from where I'm sitting, you're so wrapped up in your guilt about this woman that you're becoming a liability. And I can't have that on my crew."

The words hit like a punch to the gut.

"So here's what's going to happen," Carter said. "I'm giving you a week off. Mandatory leave, starting now."

"Captain—"

"Not a discussion. You're going to take that week and you're going to deal with whatever this is. I don't care how. Drive to Riverside and talk to her. Write her a letter. Get drunk and scream at the ocean. I don't give a shit. But you're going to do something."

I stared at him. "She blocked my number. Blocked me on everything. She doesn't want to hear from me."

"Then don’t make it about her," Carter said. "Make it about you. You need to get your head straight, Liam. Because right now, you’re no good to anyone. Not to your crew, not to yourself."

"What if… I go there and she won't see me?"

"Then you tried. Then you know. Then you can actually start dealing with it instead of driving to Riverside and sitting in your truck like a coward.

" His expression softened slightly. "Look, I get it.

You fucked up. You hurt someone you loved.

That guilt doesn't just go away… but you can't let it paralyze you. "

He headed toward the door, then stopped and turned back.

“I’m giving you one week, Sullivan. Fix this or figure out how to live with it, because you can't come back to work like this."

The door closed behind him and I sat there in the empty bay, surrounded by the smell of smoke and chemicals, my hands still shaking.

Maybe O’Brien was right.

At some point, even the fire goes out, and you just have to decide what’s left when it does.