“Fine,” I said. “Annoyed, but that’s my baseline.”
Tamsin wiped her knife on a cloth and slid it back into its sheath.
“We should move before anyone else gets curious,” Eamon murmured.
“Agreed,” I said.
Tamsin fell in beside me as we started forward again, boots splashing softly through shallow water. After a few steps, she leaned closer and said under her breath, “Thank you.”
“For what?” I asked.
“For knowing this place,” she said. “And for not trying to be the hero.”
I glanced at her. “I save that for people who need the credit.”
She grinned.
The others spread out naturally. Elias moved to the center. Bishop to the right. Griff took the left. Eamon kept to the rear.
And as we walked out of the tunnel, it struck me how strange that felt. How easy. Like we’d been doing this together for longer than we actually had.
Like the six of us together were a pack.
CHAPTER 20
Eamon
We came out of the tunnel into a pale, washed-out afternoon, the light making my eyes ache after hours of damp darkness. The air was refreshing compared to the dank mold of the tunnel. We paused just long enough to get our bearings, then kept moving, following a hedgerow that wound toward low hills and a cluster of outbuildings half hidden by trees.
The walk took most of the day.
We rotated positions without discussion. Nox ranged ahead, Elias and Tamsin stayed in the middle, Bishop watched our flanks, Griff kept up the rear. I stayed near the back too, listening for the things people miss when they’re tired.
By the time the sun dipped toward the fields, a simple farmstead appeared in our sights, a squat stone house with a slate roof, a barn leaning a little to one side, smoke rising thin and steady from a chimney.
A woman met us at the gate with a hand raised, not in warning but greeting. She had dirt under her nails and a scarf tied tight at her throat.
“We’ve been expecting you,” she said. “Come quick.”
Inside the house, the warmth hit us first. The smell of stew—potatoes, carrots, and venison—followed. Boots were shed by the door, packs stacked neatly against a wall. Children’s shoes were lined by a bench, small and scuffed.
The woman led us down a narrow hall to a back room where a boy lay on a cot, his mother hovering like she could hold him together by sheer will alone. He couldn’t have been more than nine. His brow was dotted with sweat, eyes glassy, breath shallow and quick.
“One of the packs that came through earlier said one of you was a doctor,” the woman said. “He’s been bitten. It hasn’t been long, but we were hoping you would help us.”
I knelt without being asked, already rolling up my sleeves. “I’m Eamon,” I offered. “What’s his name?”
“Finn,” his mother said, voice tight. “He—he helped a neighbor move a fence. A wolf jumped the hedge.”
I checked Finn’s pulse, temperature, pupils. His heart was beating just a tad too fast, but it was still in the normal range.
“How long since the bite?” I asked.
“Six hours,” she said.
“That’s good,” I told her, and meant it. “We’ll take care of him. You can trust us.”
We moved together without ceremony. First, we cleaned the wound. Flushed it. Marked the margins. Put cool compresseson his forehead. Made sure he was hydrated. I set up an IV and adjusted the flow. Finn whimpered, and I leaned closer so he could see my face.
