Chapter 11 Survivor #2
About blocked exits.
Bad equipment.
Poor maintenance.
Contractors who thought safety regulations were suggestions.
Gideon had assumed it was another day at work.
Now he wondered whether it had been something more.
“What else?”
Nico opened another file.
“This.”
It was an email printout.
The sender was Marcus.
The recipient was listed as a station supervisor.
Gideon read the first paragraph.
Marcus had reported that several emergency access routes were not clearly marked.
He had also mentioned that workers seemed to be using areas that were supposed to be restricted.
Gideon's pulse increased.
“When was this?”
“Ten days before the fire.”
“Was anything done?”
“I can't tell.”
Gideon turned the page.
There was no response attached.
“That's it?”
“That's what survived.”
Gideon stared at the empty space where a reply should have been.
“Maybe he didn't get one.”
“Maybe.”
“Or it was removed.”
Nico didn't answer.
Gideon leaned back.
He felt the familiar pressure building behind his ribs.
But this time, it wasn't guilt.
It was something else.
Anger.
Marcus had tried to say something.
Maybe nobody listened.
Gideon remembered him now.
Not trapped under steel.
Standing beside the fire engine.
Helmet tucked under one arm.
Complaining about the warehouse.
“You know this place is a death trap,” Marcus had said.
Gideon had laughed.
“Everything is a death trap according to you.”
Marcus had shaken his head.
“I'm serious.”
Gideon closed his eyes.
He remembered the conversation.
Not clearly.
But enough.
“What?”
Nico watched him.
“Marcus said something.”
“What?”
“He said the building wasn't safe.”
Nico's expression tightened.
“Before the fire?”
“Yes.”
“How long before?”
“I don't know.”
Gideon rubbed his forehead.
“He was always checking things.”
“Sounds like he was doing his job.”
“He was doing more than that.”
Gideon opened his eyes.
“He was looking for something.”
Nico waited.
Gideon returned to the email.
“Why would he send this outside the usual inspection process?”
“Maybe because nobody was responding.”
Gideon nodded.
“That sounds like him.”
He looked at Marcus's name.
“I should have asked him.”
Nico's voice was gentle.
“You didn't know.”
“I should have.”
“You're doing it again.”
Gideon looked at him.
“What?”
“Turning information you didn't have into something you should have known.”
Gideon said nothing.
Nico touched the edge of the document.
“You can't punish yourself for failing to act on a warning you never knew existed.”
Gideon looked down.
The words made sense.
But they didn't make the guilt disappear.
Instead, they changed it.
For years, Gideon had believed his guilt belonged entirely to the moment he went back inside.
Now he wondered whether he had been carrying responsibility for a much larger failure.
Maybe Marcus hadn't died because Gideon made one terrible decision.
Maybe Marcus died because several people had made smaller decisions long before the fire.
Ignored warnings.
Skipped inspections.
Left access routes blocked.
Changed records.
Looked away.
Gideon felt his hands tighten.
“What if Marcus knew?”
“About the irregularities?”
“Yes.”
“He may have.”
“What if that's why he stayed?”
Nico looked at him.
“You mean he didn't evacuate?”
“No.”
Gideon's voice became quieter.
“I've always assumed he was trapped.”
He looked at the old report.
“But what if he had gone back for something?”
Nico frowned.
“What kind of something?”
“I don't know.”
Gideon remembered the warehouse.
The noise.
The smoke.
The confusion.
He remembered hearing Marcus's voice.
But there was something else.
A detail he had forgotten.
Marcus had shouted something before the collapse.
Gideon had never understood it.
At the time, he thought Marcus was calling his name.
Now he wasn't sure.
“Wait.”
Gideon closed his eyes.
Nico remained silent.
Gideon searched through the memory.
The warehouse was burning.
His mask was filling with smoke.
Marcus was somewhere ahead.
There had been a room near the eastern corridor.
A storage office.
Gideon remembered Marcus pointing toward it.
Not toward the exit.
Toward the office.
“Records,” Gideon whispered.
Nico leaned forward.
“What?”
“He said something about records.”
“You're sure?”
“No.”
Gideon opened his eyes.
“I remember him pointing toward the office.”
“Could there have been paperwork there?”
“Probably.”
“What kind?”
“Site records. Inspection documents. Contractor information.”
Nico looked at the folder.
“Maybe he was trying to get evidence out.”
Gideon stared at him.
The idea was terrifying.
Because it changed Marcus's final moments.
Marcus had not simply been another firefighter caught in a disaster.
He might have been trying to expose something.
Gideon looked down at the photograph of the warehouse.
“Why didn't I remember this?”
“Trauma doesn't preserve everything.”
“I know.”
“But you may remember more now because you have something to connect it to.”
Gideon looked at Nico.
“The photograph.”
“Yes.”
“The missing worker.”
“Yes.”
“The safety reports.”
“Yes.”
Gideon slowly nodded.
The pieces were beginning to fit.
Not perfectly.
There were still gaps.
But the gaps had shape now.
Marcus had noticed irregularities.
The warehouse had safety problems before the fire.
An unidentified worker had been present during the renovation.
The official investigation had failed to document him.
The evacuation order had conflicting records.
The original radio recording was missing.
And now Gideon remembered Marcus trying to reach a records office.
“What if he found something?”
Nico looked at him.
“Then someone may have known.”
Gideon felt a chill.
“And if someone knew he was trying to expose it, that could explain why the records disappeared.”
“Possibly.”
Gideon stood.
He needed air.
Nico followed him outside.
They stood on the sidewalk in front of the studio.
Traffic moved past them.
The ordinary world continued around them.
Gideon looked toward the firehouse.
“Six years.”
Nico stood beside him.
“I know.”
“I thought I was the last person Marcus spoke to.”
“You may have been.”
“But maybe the last thing he was trying to do wasn't about me.”
Gideon looked at the street.
“He might have been trying to save something else.”
Nico didn't correct him.
Gideon breathed slowly.
For the first time, the memory of Marcus didn't feel like a weight pressing him into the ground.
It still hurt.
It always would.
But there was another emotion now.
Respect.
Marcus had been trying to do his job.
Maybe he had kept asking questions because something didn't feel right.
Maybe he had understood the danger before anyone else.
Maybe the reason he was in that warehouse when the fire started was not simply bad luck.
Maybe he had gone looking for evidence.
Gideon looked at Nico.
“I need to know what happened to those records.”
“Then we'll find out.”
Gideon shook his head.
“No.”
Nico raised an eyebrow.
“No?”
“I need to do this.”
“You're not doing it alone.”
Gideon looked at him.
“I know.”
That answer came easily.
He reached for Nico's hand.
Their fingers intertwined.
Gideon looked down at their hands.
Once, he would have believed that holding someone close meant giving the past another person to take from him.
Now he understood something different.
Holding Nico's hand didn't make him weaker.
It reminded him why the truth mattered.
“I spent six years thinking Marcus died because I went back.”
Nico squeezed his hand.
“And now?”
Gideon looked toward the distant skyline.
“Now I think I need to know what killed him.”
The words felt different from the guilt he had carried.
They weren't an accusation against himself.
They were a promise.
Gideon would find out what happened.
Not because he wanted to rewrite the past.
He knew Marcus was still dead.
Nothing could change that.
He wanted the truth because Marcus deserved to be remembered as more than the man Gideon failed to save.
He had been a firefighter.
A friend.
A man who noticed when something was wrong.
A man who may have tried to expose it.
And perhaps, in the final moments of his life, he had been trying to save more than himself.
Gideon looked at Nico.
“I thought surviving meant carrying Marcus with me forever.”
Nico waited.
“Maybe it means finishing what he started.”
Nico's eyes softened.
“Maybe.”
Gideon nodded.
The anger remained.
So did the grief.
But neither one controlled him anymore.
He had spent years looking backward at the moment he went into the fire.
Now, for the first time, he was willing to look farther back.
Before the flames.
Before the collapse.
Before the evacuation order.
Before Marcus died.
That was where the truth might be hiding.
And Gideon was finally ready to go looking for it.
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