Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Savannah
My first shift back at Devil’s Peak should feel like the fresh start I convinced myself I was ready for.
Instead, it feels like my skin doesn’t fit.
Everything is too familiar—scuffed tile floors, distant radio crackle, the faint smell of coffee and diesel—and at the same time completely foreign, like I’m walking through a photograph instead of a real place.
But the real reason my nerves won’t settle?
He’s here.
Axel.
My Axel.
Every time he enters my peripheral vision, the air shifts. Like something heavy and unspoken is pushing between us, demanding to be acknowledged.
Which I absolutely refuse to do.
“Brooks.” Captain Cole snaps me back to attention. We’re in the equipment bay prepping the rig before morning drills. “Vitals bag okay?”
I pop open the case and run a fast but thorough check. “Perfect. Tubes are sealed, BP cuff intact, monitor charged.”
Cole nods, satisfied. “Good.”
I can feel Axel across the room without even looking at him. It’s infuriating—my senses reacting before my brain does.
He’s checking the ladder compartments, jaw tight, shoulders tense, pretending I’m not here.
Or maybe trying too hard to pretend.
He never used to avoid me.
Before everything? I was the one he gravitated toward. Now, it’s like he’s scared of being within five feet of me.
Which is ridiculous, because I’m perfectly fine.
Except I’m not. And my body knows it.
“Try not to pass out when she walks by, Ramirez,” Torres calls out, smirking.
Heat slams up my throat.
Axel shoots the guy a glare that could incinerate a man.
“I’m good,” Axel mutters stiffly. “Focus on the damn inventories.”
“Sure,” Torres says, winking at me. “I’d be rattled too if my high school sweetheart walked back in without warning.”
My breath stutters, but I keep my expression neutral.
Axel’s jaw flexes once—so sharp and fast it’s like a pulse.
“Torres,” Cole warns. “Knock it off.”
“Just saying,” Torres goes on, unbothered, “the guy used to doodle your name in his notebook.”
Oh god.
My eyes shoot toward Axel instinctively. Stupid. A mistake. Because he’s already looking at me.
And it’s not the look you give someone you forgot.
It’s the look you give someone whose absence rewired your entire life.
My stomach flips. I clamp down on the reaction.
Never let them see you break. Not again.
I turn back to Cole. “Truck’s ready to go.”
He nods, gestures at Axel. “Ramirez, you’re with Brooks on first call.”
Perfect. Great.
Nothing like being forced into close proximity with the man whose memory can still wreck my heartbeat.
Axel’s voice comes quiet but steady behind me. “Copy that.”
Professional. Controlled. No hint of anger or emotion.
Which somehow stings more.
We finish rig prep in awkward silence. I triple-check the airway kit even though I don’t need to. Axel moves around me with careful, precise distance.
Always just far enough that our bodies won’t brush.
Always close enough that I feel the heat radiating off him.
The energy between us is ridiculous, like the air is charged, humming, ready to spark.
I keep my tone even when he steps beside me. “Monitor the pressure gauge.”
“Already did.”
His voice is low, rough around the edges. It hits the center of my chest.
I ignore it.
He shifts a little closer to reach another latch, and the faintest brush of his sleeve grazes my arm.
It’s nothing.
And it’s everything.
My pulse spikes. Traitor.
His breath changes too—sharp inhale, quick exhale—before he steps away as if he touched a live wire.
Good. Let him be off balance too.
“Everything okay?” I ask, deliberately cool.
His eyes lock onto mine.
Too intense. Too familiar.
“Fine,” he says. “Just… adjusting.”
I lift a brow. “To what?”
He hesitates one fraction of a second. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
Liar.
He used to be a terrible liar. Apparently, that hasn’t changed.
Before I can challenge him, the overhead speakers crackle.
“Station 19, respond priority one—multiple car collision, Route 14 northbound.”
The bay explodes into motion. Boots. Coats. Radios. The rush of adrenaline I’ve trained years for.
My body locks into go-mode.
Axel reaches the engine at the same time I reach the ambulance. Cole shouts assignments.
“Brooks, Ramirez, you’re first medic team in. Take Medic Two!”
My heart kicks.
Of course.
Of course we’re paired today.
Axel slides into the passenger seat, breath fogging the cold windshield. I hop into the driver’s side, shove the rig into gear, and we shoot out of the bay lights flashing.
For a moment, the only sounds are sirens, snow tires grinding over icy roads, and my pulse hammering louder than both.
Axel says quietly, “You drive faster than you used to.”
I smirk. “You always hated my driving.”
“Because you took corners like you were trying to impress death.”
“Still do.”
A muscle twitches in his cheek. “I noticed.”
I shouldn’t want to smile at that. Not when there’s so much weight between us. Not when everything about him is wrapped in a decade of ghosts I thought I buried.
But damn it—I do.
“Route 14 in sight,” I say, professional again. “Two vehicles. One rollover.”
Axel leans forward, scanning. “Copy. Take left flank. I’ll grab vitals. You assess driver.”
The second I park and jump out, the cold slams into me. Snow flurries sting my cheeks. The smell of leaking coolant and burned rubber fills the air.
Axel moves beside me—fast, efficient, powerful. His voice takes on command strength when he calls out instructions.
This is the part that’s familiar in a way I hate admitting: we work together effortlessly.
We always did.
He reaches the crumpled sedan at the same time I do, crouching to stabilize the door frame as I scan the driver for responsiveness.
“Ma’am? Can you hear me?”
She groans.
“Pulse is weak but present,” Axel reports, already slapping a cervical collar out of his pack. “Glass in her hairline.”
“Airway open,” I say, leaning in.
He angles the door wider so I can reach.
“On your count,” he murmurs.
And god help me, that tone—that steady, patient, syncing-to-me tone—shoots straight through my bloodstream like a memory I wasn’t ready for.
“One… two… three,” I say, and we move as a unit.
Our hands brush while securing her head. The brief contact jolts me.
Axel stills for half a second, jaw flexing once, but his voice stays steady as he says, “I’ve got her.”
We extricate the patient together, load her into the back of the ambulance, and I hook her up to the monitor while Axel starts an IV line.
His fingers hover close to mine more than once, like his body can’t help but gravitate the same way it used to.
We’ve always worked like this.
Like instinct.
Like breathing.
Like something in us recognizes the other before thought even catches up.
When the patient is stabilized, Axel pulls the doors shut behind us, his breath clouding the cold air.
For a moment, it’s just him and me and the echoes of a decade that never really left.
He wipes sweat and melted snow from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Good work.”
“You too.”
Silence charges the small space between us.
His gaze drags over me—not inappropriate, but intense enough that my skin heats. He doesn’t hide the way he looks at me.
He never did.
But now there’s something heavier in his stare. Something restrained. Something raw.
I break eye contact before it cages me. “We should get her to the hospital.”
“Yeah,” he says, voice husky. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
The drive is quiet, but not calm. Not with the air so thick it’s hard to inhale without feeling like his presence is creeping under my skin.
We deliver the patient, file the report, and head back to the station.
The second we walk inside, the teasing begins.
Torres grins like a wolf. “Look at that teamwork. Like nothing’s changed.”
Axel ignores him. Barely.
Blake whistles. “Man, if I had an ex who worked that smooth with me, I’d marry her out of pure efficiency.”
I choke on my own saliva.
Axel shoots him a deadly look. “Back off.”
“Touchy,” Blake laughs. “Just saying, the tension in that rig could’ve boiled water.”
My face burns.
Axel looks like he wants to throttle someone.
I regain my composure and say, coolly, “We were doing our jobs.”
“Sure,” Torres says. “And Axel wasn’t staring at you like a kicked puppy the entire time.”
My stomach drops.
I expect Axel to deny it. Bark back. Make a joke. Something.
Instead, his silence is deafening.
He doesn’t deny a damn thing.
And that—more than anything—makes my pulse stutter.
I swallow hard and turn away before anyone can see the cracks forming in the careful armor I built for myself.
I can pretend all I want. I can bury the history, the feelings, the wildfire of memories clawing up my spine.
But I’m not stupid.
Axel still feels everything.
And I… feel too much.
Far too much.