Quinn turned away slightly, giving Sarah the dignity of her pain. The farmhouse groaned under the wind's weight, a tired animal too stubborn to collapse."
Helen stood frozen near Martha's elbow, her knuckles white around the bowl of water. The girl's eyes tracked every movement—the way Martha's calloused fingers packed the wound with poultice, the precise fold of clean cloth over ruined flesh. A student of violence studying mercy.
Quinn caught her gaze and nodded once—You're still breathing. That means you're still in the game.
He moved to their abandoned packs, unzipping his with deliberate slowness so George's shotgun didn't get twitchy. Two water bottles. Four protein bars, wrappers still sealed. He held them up like a peace offering.
George materialized in the kitchen doorway, his shotgun resting easy in the crook of his arm. The old man's gaze never wavered, the kind of stare that made trigger fingers itch.
"This ain't charity. You earn your keep or you bleed out silent."
George's stare could've stripped paint. He eyed the goods, then Quinn's empty hands. "Ain't a hospital. Ain't running a tab." But he jerked his chin toward the table. "Kitchen. Now."
The kitchen smelled of woodsmoke and dried thyme. George poured two fingers of amber liquid into tin cups, the shine of it catching the light like old blood.
"Drink," he commanded.
Quinn obliged, the liquor burning a trail down to his gut. George knocked his back in one gulp, then tapped the empty cup against a framed photo on the wall—a young man in scrubs standing in front of a county hospital sign.
"My boy, Daniel," George said, voice rougher than the whiskey. "Last doctor left in three counties when the SIF hit." His thumb brushed the glass. "Worked seventy-two hours straight stitching up fools who thought cough syrup would save 'em."
Quinn watched the old man's jaw work.
"Third night, some city asshole busted in the ER waving a pistol, demanding vaccines." George's fingers tightened around his cup. "Danny stepped in front of a nurse. Took the bullet clean through his lung." A mirthless grin. "Infection got him before the wound did. Funny, ain't it? A doctor, killed by the very shit he was fighting."
The silence stretched. Somewhere in the house, a pipe groaned.
In the living room, Helen crouched by the claw-footed table. Her stolen scalpel—lifted from Martha's kit when the woman's back was turned—scratched a seventh notch into the oak.
Quinn counted them from across the room. Seven marks, uneven but deliberate.
"Confirmed kills?" he asked quietly.
Helen didn't look up. "Days since the garage." The blade dug deeper. "They always come in sevens."
Martha returned with a steaming pot, her gaze flicking to the fresh mark. She said nothing, just set the broth down hard enough to make the scalpel jump.
George stood abruptly, chair screeching. "Perimeter check." He grabbed his shotgun, pausing at the door. "You see movement in the south field, you shout. Ain't animals digging out there no more."
As the door slammed, Martha pressed a bowl into Quinn's hands. "Eat. Then you'll work off your stay." She nodded to a boarded-up pantry. "Got rats in the walls. Big ones."
Helen's scalpel stilled.
Quinn's fingers found the coordinates on his arm. The numbers felt like a noose.
Outside, the wind carried the crackle of dead cornstalks. Too rhythmic to be random. Too deliberate to ignore.