Nothing Left to Burn (4 page)

I cringed. Was I about to be escorted off the premises or welcomed to the brotherhood?

“Okay, Logan, we’ll give this a trial run. Here are the rules. First, assuming you pass the background check, you need to know something right now. Lieutenant Ernst is out—the seventh volunteer to leave us this year. Relocating to Florida. Can you believe that crap? The junior cadet squad’s new supervisor is Lieutenant John Logan. You got any issues with that?”

My stomach clenched into a tight ball.
Fuck
me.
“No, sir.”

“Good. Second, you step a single toe out of line, I will cut you loose, no questions asked. That means no family drama in my house. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” I swallowed hard. I could make that promise; my father was another story.

A tap on the door interrupted us. “Yes, Chief?”

“Mandy, this is Reece Logan, our newest cadet. Get him set up, will you?”

I looked up and, for a second, saw the fast burst of outrage on Amanda’s face before she controlled herself. With a nod, she mumbled, “Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Chief Duffy.” I shook the chief’s hand.

“Better hurry, Logan. Jamison’s pretty fast.”

I turned and found the doorway empty.

Chapter 4

Amanda

“Hey.”

Reece Logan’s pissed-off voice called out to me in the stairwell. I paused on the landing, flicking him a look. “Hey, what?”

“Wait up.”

I laughed at him and kept walking. Bad enough he had the guts to show his face in this house after what he did, and now he expected special treatment too? Matt was dead, Lieutenant Logan was wrecked, and it was all because Reece ruined their lives, just like Mom ruined—

Mom.

My heart slammed against my ribs when I thought of the life we used to have until she threw it all away for some loser she met in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles the year I turned seven. I swallowed hard. Okay, so Reece wasn’t Dmitri, Mom’s
soul
mate.
But he was still the reason Matt was dead.

“There’s no
waiting
up
for anybody, moron. You’re responsible for getting yourself where you need to be, or you get left behind,” I called out over my shoulder.

He jogged to catch up to me and held up both hands. “Sorry. So where do we start?”

I led him across the apparatus floor, unlocked the door to the storeroom, and flicked on a light. I stepped aside so he could go in first, but he halted and covered his nose with a hand. It was a bit dank in here—a damp mildew odor mixed with the smell of smoke. I walked down one aisle, turned left where still more shelves and racks filled the space, grabbed two blue shirts from a box, and threw them at him. He managed to catch them before they hit the floor.

“Wear one to every meeting. That’s the station uniform.”

He frowned. “What about pants?”

I rolled my eyes and sneered. “You wear your own pants. Jeans, shorts, or buy a pair of uniform pants if you want.” I showed him an empty open shelf. “This will be yours.” I grabbed a roll of masking tape, tore off a strip, and applied it to the edge of the shelf. With a black marker, I wrote his name on the tape. “You’ll get practice gear and stow it here after you master using it. For now, it stays empty.”

Logan nodded. “When—”

I turned and left the storeroom. Hey, the chief said to get him set up, and that’s what I did. That’s all I would do. He followed me across the apparatus floor, back through the heavy steel door, and into the corridor. “Kitchen’s that way.” I pointed right. “Don’t take food unless it’s offered. It’s not for us. But you can bring your own, and nobody will touch it.” I strode to the left and opened another door. “Squad uses this as our classroom. We meet here Wednesdays at seven and Saturdays at nine. Bring a notebook.”

“Um, today’s Wednesday.”

I broke into applause. “Did you figure that out all by yourself?” Wow. I thought Reece Logan was supposed to be a genius. I didn’t have any classes with him, but I’d heard he was some kind of nerd, always getting perfect scores on tests.

Logan’s face burned scarlet. “I mean, should I just stick around for tonight’s meeting?”

I blew hair out of my eyes and shrugged. “Suit yourself. Sit anywhere.” I grabbed a thick textbook off one of the shelves at the back of the room and tossed it to the table near him. It landed with a thud that echoed off the walls. “May as well start studying.”

When I reached the door, he called out, “Wait.”

Sighing impatiently, I turned and crossed my arms, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he crossed the room and met me at the door.

“Amanda, you don’t know me. So how about you adjust the attitude, okay?”

Don’t know him?
I ground my teeth together. I knew Reece Logan was the younger brother of Matt Logan and the son of Lieutenant John Logan. I knew Reece Logan was the one driving the car that crashed back in December, killing Matt. I knew Reece Logan only cared about one thing—perfect grades. He was a straight-A dork with chess-club friends and zero interest in firefighting.

And now, he was standing in my squad room, and suddenly, I wanted to know
why
. Matt started junior squad when he was twelve. Reece never set foot in the building until now. So why was he here? What the hell was he trying to prove? And just as suddenly, I decided I didn’t give a crap.

I shot him a glare. “I know everything I need to know about Reece Logan.” I stalked out of the room and headed back to the apparatus floor to start pulling practice gear for tonight’s class.

Crap. The chief told me to get Logan set up. I should have gotten him a notebook or something. Cursing under my breath, I turned, headed back to the conference room, and walked in just as Reece, naked from the waist up, tugged one of the shirts I’d just given him over his head.

Wow.

For a chess geek, he had broad shoulders. Reece and Matt looked like twins, except for one thing. Matt was broad and muscular while Reece was kind of skinny—like Captain America before the top-secret super-soldier transformation. My heart twisted inside my chest, and the breath suddenly backed up in my lungs.

His head whipped around, his eyes wide. He quickly tugged the shirt down, but he wasn’t fast enough. I saw the mark on his chest, right over his heart, and I wanted to cry and punch him at the same time.

I coughed and pretended everything was just fine. “Free tip, dude. You, um, might want to shut the door when you strip.” I crossed my arms, leaning on the door frame.

Logan blushed like some middle schooler at his first dance. “Maybe I knew you were there,” he said, trying to play it cool, and I bit my cheek to keep from laughing. He may have his brother’s broad shoulders, but Reece Logan was still a dork who liked to play chess in shorthand. True fact: I heard him shout “Queen, h4!” at another chess club kid while we were changing classes once. The other kid stopped dead in the center of the corridor with a look of horror on his face, so I figured that meant Reece beat him. He was always doing puzzles—crosswords, sudoku, cryptograms. During lunch periods, he usually had his head bent over a tablet or a puzzle book, pen tapping his chin.

Not that I looked or anything. It was just hard not to notice.

He stood there, looking at me like I’d just kicked his puppy or something. With a curse, I searched for something—anything—nice to say. I wasn’t that good at
nice
. I felt bad about making him all embarrassed and stuff, so figured I owed him one. “Um, yeah, so nice ink.” I jerked my chin at his chest. “What is it?”

“Um, it’s, uh, an infinity symbol. Kind of.”

“An infinity symbol. In bloodred ink?”

“It’s…symbolic.”

Yeah. Of the blood on his hands, no doubt. “So who did you get to ink you? You’re not eighteen.” As far as I knew, Reece was my age—sixteen.

“Fake ID,” he admitted with an expression that pinched my heart, and I wished he’d smile again. His smile was so much like Matt’s. When Matt smiled at me, I’d thought it meant he liked me, not just as a cadet or a fellow junior, but as a
girl
. I wasn’t bad looking. And I noticed him staring at my chest more than once. But Matt Logan liked girls with long, flowy hair who wore heels and dresses. I didn’t own a dress, I couldn’t walk in heels, and I almost always wore my hair twisted into a coil to keep it out of my face when I worked.

Besides, the Becketts had that whole no-boys rule.

So I never told Matt how much I liked him. And now he’s dead, and the reason why was standing in my squad class, looking at me like I just stabbed him through the heart.

He grabbed the book I tossed on the table. “Where do you suggest I start?”

I rolled my eyes and swallowed the
duh
I wanted to shout. Seriously, I thought he was a genius. “The beginning is usually good.”

Reece’s eyes shot to mine, and his jaw tightened. “Just so I know, how many questions per day do you answer seriously? What’s the sarcasm ratio? Probably hit the daily quota by now, right?”

I glared at him for a second or two and finally took the seat next to him. The chief did say to get him all set up, so I guess I owed him a straight answer. “That
was
serious. You need to know this book backward, forward, and sideways if you expect to last in this squad.”

He held up a hand. “Fine. Anything else?”

Oh
yes, actually, there is.
“Yeah. Why are you here? Matt’s death really messed up your dad. You being here—”

“Yeah. I get it.” He cut me off before I could finish. “It’s family stuff. Complicated.”

My eyebrows shot up. He didn’t know the meaning of
complicated
. “Family stuff? Really? And yet, here you are in
our
house instead of your own.”

He sighed and looked away. “He moved out.”

Oh. I didn’t know that. I squirmed and tugged at my shirt, pissed off that I actually felt sorry for him. “So the chief asked me to find out if you need a notebook since you’re sticking around for tonight’s class.”

He shook his head. “I can take notes on this if I need to.” He took out a tablet, and I rolled my eyes. Well, as long as he didn’t start playing
2048
during our meeting, it would do.

“Great. Um, so, listen. Tonight’s meeting, we’re working on PPE and SCBA.” I tapped the book. “I’d start there.”

Reece gave me a shocked look and then smiled. “Um, yeah, sure. Okay. Thanks.”

I smiled back, and his jaw fell open. I hightailed it out of there before things got weird.

Out on the apparatus floor, I waved at two of my squadmates.

“What’s up, Man?”

I stared at Gage Garner, trying to figure out how to tell him. He used to be tight with Matt Logan. Ty Golowski probably wouldn’t care much.

“Okay, listen. Chief okayed a new junior today.”

“That’s great!” Ty pumped his fist and flashed a mouth full of metal. He was our youngest and newest cadet and had been looking forward to hassling the next new guy for months now.

“No, not really. It’s Reece Logan.”

Gage’s face went red, and he huffed out a breath through his nose—always a sign of temper for him. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?”

I shook my head. “Wish I was. He showed up this afternoon and spent some time upstairs. Chief Duffy called me in, said to show him around, get him set up. He’s in the conference room now.”

Gage swiped a hand under his nose. “Does
he
know?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where Lieutenant John Logan was bullshitting with a few of the guys on Truck 3.

I jerked. Crap! John wasn’t supposed to be here on a Wednesday. And judging by the grin on his face, I was betting on no. “I’ll tell him.”

I adored John. He and Matt were like the station’s own comedy duo, finishing each other’s sentences and thinking on the same wavelength. Whenever I imagined my own dad, I pictured someone like John.

“No, wait,” Gage said. “We should meet the kid first.” He turned and shoved through the door and into the conference room. Reece was still in the chair where I’d left him. When he heard the squeaks of shoes on linoleum, he jumped to his feet and rubbed his hands down his legs, eyes darting from me to Gage to Ty and back again.

“Hey,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m Reece. Reece Logan.”

“Yeah, I know. Um, wow. I’m Ty. Tyler Golowski.”

“Hi, Ty.” Reece smiled, and another chill crawled down my back. My eyes kept saying, “It’s Matt,” while my brain kept saying, “No way.”

Noise out in the corridor made Reece take a step backward. The rest of the squad filed in. Max Tobay, doing his best lady-killer strut, Kevin Sheppard—well, Kevin just kind of bounced everywhere he went—and then Bear Acosta.

Before anybody could say a word, the squeak of wheels from the utility cart signaled this week’s class was about to start. My jaw dropped when I saw the toast-brown hair, the wide shoulders, the smile just like his son’s. Crap, crap,
shit
. This was going to get ugly.

Really ugly.

John Logan shoved into the room with a cart loaded up with gear. I took my seat and waited for the inevitable shit storm to rain down on us.

“Okay, gang, I’m Lieutenant John Logan, and I’m taking over for Neil. Do what I tell you, when I tell you, and we won’t have a problem. As soon as I get all this gear unloaded, I want you all to gather around and just wait. Got that?”

Tyler’s eyes darted anxiously from Logan to Logan, but John hadn’t noticed Reece…yet. I rubbed my palms down my pants and swallowed hard, sneaking glances at Reece. He was chalk white and statue still. The tension in the room crackled, and abruptly, Reece stood up and cleared his throat.

Ty slid his chair a little farther away.

John finally registered the tension in the room, straightened up, and turned around. His eyes popped wide and then hardened the second he saw Reece. A muscle tightened in his jaw.

Reece’s knees twitched, but he stood his ground and nodded once. “Dad.”

That was all it took. One word. One syllable.

John’s eyes—same dark eyes as Reece—shot down, took in his T-shirt, and flashed hotly. In three strides, he was in Reece’s face, finger thrust toward the door. “Outside. Now.”