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“They’ll be there,” I said.

Chonk stuck his head into the office. “Chief, we’re short on power strips and diapers,” he said, flustered. “People keep asking me. Like I know where diapers are…”

“Talk to Ms. Hill,” I said without thinking. “She’s got the list going.”

He blinked. “The teacher? Got it.” And he took off.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and let myself look for her again. She was at the kid’s table, writing in block letters on a cardboard sign. PET FOOD, it said now, added to her earlier list. Someone had already set two metal bowls near the door, water shimmering in them. That was her doing.

A teenager brought a box of juice packs and set them down beside her like he’d just delivered treasure. Cameron smiled that pretty smile and thanked him like he had, indeed, brought her treasure. The kid grew about three inches taller and drifted back to his family with his shoulders squared. I watched that and felt something in my chest unlock, a little. Sometimes what you need in a crisis isn’t a new tactic; it’s the right kind of voice.

“Chief,” Taylor said quietly. “You with me?”

“I am,” I said. I wasn’t exactly lying. I dragged my gaze back.

We pushed through the next hour by inches. Updates came in and I answered them. Crew Four stayed staged. Crew Two checked the spot fire and reported they had a line around it for the moment. I didn’t exhale. Not yet.

An evacuee started to panic by the door, voice spiraling up into a tight, desperate pitch. He wanted to go back for something—papers, a pet, I couldn’t catch which—and a volunteer blocked him gently but firmly. He kept arguing. The edge in his voice put the room on alert. Heads turned. You could almost feel the anxiety in the room ratcheting up.

I started toward them, already running through calm phrases that have worked before. Cameron reached the man first. She didn’t touch him. She put herself at an angle where he would have to look at her, not the door. She kept her voice low and even, nodded while he spoke, then handed him a paper cup and said something I couldn’t hear. He drank. His shoulders came down. He pressed his fingertip and thumb together like he was counting seconds. She showed him how with her own hand.

The man thanked her a minute later and went to sit by his cot. The volunteer exhaled hard and gave Cameron a grateful look.

Ben reappeared at my elbow. “That one had me worried,” he said.

“Me too,” I said. I didn’t realize my hands had been clenched until I flexed them and felt the ache.

“Your teacher’s a natural,” he added. “She should have been a firefighter.”

“She’s not my teacher,” I said automatically.

He raised an eyebrow. “No?”

I let that lie there. There were more important things to wrestle with.

The light outside shifted again. The copper went dusky. The ridge glow pulsed, then held. Air support checked in, circling for another drop before the pilots lost their window. Crew Two confirmed their line on the spot fire was still holding. A long, thin thread of tension un-spooled at the base of my neck.

I allowed myself one breath that went all the way down.

When I looked back at Cameron, she was standing near the kid’s corner, a crayon tucked behind her ear like a pencil. A smear of purple streaked her knuckle where a marker had bled. She looked tired. She also looked exactly like she belonged.

She caught me staring and didn’t look away. Her mouth tilted in the smallest not-quite-smile. I felt my own try to answer and held it back. The intimacy from the night before had spooked me a little. She was perfect. Too perfect for me.

“Chief,” Taylor said, checking his watch. “We rotate crews in twenty. Will you be at the evening briefing?”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

I started toward the office, then paused and doubled back to the kid’s table. “Cameron,” I said.

She straightened, eyes bright despite the long day. “Chief.”

“Jack,” I corrected, quieter than I meant to. “Good work.” I nodded toward the room. “All of it.”

Color rose in her cheeks. “Just keeping busy.”

“Keep doing exactly that,” I said. “And drink water. You’ll crash otherwise.”

“Yes, sir,” she said lightly. She took the bottle I held out and tipped it in a little salute before drinking.