Things You Save in a Fire(65)

I checked all their faces, one by one. Sympathetic. Concerned. Shocked.

But somebody here was responsible.

“So who was it?” I demanded. “Who the hell thought terrorizing a sweet old lady was a good idea? Who in this crew wants to get rid of me so badly that they’re willing to do that?”

“It’s terrible,” the captain said. “But it wasn’t us.”

“I think it was.”

“Why would you think that?” Case said, sounding hurt.

I was pacing around now. “A few weeks ago, somebody broke into my locker here at the station, and scrawled the word ‘slut’ in Sharpie across the back wall.”

That got their attention.

“I ignored it. I tried to clean it off. I hung an old calendar from my station in Austin over the spot. I didn’t complain. But then, this week, somebody slashed all my tires—four hundred bucks’ worth of tires!—and left a note on my windshield that said, ‘Just quit you bitch.’”

The guys looked around at each other, like, What the hell?

“Fine,” I said. “I ignored it. It’s not the first time I’ve been called a bitch. Whatever.”

I looked around.

“But then, this morning—my mother. My mother, you guys.” I looked around. “This one had a note, too.”

“What did it say?” the captain asked.

I held up the note.

The captain leaned closer and peered at it, reading and frowning. “‘Just quit you wore’? What does that mean? What did you wear?”

“I think he means ‘whore,’ Captain,” Tiny said.

“Can’t spell for shit,” the captain said.

For a second, my throat felt like it was closing up. I held very still to let it pass. I would not cry, or let my voice break or even tremble. All emotions but anger right now were unacceptable. This moment had to be a show of strength and defiance and absolutely nothing else. But I would tell them about my mom. Maybe it would shame them into behaving better, or maybe it wouldn’t—but by the time I finished talking, they would know the truth.

“She’s sick,” I said, surprising even myself with the crackle of emotion in my voice. “That’s why I came here. She lost the sight in one eye after an operation, and her sight’s not great in the other one. She gets headaches. She wears an eye patch. Her depth perception’s all messed up, and she has trouble with the stairs, and she can’t drive at all. That’s why I’m here.”

The guys were dead silent.

I was not going to cry.

I went on. “And somebody threw a brick through her window. Somebody here. Somebody who has dedicated his life to helping others. Somebody who’s supposed to be a hero.”

I started pacing.

“It doesn’t matter that I’m not actually a whore—whatever that even means. It doesn’t matter that I’m not even remotely intimidated by this bozo. It doesn’t even matter that there’s no point in going after me like this. It’s—what?—weeks before the captain makes his decision between me and the rookie. We all know what he thinks about women. We all know what we all think about women. I’m out. I’ll be gone before you know it anyway. So whoever this asshole is, he’s going to a lot of trouble to accomplish something that’s already pretty much a done deal.

“Here’s what does matter: What this guy is doing is wrong. You can’t do what we do and see the kind of suffering we see every damn day and still want to create more of it in the world, can you? You can’t do what we do for a living and not know the simple difference between right and wrong. That’s what has me so, so pissed. We’re supposed to be the heroes. We’re supposed to be the helpers. The caretakers. The good in the world. What the hell can I believe in, if I can’t believe in you?”

Oh God. Now there were tears on my face. Humiliating.

It just made me angrier.

“I know we’re all just human. I don’t expect you to be perfect. But I expect you, at the very least, to be better than that.”

And that’s when I had an idea. Not a perfect idea. Maybe not even a good one. But it was the best I could come up with in the moment.

“So I’m making everybody a deal,” I said, wiping my face again. “Pick your best guy, and let’s go outside right now to run the course. I will beat him. I’ll beat anybody here. I’ll prove myself to all of you—again, for the thousandth time. And if I don’t win, I’ll quit. I’ll quit right now, this morning, and you’ll never see me again, and all your lady problems will be over.”

The guys were all frowning at me.

“But I will win,” I went on. “And when I do, the asshole stalker in this room needs to make a choice to be a better human being—and cut it the hell out.”

The guys looked around at each other.

“And if he doesn’t—if he manages to run me out of here in the end? At least every single one of us will know that I deserved to be here.”

I was so angry, but the guys just looked sorry. They’d been standing at ease, but then, almost like a school of fish in unison, they all took a few steps closer. Then the captain, of all people, was holding his arms out to me. “You know what you need, Hanwell?”