Page 25 of Playing With Fire

The truth was, she was unraveling.

Her fingers drummed against the edge of her desk, the rhythm uneven, like her thoughts. She hadn’t spoken to Evelyn since their fight, hadn’t even seen her. Every time her phone buzzed, her stomach clenched, half-hoping it was Evelyn reaching out, half-hoping it wasn’t. She’d buried herself in work,thinking if she stayed busy enough, she could avoid the gnawing ache in her chest. It wasn’t working.

Cass leaned back in her chair, running a hand over her face. She felt raw, like an exposed nerve. The anger she’d felt that day had cooled, but it left behind something worse: doubt. She replayed the argument over and over in her mind, dissecting every word, every look, every pause.

Had she overreacted?

Part of her wanted to believe she hadn’t. Evelyn had pushed for those cuts, knowing full well what they meant for the department. For her. Cass had every right to be furious. And yet…she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t let Evelyn explain. Hadn’t given her the benefit of the doubt.

Her pride bristled at the thought. She didn’t owe Evelyn anything, did she? After all, Evelyn was the one making decisions that put their team at risk. Evelyn was the one who had chosen to prioritize her job over their fragile, burgeoning connection.

But then Cass’s gaze shifted to the framed photo on her desk—the team gathered in front of the station, all smiles and camaraderie. Her family. Her responsibility.

She exhaled a shaky breath, the weight of it all pressing down on her. She was supposed to protect them, to fight for them. And she was doing that, wasn’t she? Pushing back against Evelyn, standing her ground, refusing to let the department be gutted?

But what if her anger had clouded her judgment? What if there was another way forward, but she’d been too stubborn, too hurt to see it?

Cass hated this feeling—this uncertainty, this vulnerability. She’d always prided herself on being decisive, on knowing exactly where she stood and what needed to be done. But now, everything felt tangled and messy. She couldn’t separateher feelings for Evelyn from her anger over the cuts, couldn’t untangle her frustration with the system from the ache of losing whatever it was they’d started to build together.

She glanced out the window, watching as a couple of her firefighters walked across the lot, laughing about something. A pang of guilt twisted in her chest. They were counting on her. Every single one of them trusted her to stand up for them, to make sure they had what they needed to do their jobs safely.

And what have I done?She’d let her emotions get the better of her, stormed out, and slammed the door on Evelyn without even hearing her out. Now, days later, she wasn’t any closer to a solution.

Cass leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk and burying her face in her hands. She felt the familiar sting of tears threatening to spill and clenched her jaw against it. She didn’t cry—not here, not where someone might walk in and see her.

But the pressure in her chest wouldn’t ease, and the memories wouldn’t leave her alone. She thought of Evelyn’s face during their fight, the flash of something like hurt in her eyes, quickly masked by her usual calm exterior. Cass had been so angry, so sure of Evelyn’s betrayal that she hadn’t stopped to think about how it might feel for her.

She hated how Evelyn could get under her skin like this, how she could make her doubt herself, make her question everything.

But what Cass hated most was the thought that maybe—just maybe—she’d let her pride ruin something that could’ve been good.

And Evelyn—god, Evelyn—would never forgive her. She knew that now. Cass had pushed her away when she should have held on. She had thrown away something precious, something that had meant more to her than she had been willing to admit.

But what could she have done? Cass didn’t have the answers. All she knew was that it was too late now. Evelyn was gone,and she couldn’t fix what she had broken. The firehouse was teetering on the edge of disaster, and Cass didn’t know if she could pull it back from the brink.

What would Becky say to her now? Would she be proud of the choices Cass had made? Or would she see Cass for what she truly was: someone who had let everything slip away because she was too weak to make the hard choices?

Cass felt a tightness in her chest, a lump rising in her throat. She had failed. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was no coming back from this.

She stood up abruptly, pacing back and forth in her office, as if moving would somehow push the thoughts away. But nothing would. She couldn’t outrun the truth. It was right here, pressing in on her, crushing her from all sides.

Cass had tried to do the right thing. She had tried to be the captain her team needed, the leader that Becky had always seen in her. But somewhere along the way, she had lost her way. And now, she had nothing left to show for it but failure.

Her heart ached with the weight of it. She had lost everything.

And the worst part? She had no idea how to fix it.

12

EVELYN

Evelyn sat alone in her office, the stack of reports on her desk untouched. The city lights beyond the wide windows glittered in the darkness, but they only made the emptiness inside her feel sharper. She had spent the better part of the day in meetings, her professional mask firmly in place, but now that the quiet had descended, the weight of her choices pressed down on her with unbearable clarity.

Her gaze drifted to the photo on her desk, one of the department’s community outreach days. Cass was in the background, laughing with one of the kids, her expression bright and unguarded. Evelyn swallowed hard and turned the frame face down, unable to look at it for another second.

For so long, Evelyn had lived her life by a single principle: control. She had built walls around herself so high and so thick that even she couldn’t see over them. Vulnerability was a weakness, and weakness was something she couldn’t afford—not in her career, not in her personal life. She had worked tirelessly to become the best at what she did, the one person people could count on to make the hard choices. But in doing so, she had shutherself off from the people who might have made all of it worth it.

And Cass…