He had the same proud set of the shoulders and the same intensity in his eyes. Now Graham's ghost stared up at me from pages written by Marcus's stalker.
I turned to the next entry, my mouth gone dry.
"Graham understands what the rest of us only glimpse. Watched him enter a flashover today. Any other man would have retreated. He moved through it like he belonged there, like the heat recognized him. Beautiful. Perfect. This is what we're meant to become."
The handwriting changed, growing more intense:
"He sees it, too. Must see it. The way fire transforms everything it touches. Not destruction—transcendence. Today he told the recruits that flame strips away everything but truth. He KNOWS."
My fingers went numb as I read further. The margins were full of observations of Graham McCabe's techniques, training methods, and understanding of fire behavior. It wasn't academic interest. It was worship.
"The others are blind. They fight against fire's gift. Graham embraces it. Lets it reshape him. Each burn makes him stronger, purer. He's proving what I've always known: some men are chosen by the flame."
The final entries were dated just before Raines's dismissal from the academy:
"They fear what they don't understand. Call it reckless, dangerous. Only Graham knows. Fire isn't our enemy. It's our inheritance. Our destiny. Some men are meant to be consumed, to become something greater. He's showing us the way."
The journal ended there, but my mind raced ahead, connecting points across the years like plotting burn patterns at a scene. Graham's death in the refinery fire. Marcus following his father's path. Every calculated intrusion into Marcus's life—
"Oh, God." The words tumbled into the archive's silence.
It wasn't about destroying Marcus. It was about a legacy, finishing what started with his father. Raines wasn't studying Marcus.
He was preparing him.
My phone was heavy as lead in my hand as I pulled up the recent case photos. I had Marcus's training routes marked in precise red lines. Another picture showed the calculated burn patterns at each scene, how each fire pushed him harder and tested him further.
Raines hadn't chosen Marcus because he was a fierce competitor or skilled firefighter. He'd chosen him because he was Graham McCabe's son. He was the only one who could complete the transformation his father had begun.
I needed to warn Marcus that every fire pushed him closer to becoming what Raines believed his father had almost achieved. Then, the words stuck in my throat as I stared at the journal's final page, where a single line was written in dark red ink:
"Some men are chosen by the flame."
The words burned into my vision as I stared at the page. My chest tightened around each breath. The archive's fluorescent lights buzzed overhead with a sterile glow.
I spread the recent case photos across the table. The warehouse fire. The gym. The abandoned factory. Each scene was a test. The precisión that had looked like an artistic obsession now revealed itself as something darker—the completion of a ritual begun twelve years ago with Graham McCabe.
The photos of Marcus's training routes took on new meaning. Every surveillance shot amounted to assessments and comparisons. It was a son's capabilities measured against his father's.
I pulled up the chemical analysis from the latest fire on my laptop. Raines showed off his technical mastery with the accelerant combinations. He'd recreated the conditions from the refinery fire that killed Graham McCabe, testing whether Marcus could withstand what his father couldn't.
My coffee cup clattered against the table as I shoved back from the evidence. The sound echoed through the empty archives like a gunshot. I pressed my palms against my eyes but couldn't unsee the pattern.
Every fire had pushed Marcus harder, driven him to adapt and overcome. He had responded precisely as Raines wanted—with more training, discipline, and determination to prove himself stronger than the flames. If he'd given up at any point, it would have all been over.
My phone vibrated against the table—a text from Marcus. The screen showed his name. It was a connection to a part of theworld that still made sense. My fingers hovered over the keys, but the words wouldn't come.
How could I tell him that his father's death was the beginning?
Papers scattered as I shoved everything into my messenger bag. I needed to organize it and understand the full scope before I dropped the weight onto Marcus's shoulders.
My apartment was closer than his. I could piece it together there and find the right words to explain how a madman had turned his father's memory into a blueprint for transformation.
The evidence weighed against my thigh as I walked to my car. Raines's journal burned in my messenger bag like a hot coal. Each step echoed off brick walls, and I caught myself scanning the shadows between buildings, wondering if someone was documenting my movements with the same precision they'd used to study Marcus.
Seattle's streets were nearly empty, the late hour stripping away the usual traffic and leaving only pools of sodium light on wet pavement. My car's leather seats were too normal against my skin when everything else had shifted sideways into a nightmare.
I took Eastlake instead of I-5, choosing the longer route that wound past darkened buildings and silent marinas. The lake's surface reflected city lights in fractured patterns. It was the same lake where Marcus trained every morning, where someone watched, measured, and planned. My fingers tightened on the steering wheel as I imagined him cutting through that dark water, unaware of the legacy forced upon him.
