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LIV

B itterroot, Montana

Eight Months Ago

The wind shifts wrong.

One second, we’re cutting line, steady, methodical, Kent shouting updates over the radio—then everything goes quiet. Too quiet. The kind that presses against your eardrums like a held breath.

I glance up. The smoke above us pulses. Moves sideways. Then curls back in on itself like something alive. I feel the drop in pressure—deep, instinctual. My gut clenches.

“Oh no…” I start.

The ridge explodes.

Flame erupts from the tree line with a scream like a jet engine. Radiant heat slams into me like a freight train, searing skin through Nomex. Everything goes white-gold and roaring. The fire doesn’t crawl—it runs, sprinting straight for us with the hunger of a beast unleashed.

“Kent!” I scream, but he’s gone. Swallowed.

I can’t see anyone. Kent, Lawson, the others—God, where are they?

The air gets sucked out of the canyon. My lungs seize. I drop low, crawl blind toward the black, the already-burned patch that might give me a chance. A branch explodes to my left. The whole world is fire.

One foot in front of the other.

Ash rains. A helmet clatters, spinning. A scream cuts short.

I dive behind a granite outcrop and curl in on myself, face pressed to the dirt, pulling the fire blanket to cover me, hands over my head, every instinct screaming too late, too late, too late…

And then…

Silence.

The fire races past. Moves on. Leaves nothing behind but scorched bone and silence.

I rise on shaking legs. My voice is gone. My team is gone. All that’s left is a strip of Nomex with Lawson’s name. I shove it in my pocket.

I’m still breathing. Why? Why me?

GREER

The ridge goes red as I raise the binoculars.

I’m forty klicks out, parked on a weathered bluff with a direct line of sight to the Bitterroot burn.

My boots scrape loose shale as I step away from the rig, breath steady.

Below, smoke bellows into the sky like a funeral shroud, and flame columns punch through the tree line, twisting high enough to gut the clouds.

Right on schedule.

The comms are already dead. They were supposed to fail. That part cost extra.

"Flashpoint confirmed," I murmur into the sat link as I crouch by the front tire. The secure mic flickers. "Grid 4-G is fully engaged. You should have confirmation within the hour."

The voice on the other end doesn’t respond with words. Just a static pulse. Receipt acknowledged.

I thumb the screen dark and stare down at the inferno swallowing the gulch where Liv’s crew was sent in early. Too early. I manipulated some of the data—under Liv’s ID—to suggest that the blowback risk was minimal, so the brass bumped the op. They thought it was safe.

I knew better.

I grip the edge of the hood, fingers curling against the metal, still warm from the day's sun.

I tell myself this was necessary. That the old way—the bureaucratic chokehold of Command and chain-of-liability ass-covering—was what killed more people than fire ever did.

When Ignis approached me they explained they were the correction.

A purge. And if it takes one burn to light the path forward, so be it.

Liv isn’t supposed to come out of that canyon—a necessary casualty.

It’s supposed to be clean. A terrible tragedy with those who died being proclaimed heroes. One survivor, maybe two, but not her. We need someone to blame the tragedy on. There needs to be enough wreckage to drive headlines and get policy leverage.

My phone vibrates. A second channel.

ALPHA: Visual acquired. Multiple structure losses imminent. One survivor—team lead—evac is en route.

My spine goes cold. No. Not her. It can't be.

She is supposed to be ash, and I will be her grieving fiancé. It can’t be her; she’ll ask all the questions we don’t want asked.

I flip to the live sat feed streaming from an Ignis drone. There’s the bird coming in low through the smoke. There’s the flare marker. I focus the binoculars and zoom in.

Smoke-grimed, bleeding, stumbling through the edge of the fire line. It’s her.

Her eyes are clear. Focused. Alive.

"She made it out," I whisper, stepping back from the rig. "That wasn’t supposed to happen."

The silence on the line stretches, then fractures.

OMEGA: That alters the plan. Asset exposure risk. Remove or discredit.

I lower the comm slowly.

Remove or discredit. I tried removal; I’ll need to work fast to see that the blame is placed solely on her.

I stare down at the screen one more time, at Liv being lifted out as the fire roars around her.

She was supposed to die. Be the symbol. The kindling for something bigger.

Instead, she just became the biggest liability I could have left breathing.

Time to make sure she stays buried with the truth—if not in the ground, then in guilt, ruin, and smoke.

Because if she talks, if anyone listens... everything I’ve worked for goes up in flames.

LIV

After the Post-Incident Review

Six Months Ago

“You’re not going to fight it?”

Danny Greer’s voice is low, but not kind. Not anymore. There’s no concern behind it. Just calculation, polished smooth.

I stare at the coffee in my mug like it might grow claws and start tearing at the raw parts of me. “You know I did. I fought. I shouted. I went to the regional director, the union, even the damn incident board. But let’s be real. No one’s gonna torch their own infrastructure to admit I was right.”

He doesn’t argue. He never does—not when it matters.

His arms are crossed, posture stiff and clipped, like he's still on duty. Like he’s still Fire Command and I’m just another checkmark on the shift log.

Standing in what used to be our kitchen.

Mine, now. Always mine, it turns out. He never moved in all the way, did he?

Not with his clothes, not with his heart.

“They’re not just reassigning you, Liv,” he says after a beat. “They’re saying you...”

“I know what they’re saying,” I snap, sharper than I mean to be—but not sorry. “I’m the scapegoat with tits. I’m the only one who came back breathing. So I get the blame. And the guilt. And the demotion to babysitting rookies on mop-up duty.”

“You were the crew leader.”

My mouth tightens. “And you were supposed to be in the chopper with us. Remember?”

That one lands. I throw it like a knife, because I’m angry and raw and bleeding out under my skin—and because he deserves to feel it.

He was the one who swapped shifts at the last minute.

Said something came up, but wouldn’t meet my eyes when he said it.

I remember standing at the tail of the chopper, wind ripping through my braid, looking for him on the pad.

He wasn’t late—he just wasn’t coming. Sent Kent in his place without a word to me.

We all joked about it in the air, figured he’d been distracted by something and just lost track of time. But when the comms went dark and the ridge blew red, I realized he was never supposed to be there. Not that day. Not with us.

The one who gave that tight-lipped, 'Something came up,' without explanation. The one who smiled too easily when the wreckage cooled and only one of us made it out.

He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t deny it. Just looks down, hands fidgeting in his pockets like maybe if he moves slowly enough, I won’t notice the blood on them.

Then he pulls out the ring box—the last thing I expected him to bring tonight.

Part of me, stubborn and bruised, had hoped he came to apologize.

To explain. To say something that would make the weight of all this feel less orchestrated.

But no. Just this. One I haven’t seen since the day he slipped the band on my finger with shaking hands and too many promises.

He opens it slowly, not like a man grieving, but like someone ticking off a final step in a checklist.

“I need it back, Liv.”

I glance at my hand. At the thin gold band with the small center diamond surrounded by baguettes that still sits there, heavier now than the gear I carried through the Bitterroot burn. My chest squeezes. But I slide it off, set it in the box, and close his fingers over it.

“There. Now it’s official.”

No more ring. No more box. No more plans written in ink on shared calendars. Just the quiet, deliberate end of thirteen months, and a future that once felt solid enough to build a life on.

Turns out it was paper. And it burned easily.

But even paper doesn’t catch without a spark.

“You knew they were going to pin it on me.” I say it flat, not a question.

I don’t need him to confirm it. I remember the way his face looked at the hospital after they pulled me out—dry-eyed, composed, like he’d already written the eulogy and filed the report.

Not a single question. Not even a damn hug.

Just that clipped nod and a retreat to whatever office let him close the door.

The timing, the silence, the way he stood behind the brass and never once raised his voice in my defense—it’s all there.

“You knew," I accuse softly. "That’s why you weren’t on the bird.”

His jaw tightens. “I didn’t make that call,” he says quietly, eyes flicking past me like he’s already halfway out the door.

“No,” I murmur. “But you didn’t stop it, either. You let me walk into the fire alone. And now you’re just here to collect the last thing that proves you were ever a part of my life.”

He says nothing. Coward.

“I used to think you were the kind of man who’d run into fire for his people,” I whisper. “But you didn’t even call for water. You just stood by and did nothing—not for them, not for me.”

Danny turns and walks out without another word. And I don’t cry. Not then. Not later. I just lock the door behind him, light a match, and burn every picture we ever took together.

Let it all turn to ash.