After what she was now calling “the incident” with Lucas in the Delta training room, she had gone back to focusing on what mattered most: graduating from the academy with honors. Overall, her scores were steady with one exception: she hadn’t fully committed to Search & Rescue. She was still struggling to appreciate the finer points of extensive emergency service. And blood. But the main problem was her lack of working with others. In her team drills, she had been overstepping the others trying to prove herself. The clarity cut through like a sword. Burnout usually set in around this time, and there’d be a handful of washouts. Grace was determined not to be one of them. She’d make it to that silly Survivor’s Shuffle if she had to pull an all-nighter.The door chimed. She thought maybe it was her mother, who she hadn’t seen in weeks. She was taking that boundary thing pretty seriously. But when she opened the door, it was Lucas, looking awkward and smug all at the same time.
