Page 112 of Honeyfires

"Then it should be." The words came out before I could stop them, years of training and deference evaporating in the face of what I'd seen, what I knew. "Because I was right. We'd be dead if we stayed."

His jaw tightened. "Six families lost their homes, Alves. Six. Was that right?"

The question hit me pretty fucking hard. I had no answer. No justification that didn't sound hollow in the face of that number. Six homes. Six families. Everything they owned, gone. Photos and heirlooms and memories turned to ash because I'd pulled my crew back.

"The fire would've jumped anyway," I said, but even I could hear the uncertainty in my voice. "The wind was pushing it that direction. The models—"

"You don't know that." Rodriguez took a step closer, his voice dropping to something more dangerous than a shout. "What I do know is you disobeyed a direct order in front of the entire crew. That's insubordination."

"So what, you'd rather I followed orders and lost Stevens?" My voice rose despite my attempt to control it. "Lost the whole crew?"

"I'd rather you trusted your captain to make the right call."

"Your call would have killed us." I stood my ground, even though everything in me wanted to back down, wanted to defer to his authority like I'd been trained to do. "I've seen this before, Rodriguez. California, 2017. Same scenario. Wind shift, crown fire, crew caught in the middle. Three other firefighters barely made it out. Two didn't."

"I know about California." His voice was quieter now, but no less intense. "I also know you've been carrying that for eight years. And I know that sometimes trauma makes us see danger where there isn't any. Makes us second-guess—"

"This wasn't second-guessing." The words came out sharp, defensive. "This was reading the fire. Trusting my instincts. Keeping my crew alive."

"Your crew?" He raised an eyebrow. "Is that what they are now?"

The implication hung in the air between us. That I'd overstepped. That I'd forgotten my place. That I'd put myself above him, above the chain of command that kept everything functioning.

"You know what I meant."

"Do I?" He moved to the window, looking out at the city lights. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you've stopped trusting anyone's judgment but your own. And that's dangerous, Alves. For you and everyone around you."

My hands were trembling again. I shoved them into my pockets. "What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry? That I'd do it differently if I could go back?" I took a breath, steadied myself. "I can't. Because I was right. And Stevens is alive because I trusted that. I—"

"Saved your crew." His voice was still hard, still carrying that edge of anger. "But that doesn't change the fact that you disobeyed a direct order. That you undermined my authority in front of the entire team. That you—" He stopped, ran a hand over his face. "You're suspended, effective immediately. Pending investigation, paperwork to follow tomorrow. I'm just giving you a heads up. It's not even my call, Alves. This comes from higher up, district level. There's already a media circus surrounding those homes."

The words landed like debris, heavy and burning.

"Rodriguez—"

"Two weeks. Minimum. They'll review the incident, interview the crew, look at the data." He moved toward the door, then paused with his hand on the handle. "For what it's worth, I wouldn't have suspended you for this. But it wasn't my call. The agency can't have crew bosses going rogue."

Then he was gone, and I was alone in the sterile white room with the weight of everything that had just happened pressing down on me like smoke.

The journey home took forever. Crew transport vehicles returned the crew from Phoenix back to San Jacinto, the drive slow and quiet and evenly paced. By the time we got back to Station 19, my entire body was ready to give out.

It had been three in the morning by the time they released me—medic checking me one last time for injuries, making sure the oxygen levels in my blood were acceptable, confirming I wasn't going to collapse from exhaustion or smoke inhalation the moment I walked out the door. The nasal cannula was gone, but they'd given me stern instructions about rest and hydration and watching for signs of delayed smoke inhalation complications.

I knew these orders well.

The town was empty, streetlights casting orange pools on asphalt, the desert air cool through my truck's open windows. I drove home from the station in a daze, my mind replaying everything on an endless loop. The wind shift. The fire crowning. Stevens going down. Rodriguez's face when he said suspended.

Maybe Rodriguez was right. Maybe I'd been wrong. Six homes. Six families lost everything. I kept seeing them burning, kept wondering if there was something else I could have done. Some way to save both the crew and the homes. Some perfect decision that would have made everyone come out okay.

But there wasn't. There never was. That was the thing about fire—it didn't care about perfect decisions or good intentions. It just burned, and you did your best to stay alive while stopping it, and sometimes your best wasn't enough to save everything.

Sometimes you had to choose.

I'd chosen my crew. I'd chosen Stevens and Jackson and Miller and even Davids and Emerson, who had looked at me with a little less disdain at the hospital than before. I'd chosen them over property, over homes, over the career I'd spent years building.

And now I was suspended. Under investigation. My career possibly over. All because I'd trusted my instincts instead of following orders.

The apartment was dark when I pulled into the parking lot. I sat in my truck for a long moment, the engine ticking as it cooled, trying to gather the energy to move. My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, every muscle screaming from twelve hours of cutting line and running from fire and carrying Stevens and—