April 15: Pre-dawn swim, 0445-0615. Black wetsuit with orange safety buoy. Right shoulder showing fatigue after ladder drills—form deteriorating after 2000 yards. Maintaining 1:42/100 pace despite compensation. Discussion with K. Brenner about swim clinic cancelled due to schedule conflict.
I dragged a hand through my hair. The words weren't mine, butthey could have been.
Elliot wasn't just watching me. He was documenting me. Studying my body, my endurance, and my failures.
I flipped to another page.
April 18: Sunrise brick session. 45-mile loop; modified route due to road work on Westlake. Blue Specialized bike, new cleats (still adjusting position—causing slight knee rotation). Nine-minute miles on run, HR elevated. Stopped twice to stretch left IT band.
My stomach turned. I gripped the edge of the counter, my pulse hammering in my ears.
How much of this was still me? I turned toward the mirror across the room. My reflection stared back—same face, same body. But something in my stance lookedwrong.
Or maybe it didn't. Maybe I was looking for signs of transformation because Elliot wanted me to.
You're already changing, McCabe. Can't you feel it?The floor tilted.
My stomach flipped violently. I barely made it to the sink before I was dry-heaving, throat burning, hands braced against the counter.
This isn't real.
But it was.
I dropped onto the floor, my spine hitting the cabinets. The wet tile was freezing under my legs, but I needed it. I needed to feel something that belonged to me.
My phone lay on the table, screen dark.
James.
His number was right there.He'd answer.If I picked up that phone and called him,he'd know.He'd hear it in my voice,the cracks.
I reached for it. My fingers hovered over the screen.Just call him.
I let my hand fall. If I let James in now, it was real. And I wasn't ready for that.
Chapter sixteen
James
Paper crackled beneath my fingers as I turned another page, the sound sharp in the archives' midnight silence. My shoulders ached from hours hunched over personnel files and case reports at fire department headquarters, but I couldn't stop. Not when each document revealed another piece of the pattern.
The basement lab's ventilation system whispered overhead. Three empty coffee cups formed a half-circle around my laptop, their dregs gone cold hours ago. I should have been at Marcus's. I should have been sleeping. Instead, I was chasing ghosts through department records, trying to understand what transformed an ordinary fire academy washout into something monstrous.
Digitized records glowed on my screen—psychological evaluations, incident reports, and newspaper clippings that hadn't seen daylight in years. Most were fragmentary, bureaucratic breadcrumbs that led nowhere, but something darker took shape beneath the formal language and carefully redacted sections.
I opened another file. The time stamp read 3:47 AM, but time had lost meaning somewhere between the fourth cup of coffee and the growing certainty that I was missing something crucial. Something that could keep Marcus alive.
The archive's ancient oak table creaked as I shifted my weight, spreading another set of documents. My fingers traced each page with the same careful attention I gave crime scene evidence, searching for the truth buried in forgotten details.
Then I found it.
The evidence box held a single journal, its pages warped from years in storage, edges singed as if it had survived a baptism by fire. The cover bore water stains from fire hoses long since silent. Evidence tag: 2015-4473. It was part of the contents collected from Elliot Raines's locker after the training incident.
I opened it. The first pages were technical—thermal calculations and ventilation diagrams rendered with mechanical precision. Then the tone shifted, and I stopped breathing for a moment.
"First observed Lieutenant Graham McCabe during night drill. The way he reads fire—it's unlike anything I've seen. Others react. He anticipates. Moves like he can hear the flames speaking."
Lieutenant Graham McCabe, Marcus's father. My fingers paused on the page as the connection slammed into me. I'd seen that name on Marcus's academy graduation photo, hanging on a wall in his mother's dining room just days ago.
