You Were Right #2
"Do I?" He moved to the window, looking out at the city lights. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you've stopped trusting anyone's judgment but your own. And that's dangerous, Alves. For you and everyone around you."
My hands were trembling again. I shoved them into my pockets. "What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry? That I'd do it differently if I could go back?" I took a breath, steadied myself. "I can't. Because I was right. And Stevens is alive because I trusted that. I—"
"Saved your crew." His voice was still hard, still carrying that edge of anger.
"But that doesn't change the fact that you disobeyed a direct order.
That you undermined my authority in front of the entire team.
That you—" He stopped, ran a hand over his face.
"You're suspended, effective immediately.
Pending investigation, paperwork to follow tomorrow.
I'm just giving you a heads up. It's not even my call, Alves.
This comes from higher up, district level.
There's already a media circus surrounding those homes. "
The words landed like debris, heavy and burning.
"Rodriguez—"
"Two weeks. Minimum. They'll review the incident, interview the crew, look at the data." He moved toward the door, then paused with his hand on the handle. "For what it's worth, I wouldn't have suspended you for this. But it wasn't my call. The agency can't have crew bosses going rogue."
Then he was gone, and I was alone in the sterile white room with the weight of everything that had just happened pressing down on me like smoke.
The journey home took forever. Crew transport vehicles returned the crew from Phoenix back to San Jacinto, the drive slow and quiet and evenly paced. By the time we got back to Station 19, my entire body was ready to give out.
It had been three in the morning by the time they released me—medic checking me one last time for injuries, making sure the oxygen levels in my blood were acceptable, confirming I wasn't going to collapse from exhaustion or smoke inhalation the moment I walked out the door.
The nasal cannula was gone, but they'd given me stern instructions about rest and hydration and watching for signs of delayed smoke inhalation complications.
I knew these orders well.
The town was empty, streetlights casting orange pools on asphalt, the desert air cool through my truck's open windows.
I drove home from the station in a daze, my mind replaying everything on an endless loop.
The wind shift. The fire crowning. Stevens going down.
Rodriguez's face when he said suspended.
Maybe Rodriguez was right. Maybe I'd been wrong. Six homes. Six families lost everything. I kept seeing them burning, kept wondering if there was something else I could have done. Some way to save both the crew and the homes. Some perfect decision that would have made everyone come out okay.
But there wasn't. There never was. That was the thing about fire—it didn't care about perfect decisions or good intentions. It just burned, and you did your best to stay alive while stopping it, and sometimes your best wasn't enough to save everything.
Sometimes you had to choose.
I'd chosen my crew. I'd chosen Stevens and Jackson and Miller and even Davids and Emerson, who had looked at me with a little less disdain at the hospital than before. I'd chosen them over property, over homes, over the career I'd spent years building.
And now I was suspended. Under investigation. My career possibly over. All because I'd trusted my instincts instead of following orders.
The apartment was dark when I pulled into the parking lot.
I sat in my truck for a long moment, the engine ticking as it cooled, trying to gather the energy to move.
My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, every muscle screaming from twelve hours of cutting line and running from fire and carrying Stevens and—
The front door opened before I reached it.
Vera stood silhouetted in the light from inside, wearing one of my t-shirts and nothing else, her hair loose around her shoulders.
She'd been waiting. Of course she'd been waiting.
Probably staring at her phone for updates and my location, checking the news, trying not to imagine the worst.
I climbed out of the truck on legs that barely held me and walked up the stairs toward her. Toward home. Toward the only thing in my life that felt solid right now.
She took one look at my face and knew.
"What happened?"
I tried to answer. Tried to form words to explain the past eighteen hours, the impossible choice, the consequences. But all that came out was:
"Stevens is in the hospital. Six homes burned. I'm suspended."
Her face went through a dozen emotions in the space of a heartbeat—shock, fear, understanding, fury—before settling on something fierce and protective.
"Come here."
She pulled me inside, closed the door behind us, and wrapped her arms around me. Just held me there in the entryway, her petite body pressed against mine, her vanilla-coconut scent mixing with the smoke and ash still clinging to my clothes.
And I broke.
Not gently. Not quietly. I broke like something fundamental had cracked inside me, like every defense I'd built over eight years of fighting fires and swallowing trauma had suddenly shattered.
I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but shake and gasp and try not to drown in the wave of everything I'd been holding back.
"I don't know if I did the right thing," I managed between gasps that might have been sobs. "Stevens is hurt. Six homes. But if I hadn't called it, we'd all be dead. But what if I was wrong? What if Rodriguez was right and I just, I don't know, panicked? What if I—"
"Shh. Shh, baby, breathe." Vera's hands were in my hair, her voice steady even as I fell apart in her arms. "You're okay. You're home. I've got you."
But I couldn't stop. Eight years of carrying California, of carrying Lucas and Santi, of swallowing every moment of fear and doubt and trauma because that's what you did in this job. You stayed strong. You didn't break. You kept going.
Except I couldn't keep going. Not right now. Not with the weight of today pressing down on me like super-heated air.
Vera guided me to the couch, pulled me down beside her, and let me collapse against her chest. Her heartbeat was steady beneath my ear, her fingers stroking through my filthy hair, her voice a constant murmur of comfort and love.
"You're safe. You're here. I love you. You're safe."
Time became meaningless. It could have been minutes or hours I stayed there, shaking and crying and trying to remember how to breathe. Vera never moved, never stopped touching me, never stopped anchoring me to something real and solid when everything else felt like it was burning down.
Eventually, finally, the storm passed. My breathing evened out. The shaking subsided. I was left feeling hollow and exhausted and somehow lighter, like crying had purged something toxic from my system.
"I'm sorry," I said roughly, my voice shattered. "I didn't mean to…”
"Don't." She tilted my face up to look at her. Her eyes were wet too, I realized. She'd been crying with me. "Don't apologize for feeling things. Don't apologize for letting me see you."
"I'm a mess."
"You're human." She kissed my forehead. "You're allowed to fall apart sometimes. Especially after a day like today."
"Rodriguez was right about one thing." I closed my eyes. "I should have trusted him. Because of me, Stevens—"
"Stop." Her voice was firm now. "You saved your crew. You trusted your instincts, and you saved Brandon’s life. That's not wrong, Petra. That's never wrong."
"But the homes—"
"Would have burned anyway. You said the wind shifted. You said the fire was going to jump." She cupped my face in both hands, forcing me to meet her eyes. "You made an impossible choice, and people are alive because of it. That matters."
I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to believe her. But the guilt was still there, heavy and suffocating, mixed with fear about the investigation, about my career, about everything I'd worked for potentially going up in smoke.
Vera must have seen it on my face, because she kissed me. Soft at first, gentle, like she was afraid I'd break again. But I needed more than gentleness right now. I needed to feel something other than guilt and fear. Needed to feel alive, grounded, real.
I deepened the kiss, my hands finding her waist, pulling her closer. She made a soft sound against my mouth and shifted, climbing into my lap so she was straddling me, her thighs on either side of mine.
"Petra," she breathed when we broke apart. "You don't have to—"
"I need this." My voice came out rough, desperate. "I need you. I need to feel something other than…” I couldn't finish. Couldn't put words to the chaos in my head.
She understood anyway. She always understood.
"Okay," she whispered, her forehead pressed to mine. "Okay, baby. I'm here. Let me help."
She kissed me again, slow and deep, her small hands framing my face. I could taste salt from my tears or hers, I couldn't tell. Maybe both. She kissed me like I was the most precious thing in the world, like I mattered, like I was worth all the trouble I’d brought into our home tonight.
I could have died today. Stevens could have died. We all could have. But I was here, alive, with Vera. And that had to mean something.
My hands slid under her shirt—my shirt—finding warm skin, her bare breasts beneath my calloused palms, nipples crinkling.
She gasped against my mouth, arching into my touch.
I needed to feel her, needed proof that this was real, that I was real, that life existed outside of fire and ash and impossible choices.
"Bedroom," she murmured, but I shook my head.
"Here. Now. Please."