Chapter 1

The station air always smelled the same, a mix of diesel, sweat, and old coffee. I was checking the rig, my hands moving over the equipment, a familiar routine.

Captain Eric Peterson, my brother, walked past me, his eyes scanning my work but not really seeing me.

"Make sure those SCBA straps are tight, Peterson," he said, his voice flat. He never called me Aly at work, only Peterson.

"Yes, Captain," I replied, my voice just as neutral.

My father, Battalion Chief Michael Peterson, was in his office, probably on a call about budgets or public relations, his usual concerns.

Chloe, my adopted sister, the one they actually wanted, had probably called him five times already this morning about some minor inconvenience.

A faint scar, a pale line on my forearm, throbbed a little. It was from a small kitchen fire a month ago, a minor burn. Eric had seen it later.

"Clumsy, Peterson?" he'd said, a smirk playing on his lips. "Chloe never trips over her own feet."

I didn't say anything then, just like I didn't say anything now.

The alarm blared suddenly, cutting through the morning quiet. A wildfire, fast-moving, up in the canyons. My gut tightened. These were always bad.

"Engine 12, Brush Patrol 6, Engine 7, respond, Wildland Fire, Sector Delta," the dispatcher's voice crackled.

We were Engine 7. My crew.

At the staging area, the air was thick with smoke, the sky an angry orange.

Chief Peterson was at the command post, a map spread before him. Eric was nearby, coordinating his own company.

I saw the drone feed on a monitor, a bird's-eye view of the fire's erratic spread.

"Engine 7," my father's voice came over the radio, directed at my captain, not me. "You're assigned to the north flank, structure protection on Ridge Road. Hold that line."

It was a bad spot, a narrow canyon with limited escape routes. I knew it, my captain knew it. But orders were orders.

Later, much later, after the heat and the roar and the smoke so thick you couldn't breathe, we heard it. A different kind of roar. The wind had shifted, the fire crowning, racing towards us.

"Flare-up!" someone yelled. "It's jumping the ridge!"

There had been no warning for our sector. We scrambled, hose lines dropped, the heat scorching our backs as we piled into the engine, driving through a tunnel of flame.

We made it out by sheer luck, another crew from a different battalion laying down a desperate water line that gave us a few precious seconds.

We were coughing, soot-covered, adrenaline still pumping, when Marc Jones from Engine 12 stumbled over, his face pale under the grime.

"Man, that was close," he gasped. "Good thing command pulled everyone else back from that sector when they saw the flare-up on the drone. We got the warning twenty minutes ago."

My blood went cold. Twenty minutes.

I found my father and Eric near the command post. Chloe was there, wrapped in a blanket, clinging to Eric's arm, tears streaming down her face.

She was supposedly "volunteering" at the command post, miles from any actual danger, handing out water bottles.

"Why didn't we get a warning?" I asked, my voice raspy from the smoke. "For Sector Delta."

Eric scoffed, pulling Chloe closer. "You're overreacting, Aly. We had eyes on it."

"Chloe was really scared," he added, his voice softening as he looked at her. "We had to manage that first, make sure she was okay."

Chief Peterson finally looked at me, his eyes hard. "All necessary precautions were taken, Firefighter Peterson. The situation was dynamic. Don't look for special treatment."

Special treatment. He thought I wanted special treatment. I had almost died. My crew had almost died. Because Chloe was scared.