Chapter 2
Riley
I didn’t need anyone.
That was the rule—the first one life taught me, the one that worked because it had to.
If you need people, they disappoint you.
If you depend on them, they leave. If you trust them, they break you.
So I didn’t. I handled Mia. Handled work.
Handled the court dates and the caseworkers and the sleepless nights. Alone.
I was fine. I was holding it together.
The drill horn blared through the apparatus bay, and I was already moving.
Turnout pants up, boots on, jacket sealed in the time it took most people to process the sound.
Two years at West Valley Springs Station, and my body knew the rhythms before my brain caught up.
Muscle memory was reliable that way. Muscle memory didn't ask questions or need explanations or wonder why you flinched at sudden movements.
That was how I lived—do what had to be done, stay in the automatic.
"Santos! You're on the nozzle."
Cal's voice cut through the controlled chaos. I grabbed the hose, felt its familiar weight settle across my shoulders, and fell into position. The training tower loomed ahead. Four stories of concrete and smoke machines designed to break you down and build you back up. I’d climbed it a hundred times. I could climb it a hundred more.
The crew moved around me in practiced formation.
Owen on my left, steady and silent. Two newer guys behind us whose names I kept forgetting because they wouldn’t last long—couldn’t handle it, would probably wash out within the year.
And Murphy somewhere at the back, running the pump, doing whatever Murphy did when he wasn't brooding about his ex-fiancée or his ranch or whatever else occupied that head of his.
"Go!"
I surged forward, dragging the charged line up the first flight of stairs. The weight burned through my shoulders, my thighs, my lungs. Good. Pain was simple. Pain made sense. Pain didn't sit across from you in a courtroom and try to take your sister away from you—and hand her back to a psycho.
Second floor. Third. The smoke thickened. Theatrical, harmless, but my body responded anyway. Heart rate up. Breathing controlled. Eyes scanning for the orange glow of the prop fire we were supposed to find and suppress.
I hit the fourth floor thirty seconds ahead of the rest of the team.
Cal was waiting at the top, stopwatch in hand, that assessing look on his face that meant he was cataloging everything—my time, my form, the fact that I'd pushed harder than necessary for a routine drill.
He didn't say anything. He never did, with me.
Just watched and evaluated and probably wondered why I treated every evolution like my job depended on it.
Because it did. Because everything depended on everything else, a house of cards I'd spent two years building, and one wrong move would bring it all down.
The crew filtered up behind me, breathing hard.
Owen caught my eye and gave me a small nod.
Respect, maybe, or just acknowledgment. I nodded back.
That was the extent of our communication most days, and I preferred it that way.
Owen didn't pry. Owen didn't ask about the phone calls I took in the apparatus bay with my back turned, or the days I showed up with shadows under my eyes so dark they looked like bruises.
Owen was safe. Most of the crew was safe, in the way that coworkers could be safe—close enough to rely on in a fire, distant enough that they couldn't hurt you anywhere else.
"Again," Cal called out. "Santos, you're rotating to backup. Murphy, you've got the nozzle."
I bit back the protest that rose in my throat. Backup meant following, not leading. Backup meant trusting someone else to make the calls while I hauled line and watched their back. I hated backup. I hated trusting someone else.
But I nodded, because arguing with Cal was pointless, and because the part of me that never stopped calculating knew that I couldn't afford to be someone who needed managing.
Couldn't afford to be anything but perfect, reliable, the firefighter who never caused problems and never needed special treatment and never, ever let her personal life bleed into her professional one.
Average got noticed. Average invited questions. Average got easily replaced.
I fell into position behind Murphy as we reset for the second run.
He moved well. I'd give him that. Confident without being cocky, efficient in a way that spoke to years of experience.
He'd been doing this longer than I had. Most of them had.
I was still the newest full-timer on the crew, still needing to prove myself every shift.
The horn blared again. We moved.
This time I watched Murphy’s back, matched his pace, did my job without trying to do everyone else’s.
It felt wrong, like wearing clothes that didn’t fit.
I was the only woman on the crew, but that wasn’t the point.
I did it anyway, because that was what the job required—and the job was the only thing I couldn’t afford to lose.
I needed it to take care of the one person I loved.
Afterward, sweat cooling on my skin, gear hanging heavy on my frame, I caught Cal watching me again. That look. The one that said he saw more than I wanted him to see.
I turned away before he could decide to say something about it.
"Santos."
Cal's voice stopped me halfway across the apparatus bay. I'd been heading for the bathroom. Five minutes of privacy to check my phone, scroll through the emails I’d been avoiding, and pretend I wasn’t drowning.
"Office." The words hit my bloodstream like ice water. "Caseworker left a message."
I followed him without letting my face change. Through the bay, past the engine, into the small office that smelled like coffee and paperwork and the particular staleness of a room that never got enough air. Cal handed me a Post-it note with a phone number I already knew by heart.
"You can use the phone in here. Take your time."
He left. Closed the door behind him. Gave me the privacy I hadn’t asked for and didn’t know what to do with.
I stared at the number. Sandra Reeves, Department of Child and Family Services. The woman who held my sister's future in her bureaucratic hands, who checked boxes and filed reports and decided whether I was fit to raise my own sister.
My hands were shaking.
I pressed them flat against Cal’s desk until the trembling stopped. I had to control myself. I had to stay in control. Then I picked up the phone and dialed. Sandra answered on the second ring.
"Ms. Santos. Thank you for returning my call."
"Of course." My voice came out steady. Professional. The voice of someone who had everything under control. "What can I do for you?"
"I wanted to inform you that the first custody hearing has been scheduled." There was a pause as I heard papers shuffling. "Two months from now. March fifteenth. There will be follow-up hearings every two months after that, with a final determination expected in approximately eight months."
Eight months. The number echoed in my skull like a countdown. Eight months of hearings and evaluations and proving, over and over, that I deserved to keep the only family I had left.
"I understand." I was making such an effort to keep my voice steady.
"I also wanted to discuss some factors that might strengthen your position.
" Sandra's voice stayed carefully neutral.
The practiced tone of someone who delivered bad news for a living.
"Stable housing is important. Consistent income.
The judge will want to see that Mia has a structured, supportive environment. "
"She does."
"I'm sure." Another pause, but longer this time. "Ms. Santos, I want to be direct with you. The opposing counsel has raised concerns about your living situation. Your work schedule. The fact that you're..." She hesitated. "A single guardian."
Single. The word landed like a verdict.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that a two-parent household would significantly improve your position.
" Sandra's voice softened, just slightly.
"I know that's not what you want to hear.
But I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't tell you the truth.
The judge assigned to your case is traditional.
She puts a lot of weight on family structure.
If there were any way to address that concern. .."
"Thank you for letting me know." The words tasted like battery acid. "Is there anything else?"
"Just..." Sandra sighed. "Keep doing what you're doing, Ms. Santos. You're a good guardian. Mia is lucky to have you. I'll be in touch about the evaluation schedule."
After that, she hung up.
I stood in Cal's office with the dead phone in my hand and tried to remember how to breathe.
Two-parent household.
As if I could conjure a partner out of thin air. As if anyone would look at my life and decide that was something worth signing up for. The custody battle, the traumatized kid, the twenty-four-hour shifts, the fear and the chaos and the barely-holding-it-together.
I didn't do relationships. Never had. That would mean handing my heart over to someone else, letting them hold something they could break, and I'd learned too young what happened when you gave people that kind of power. They used it. They always used it.
So I’d kept myself closed off. Casual dates, occasionally, when the loneliness got too loud to ignore—but nothing serious. Nothing that could touch me. Nothing that would leave a mark when it inevitably ended.
And now that belief had consequences. It was going to cost me my sister.
It took a moment to set the phone down. When I did, I did it carefully, precisely, like it might shatter if I moved too fast. I walked out of Cal's office with my shoulders squared and my face blank.
Found a spot behind Engine 7 where no one could see me and pressed my back against the cool metal until my heart stopped racing.