Chapter 2

2.

By the first night of the storm, Jesse’s sector was already falling apart.

He drove over in a panic to find me.

Most infrastructure in the disaster zone had collapsed, knocking out the cell towers.

Smartphones were nothing more than useless bricks out here.

And I possessed the only working long-range radio capable of reaching regional command.

The moment Jesse saw me, he grabbed me by my muddy turnout coat, pulling me away from the levee.

“Tessa! Call command right now! Tell them to send more units to the West District, or we are going under!”

I sneered internally.

The West District was a newly developed zone with a sparse population and few buildings. Rescuing people there was ten times easier than in the East District.

Even with those odds, his sheer incompetence showed.

I pulled the radio out of my tactical vest under his expectant gaze.

Then, I picked up a jagged chunk of concrete from the ground and smashed it down onto the device.

The radio shattered instantly, but that was not enough to soothe my burning rage.

The memory of suffocating under dirty water flashed violently through my mind.

I scooped up the broken plastic and circuitry and hurled them straight into the churning floodwaters.

Jesse’s hopes washed away into the dark abyss.

“Tessa! Are you fucking insane?”

He grabbed my wrist, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Yet no matter how hard he yelled, his voice was drowned out by the roar of the river.

“You smashed our only lifeline! What about the people in the West District?”

“How can you be so cold-blooded? Do human lives mean nothing to you?”

I curled my lips into a chilling smirk.

“If you cannot save your district, it is because you are incompetent.”

“Fine! Just you wait! I am reporting you to the Chief the second we get back―you are getting stripped of your badge!”

Jesse pointed an accusatory finger at me, his face twisted in fury.

With no backup coming, he had no choice but to actually do his damn job.

It was not until out-of-state mutual aid arrived that we finally got a chance to catch our breath.

Because of his laziness and negligence, the evacuation in the West District lagged an entire day behind mine.

By the time Jesse returned to the station, I had already showered and rested.

Looking at him, it was obvious he had not suffered a bit.

Unlike the other firefighters who looked drained to the bone, Jesse barely had a drop of mud on his uniform.

He had clearly spent the whole crisis standing safely on dry ground barking orders.

All talk, zero action.

He kicked open my office door, storming in with a crowd of agitated civilians behind him.

“It is her! If Tessa had not destroyed our comms with command, the West District would not have suffered so many losses!”

“She is the one to blame! Make her pay for your damaged property!”

I leaned back in my desk chair, calmly looking up at him.

“Everyone, please don’t be too hard on Tessa. I am sure breaking the radio was just an accident,” Lacey said.

She stood behind Jesse, feigning concern, but her lips twitched with a poorly hidden smirk.

“It was not an accident! She smashed it right in front of me to stop me from saving your homes! Don’t let her get away with this!”

Jesse bellowed to the crowd of West District residents standing at the door.

Devastated by their ruined homes, the civilians surged inside, glaring at me like I was a monster.

“Why didn’t you send help to our neighborhood?”

“Are our lives worth less than everyone else’s?”

“How could a firefighter be so evil?”

They swarmed my desk, completely surrounding me.

The man in the front flushed red with rage, his fists clenching tight as if he was ready to strike me at any second.

A spark of tension flared in my chest, but I maintained an icy poker face.

Silently, I counted down the seconds in my head...