Chapter 17
Garrett
Move in with me.
And she'd said yes.
Stop going back and forth. Just stay.
And she'd said yes.
I kept replaying it. The way her eyes went bright. The way she'd pressed her lips together and nodded. The way she'd whispered I'm already home against my neck.
She was staying. Not just for the night. Not just until the case was over.
Staying.
Coming home after a shift and finding her on the couch, chasing some story until 2 AM. Fighting over closet space. Arguing about dishes.
All the small, ordinary moments that added up to a life.
She'd given me back the ring.
Keep it. For when we're ready.
I put it in my locker. Back corner, behind my extra shirt. I found myself checking on it between calls.
Making sure it was still there. Making sure I hadn't dreamed the whole thing.
Proposing again wasn't a matter of if. I'd known since the moment she walked back into my life.
I just had to figure out how.
We'd bought that ring in our twenties. Every spare dollar scraped together, convinced that modest diamond was the most beautiful thing we'd ever seen. I'd thought about replacing it. Something that reflected who she'd become.
But that ring had history. That ring had waited, just like I had.
"Stone." Shane in the doorway. "You coming? Dinner's ready."
"Yeah." I closed my locker. "Be right there."
Brian had made pasta. Rodriguez was complaining about the garlic. Ortiz telling a story about his kid's soccer game that nobody was really listening to.
The familiar chaos of a shift dinner. The sounds of family.
Sloane was working late. New assignment from Marianne. I'd see her in the morning, breakfast together, maybe back to bed for a few hours.
The simple pleasures of a life finally clicking into place.
I ate my pasta and let myself be happy.
"Still no sign of her?" Brian asked.
"Diaz has units canvassing. Someone's bound to recognize her from the photo."
"Becks." Shane shook his head. "She was here for months. Bringing us food. Asking questions." He looked at me. "She asked about Emma's fire, didn't she?"
My jaw tightened. "Yeah. She did."
"And none of us thought twice about it." Brian set down his fork. "She played us." He paused. "I'm going to miss her lasagna, though."
Rodriguez shot him a look.
"What? I'm just saying."
"She played everyone." Rodriguez's voice was flat. "That's what people like her do. They find the cracks and slip through."
The table went quiet.
The way she'd smiled at me across the kitchen. The way she'd listened when I talked about the calls that haunted me. The way I'd trusted her with pieces of myself I didn't share with anyone.
She'd known. The whole time.
"She'll slip up eventually," Shane said. "They always do."
I nodded. But something in my gut felt wrong. Like I was missing something obvious.
The tones dropped at 11:03 PM.
Everyone moved. Chairs scraped. Boots on concrete. The practiced choreography of a thousand fires.
Gear on. Truck. Ninety seconds. Shane beside me. Brian across. Rodriguez up front, radio crackling.
"Structure fire. Twelve-alarm. Multiple floors involved."
Twelve alarms. Every available unit in the borough.
"What's the address?" Rodriguez asked.
The dispatcher's voice came back. Tinny through the speaker.
I heard the address before my brain processed it.
The New York Times building.
The truck lurched forward. Sirens spinning up. The city blurring past.
"Stone." Shane's voice was careful. "Sloane isn't there right now. Is she?"
I pulled out my phone. One missed call. One voicemail.
I pressed play.
Her voice. Shaking. Scared. Trying very hard to stay calm.
"Garrett, I'm at the Times building. Rebecca Marsh started a fire. I'm locked on the twelfth floor. The hallway is burning."
A pause. The crackle of flames.
"I love you. I love you so much."
The message ended.
I couldn't breathe.
"Stone." Shane's hand on my shoulder. "Talk to me."
"She's inside." The words scraped out. "Twelfth floor."
Shane went pale. Brian was already reaching for his radio.
"Cap. We've got a situation."
Rodriguez listened. Expression hardening with every word.
"How long ago was that message?"
"Five minutes."
In a fire that size, five minutes was a lifetime.
The truck screamed through another intersection.
I love you. I love you so much.
I was going to get her out. I was going to reach her in time.
Not again. Not like this.
The building came into view.
Worse than I'd imagined.
Fire in the windows. Sixth floor, eighth, tenth. Flames licking up the glass facade, smoke pouring from gaps in the structure. The building lit up against the night sky like a torch.
And somewhere on the twelfth floor, Sloane was waiting.
Chaos on the ground.
Ladder trucks everywhere. Hose lines snaking across the pavement. A dozen houses on scene. IC staging area across the street, radios crackling.
I was out of the truck before it stopped.
"Stone!" Rodriguez's voice, sharp. "Stone, wait!"
I didn't wait. Mask. Halligan. Air check. Muscle memory, a thousand fires had trained my hands to move without thought.
Rodriguez grabbed my arm.
"You're not going in there half-cocked."
"She's on twelve, Cap. I have to—"
"I know." His grip tightened. "But you're not going alone."
Rodriguez had been my captain for eight years. He'd seen me at my worst. And now he was looking at me with something that might have been resignation.
"Shane. Brian. You're with him."
Shane was already gearing up.
"Third time," Rodriguez muttered under his breath. "Third time one of my guys runs into a burning building for a woman. I'm starting to think this crew has a type."
"Cap—"
"Go." He released my arm. "Twelve, east side. Stairwell B is passable below ten. After that, you're on your own." He held my gaze. "Bring her back, Stone. And bring yourself back too."
Mask on. Air adjusted. Halligan gripped until my knuckles ached.
"I will."
The stairwell was a chimney.
Smoke pouring down from above, thick and black, visibility near zero. Single file. Shane on point. Me in the middle. Brian on rear.
Seventh. Eighth. Ninth.
My legs burned. My lungs burned. Everything burned.
But I kept climbing.
Tenth. Door warped from heat. Shane hit it with his halligan, once, twice, and it gave way.
The hallway was worse than the stairwell.
Fire everywhere. Racing along the walls. Eating through the carpet. Sprinklers running but not enough. The accelerants had done their work.
"Stay low. Near the walls. Watch your footing."
Every step a calculation.
I love you. Please.
I moved faster.
Eleventh. Worse. Ceiling tiles falling. Sections of floor glowing orange from beneath.
"Stone." Brian's voice, tight. "Floor's soft. We need to spread out."
"Single file. Edges."
Twelfth.
Inferno. Flames climbing the walls, licking the ceiling, dancing through spray from sprinklers that couldn't keep up. Even through my gear, the heat pressed against my skin.
"East side."
Past burning cubicles. Melting monitors. The ruins of what had been a newsroom.
And then, a door at the end of the hallway. Glass walls. An office.
Behind the glass, a figure huddled low.
"Sloane!"
She looked up. Through the smoke and the flames, her eyes found mine.
I ran.
The door was locked. Reinforced. Halligan, once, twice, three times. The frame splintered. The locks gave way.
Through.
She was in my arms before I could think. Coughing, crying, hands fisting in my jacket.
"You came." Raw. Wrecked. "You actually came."
"Of course I came."
I checked her over. No burns. No visible injuries. Smoke inhalation. Tremor in her hands.
"Can you walk?"
"Yes."
"Then we move. Now."
Her fingers laced through mine.
We ran.
Shane had found an alternate route. Service corridor on the north side. Less fire damage. Floor still mostly solid.
We moved fast. Staying low. Brian bringing up the rear with his light sweeping for hazards.
Almost to the stairwell when I heard it.
A cry. Weak. To our left.
I stopped.
"Stone." Urgent. "We need to keep moving."
"Someone's in there."
"The building is coming down—"
Another cry. And then a voice I recognized.
Sloane had heard it too. Face pale. Eyes wide.
"Go," I told Shane. "Get her out. I'll be right behind you."
"Garrett—" She grabbed my arm. "No."
"I have to." I pulled her hand off. Gently. "I promise."
She looked back at me as Shane pulled her away. Something desperate in her face. But she let him.
I turned toward the sound.
Corner office. Doorframe collapsed, a fallen beam trapping her from the waist down. Blood on her face. Smoke in her lungs.
She looked up. Something in her expression broke.
"You." Her voice cracked. "Why are you here?"
"I'm getting you out."
"Stone." Brian behind me. He hadn't left. "We need to go."
"Help me with this."
Brian looked at Rebecca. At the beam. At the fire.
Then he grabbed the other end.
We lifted. The beam shifted. Not much. But enough.
"Now. Move."
She didn't move.
"Rebecca. Move."
"Why are you saving me?" Tears streaming. "After what I did. After what I tried to do to her. Why—"
"Because it's what I do." Rough. Honest. "I save people. That's the job."
"I don't deserve—"
"I don't care what you deserve." I met her eyes. "Emma wouldn't want you to die in a fire."
A sob tore out of her throat.
"I miss her." Barely a whisper. "I miss her so much."
"I know." My arms shaking from the weight. "Now move. Please. Let me save you."
For a long moment, she just looked at me. The fire roared around us. The building groaned. Time running out.
Then she started to pull herself free.
She screamed as she dragged herself out from under the beam. Pain. Real pain. But she kept moving. Kept pulling. Until she was clear.
Brian and I dropped the beam. It crashed to the floor, sending up a shower of sparks.
I grabbed Rebecca under the arms. Hauled her up. Her legs buckled, deadweight from the hips down, the kind of collapse that meant the nerves weren't firing right.
Brian was already there. He took her weight onto his shoulder, one arm locked around her waist. His other hand found her wrist, two fingers on the pulse point, automatic, the paramedic overriding the firefighter.
Something in his face tightened.
"We need to move." Not urgent. Worse than urgent. Controlled. "Now. Go. Lead us out."
Slower now. The fire pressing from all sides. The building groaning. Every second borrowed.
Behind me, Rebecca's breathing had changed. Shallower. A wet rattle underneath that hadn't been there two floors ago. She'd stopped talking, not unconscious, but conserving. Her fingers gripping Brian's jacket had gone white-knuckled, then slack, then white-knuckled again.
"Stay with us," Brian said. Low. Steady. The voice he used on patients when the situation was worse than he was letting on. "Almost there."
But we kept moving.
Shane and Sloane at the bottom of the stairwell. The moment I came through the door, she was in my arms.
"You're okay." Crying. Shaking. Her hands running over my face, my shoulders. "You're okay."
"I'm okay."
She looked past me. Saw Brian carrying Rebecca. Something complicated crossed her face.
The EMTs moved fast. Too fast. The kind of fast that meant they'd seen something in the thirty seconds since they'd taken her from Brian's arms.
Brian stood on the sidewalk, watching the ambulance doors close. He hadn't moved. Hands at his sides, still gloved, streaked dark with someone else's blood.
"She's going to be okay, right?" I said.
Brian's jaw worked. The way it did when he was choosing between honesty and kindness.
"They'll do everything they can." Which wasn't an answer. We both knew it wasn't an answer.
Then Sloane was there, and everything else fell away.
We stumbled out together. Into the night air. Into the chaos of lights and sirens.
I pulled off my mask and held her. The solid weight of her. Real. Alive. Here.
"I thought I lost you." Broken. "When I heard your voicemail—"
"You didn't." She cupped my face. "You came for me. You always come for me."
"Always." Forehead to hers. "Always."
Behind us, the building burned.
But she was alive. Here. In my arms.
That was everything.
Rodriguez appeared beside us. That practiced eye.
"EMTs. Both of you. Now."
Shane fell into step as we walked. Clapped my shoulder.
"Hell of a night."
"Yeah."
"She's okay?"
I looked at Sloane. Smoke-stained. Exhausted. The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"She's okay."
Shane nodded. Squeezed my shoulder once. Then he was gone, back to the crew, back to the work of putting out a fire.
The EMTs checked her lungs, her vitals. I sat beside her the whole time.
She kept her hand in mine.
Outside, the building burned against the sky.
I pressed a kiss to her temple.
We'd made it.