Chapter 4 #4
The other officer—younger, less certain, though Jade didn’t know her name—laughed awkwardly. “Chief’s on a mental health kick. We’ve just gotta ride it out.”
“Waste of budget.” Torres’s tone held casual contempt, the kind that suggested this wasn’t the first time she’d voiced this opinion. “We need more patrol hours, not feelings sessions.”
Jade’s hands stilled on the table’s metal frame. She knew she should let it go. It wasn’t her job to fight every battle, not her responsibility to change minds that were already made up. She’d known going into this work that resistance would be expected.
But then Torres continued. “Shaw got stuck on the committee, poor bastard. Mandatory therapy and committee meetings.” She laughed, sharp and mocking. “Probably thinking about biting the bullet just to get out of talking about her feelings.”
The world narrowed. Jade set down the table with careful control, turned, and walked toward the patrol vehicles. Her heartbeat picked up speed—not panic, just adrenaline responding to a decision her body recognized before her mind fully processed it.
She stopped a few feet from Torres. “Officer Torres,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt.
Torres turned, surprised. “Yeah?”
Jade kept her voice level and professional, but there was steel underneath. “I couldn’t help overhearing. Do you really think joking about officer suicide is appropriate?”
Torres’s expression shifted into something that looked like defensiveness, like she was caught off-guard. “It’s just a joke. Relax.”
“Two officers die by suicide every day in this country,” Jade said, each word deliberate. “Last year, Phoenix Ridge lost someone. Mental health support isn’t just a ‘feelings session’ as you so eloquently put it. It’s life-saving intervention. Which part of that is funny?”
Torres’s posture stiffened. “We’re cops. We handle stress, always have.”
“And how many funerals have you attended?” Jade didn’t raise her voice, but she didn’t need to. The question landed like a stone in a lake. “How many line-of-duty deaths? How many partners lost to things that could’ve been prevented if they felt safe asking for help?”
Torres opened her mouth, then closed it without saying anything. The younger officer beside her had gone very still, looking anywhere except the unfolding confrontation.
“The wellness committee exists because officers like you don’t ask for help until it’s too late,” Jade continued, unrelenting. “Or they don’t ask at all because of attitudes like yours. Because they’re afraid of being mocked, judged, or seen as weak.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You did. You meant every word.” Jade took a breath to center herself, making sure what came next was clear. “You don’t have to use therapy. You don’t even have to like it. But you will respect officers who do, and you won’t mock them in my earshot.”
The silence that followed stretched thin and taut.
Torres’s jaw worked, anger and embarrassment warring across her face.
A small group had gathered at the edges, not outright staring but still paying attention.
Riley stood near her vehicle, Sarge at her side, arms crossed, expression unreadable, but she was clearly paying attention.
And near the K-9 vehicles, Maddox had frozen mid-motion, Zeus’s leash in her hand.
She was far enough away that Jade couldn’t see her expression clearly, but close enough that there was no question she’d heard everything.
Torres muttered something under her breath that Jade couldn’t quite make out and turned away, stalking toward her vehicle. The younger officer followed, her shoulders hunched, leaving Jade standing alone near the patrol cars.
Her hands were shaking, and she curled them into fists, willing the tremors to stop.
Confrontation had never come easy to her, even when it was necessary and right.
The adrenaline aftermath always left her feeling raw and exposed, like she’d stripped away a layer of protection she couldn’t quite put back.
But she didn’t regret it.
Riley approached her with Sarge following closely behind her. “That was badass.”
Jade shook her head slightly. “It was necessary.”
“Torres needed to hear it. Hell, half the department needed to hear it.” Riley’s expression held something dangerously close to respect. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here.”
Jade managed a small nod, still working on steadying herself. Riley seemed to sense she needed space, though, and moved off without pressing further, leaving Jade to return to her book and finish packing.
She kept her movements tight and controlled, refusing to let her shaking hands dictate the pace. Pamphlets into folders, folders into the tote, everything accounted for and in its place.
When she looked up, Maddox was still standing by her vehicle, Zeus now loaded inside.
She looked unnaturally rigid. Their eyes met across the parking lot, past thirty feet of asphalt and scattered families.
Maddox’s face was unreadable, but recognition shifted the set of her shoulders.
She gave Jade a single nod, almost imperceptible.
It wasn’t approval or gratitude—after all, Maddox wouldn’t want Jade defending her specifically and wouldn’t accept the kind of protection—but the nod communicated understanding Jade had been defending the right of officers to ask for her and be met with support.
Jade returned the nod, equally brief, and then Maddox turned away and climbed into her vehicle, driving off without looking back.
Jade stood in the parking lot for a long moment, her tote bag heavy on her shoulder, as she watched Maddox’s K-9 vehicle disappear around a bend. A few stragglers remained, and the cleanup crew was breaking down the last of the demonstration equipment.
She’d come here this morning for visibility and the slow work of building trust in a department that didn’t yet know if they needed her.
She’d expected to simply hand out pamphlets, smile at families, and observe from a distance.
Instead, she’d drawn a line in the sand and stood on principle in front of witnesses.
She made it clear that dismissiveness toward mental health support wouldn’t go unchallenged, not while she was here.
And Maddox had seen it.
That mattered more than Jade wanted to examine too closely. Not because she needed Maddox’s approval necessarily, but because earning respect through actions instead of words was the only path forward with someone like Maddox Shaw.
Therapy sessions could only accomplish so much when the client was determined to maintain defenses.
Real trust, the kind that allowed vulnerability, required seeing someone’s integrity in action and required proof that principles weren’t just lip service but something solid enough to stand on, even when it cost something.
And today had cost. Jade’s hands were still trembling as she loaded the table into her car.
She’d have to sit with this feeling for a while, let the adrenaline burn off, and process the exposure that came with taking a public stand.
But given a choice, she’d do it again without hesitation because if Jade could create the smallest space where asking for help felt safer than suffering in silence, then every uncomfortable confrontation was worth it.
She drove home through streets brightened by the afternoon sun, the park receding in her rearview mirror. Her apartment would be quiet, but her plants were thriving and the coffee maker was still its permanent spot, evidence of a life in Phoenix Ridge that might actually take root.
And somewhere across town, Jade imagined Maddox talking to Zeus about the day, her voice softening in that way it only did with him, her walls still firmly in place with everyone else.
But maybe, just maybe, those walls had a few more cracks than they’d had this morning.
Jade could work with cracks. She was patient and learned in the Army that healing happened in increments too small to measure day by day but was undeniable over time.
She had watched Maddox experience these small moments and quiet shifts, the kind of progress that didn't announce itself but accumulated nonetheless.
Jade pulled into her apartment complex, gathered her materials, and headed inside. The work continued, as it always did, and the foundation was being laid brick by careful brick.
And the most important part: she still had time to reach someone who everyone thought was unreachable.