Chapter Ten #3
We followed a few steps behind him like an unofficial entourage, trading glances as another group stopped him near the supply depot, their faces dusty and flushed from training.
One of them reminded him of the time he’d tried to out-hike them in full kit and nearly passed out, another corrected that he’d actually collapsed face-first in the dirt, and Travis insisted he had only ‘strategically positioned himself in preparation to Army crawl,’ which earned another round of laughter before they waved us on.
A few minutes later, someone else thanked him for helping repair a generator during a freak storm. It went on like that, story after story, each one small on its own, but together forming a pattern that was impossible to ignore.
Trenton leaned closer to Tyler. “Abby should be here to witness this. It’s like he’s Jesus or somethin’.”
“I definitely wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it for myself,” Tyler muttered.
When we reached the main training field, the tone changed again.
Dozens of recruits were running drills under the supervision of a woman standing at the front with her arms crossed, pacing as she looked over each enlistee.
Her voice carried, without raising it, across the dust as she corrected mistakes.
No one argued, no one slowed, and when she ordered them to reset, they did so instantly and started again.
As we got closer, I recognized the woman as Naomi.
Travis stared at her, in awe. He had seen her before when she was injured, exhausted, and barely holding herself together through willpower alone, but this version of her looked forged from something harder.
Her hair was pulled back into a low, tiny ponytail, her uniform was immaculate despite the heat and sand, and her eyes tracked every movement with ruthless accuracy as she corrected stances, adjusted grips, and sent recruits back to the line without hesitation.
When she noticed Travis, the change was subtle. Her shoulders relaxed slightly, her expression softened before she turned to give brief instructions to the officer beside her and then walked toward us.
“Travis,” she said with a nod and a sparkle in her eye. “It’s been a while.”
“Hey, trouble,” he said, fake punching her arm like she was the little sister he’d never had.
She turned to me. “I trust everything in your residence is acceptable?”
“More than acceptable,” I said. “Thank you.”
Trenton rolled his eyes.
Naomi noticed but didn’t entertain his silent tantrum, turning to the twins. “Have you been by to see Zeke?”
Taylor and Tyler traded glances, then shook their heads. “We haven’t run into him yet,” Tyler admitted.
She pointed behind them. “The fire shack is in the southeastern sector. He’s been asking about you. You should stop by.”
“We’ll go right now,” Taylor promised.
Naomi nodded once. “Good. I have to get back. These kids aren’t going to train themselves.”
“That’s quite a group you’ve got,” I said. “Do you get this many often?”
“It varies,” she said, careful not to give away too much information.
She turned to glare at the twins again. “Straight to the shack. Don’t break his heart.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison.
We continued deeper into the compound, and the layout gradually revealed itself in layers: residential clusters arranged in semicircles, workshops, an infirmary, storage bays, and training yards.
Children moved through it all with purpose, supervised but not sheltered, with older kids practicing drills using wooden replicas, small groups gathered in open-air classrooms where instructors diagrammed radio frequencies and evacuation routes just as casually as they did math and language arts.
This wasn’t a place built around fear, it was built around preparation, from the very old to the very young.
I watched a boy no older than ten help his sister secure a harness, a middle school-aged girl correct another’s grip on a sidearm, and a teenager guide younger kids through evacuation procedures.
By the time we reached the fire shack, the word shack felt like a deliberate understatement.
The building was reinforced and climate-controlled, with maintenance bays, digital monitoring stations, and two compact but powerful fire trucks parked inside, while every tool and hose was stored with military precision.
I made a mental note to look into their funding sources later, not to initiate an investigation, but purely out of curiosity.
Zeke saw us before anyone said his name.
He was across the bay near one of the engines, sleeves shoved to his elbows, dark hair damp at the temples, sweat beading along his hairline and catching in the sharp desert light that spilled through the open hangar doors.
His blue eyes locked on ours, recognition flashing clean and immediate, and then he was moving.
He crossed the concrete in long, confident strides, boots echoing against the floor. Taylor barely had time to react before Zeke wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in hard, Tyler catching the other side a second later. The hug was brutal, breath-stealing, and not up for complaint.
“About damn time,” he said, clapping Tyler on the back before stepping away and perching his hands on his hips. His smile was uncontrollably wide.
“You look good, brother. Much better than the last time I saw you,” Travis said.
“Yeah, that’s how you look when you’re half dead.
My time at Cheyenne Mountain might have killed me if I’d stayed, but they did manage to fix my ticker,” he said, pointing to his heart.
“Let me show you around. You’re gonna shit your pants when you see this place.
I did.” He pivoted, motioning them forward.
“This bay runs primary response.” He tapped the side of the nearest engine as they passed.
The truck gleamed under hanging fluorescent lights, hoses coiled tight, axes secured in brackets polished from use.
“Schedules rotate every forty-eight. We drill mornings. Fire in the afternoon. Security integration at night. You remember napping at the firehouse between runs? Yeah, that doesn’t happen here. ”
He gestured to a group of men at the far end of the bay. They were busy hauling weighted lines across the floor before snapping them into place. Another crew ran through what looked like a structure entry drill, masks on, movements tight and silent.
“Wildfires. Structure fires. Chemical incidents,” Zeke continued, pushing open a steel door that led into the equipment corridor. “And if the perimeter goes hot, we pivot to combat support. Extraction. Suppression. Casualty stabilization.”
He glanced over his shoulder, blue eyes sharp now, expression all business. “It’s run like a military unit,” he said, reaching for a helmet and tossing it lightly from one hand to the other. “Because here, when we’re called, it’s not just a fire, it’s war.”
Taylor gave a slow nod, gaze sweeping the bay again, taking in the engines and the disciplined choreography unfolding around them.