Chapter 245: She Asked for Ash, Not a Lecture

DOVE’S POV

When their neighbor reached her door, Dove checked his face through the side window before opening it. She thanked him with a bottle of water and listened while he pointed out which shops had closed. Her hand stayed near her knife even after he left.

She did not like needing information from Ash. She liked having no information less.

The conflicting broadcasts had turned every conversation in the market into an argument over who was in charge. Some guards stayed at their posts. Others went toward the office. Shops closed one after another, while the kitchens kept serving food to people who still needed to eat whether the men with guns had settled anything or not.

Dove went to the staffed clinic courtyard with Thorne and Edrik. Their spare clothes and wash supplies were already there. Dove carried the ready bag with food, drinking water, and their two treatment bottles; if the street closed behind them, she was not going back for it. Her father-in-law was safe with the kitchen volunteers, and the workers could see the road from the courtyard.

She asked a runner to find Ash at the public security post.

Thorne looked at her, checking rather than objecting. Edrik’s expression became very still.

"He knows the patrol roads," she said. "I want what he’s seen, not what he thinks I should do."

"Then that’s what he can give you," Edrik said.

Dove touched his wrist. "Stay beside me."

His hand turned beneath hers at once. She liked that she could ask and trust the answer without getting a speech about how dangerous he was.

Ash arrived faster than she expected. He stopped just inside the courtyard, eyes moving over her face before he looked anywhere else.

"You asked for me."

The hope in his voice was so open that Dove felt uncomfortable for a reason she had not prepared for. He had spent days watching from a distance, and now he looked as if her saying his name had changed the whole morning.

It had not.

"I need to know which roads are still open," she said.

Something tightened around his mouth. He nodded anyway and came only as close as the bench she indicated.

The courtyard held a water barrel, two shade cloths, and a clear strip for moving patients between the gate and the treatment room. Dove kept that strip empty. She sat with her husbands, not because the bench made this a friendly visit but because she wanted to listen without standing there shaking one tired knee.

Ash described the gate he had seen staffed, the road beyond the storage sheds where the new checkpoint stood, and the office entrance now controlled by men he did not trust. When he did not know something, he said so.

Dove questioned the useful parts.

"Did you see the clinic road yourself?"

"This morning."

"Before or after that broadcast?"

"Before. I can check again."

"Then don’t tell me it’s clear yet."

He accepted the correction without turning it into an argument. Edrik watched him so closely that Dove could feel the tension from where she sat.

"The northern route may still take small vehicles," Ash said. "The workshop crews have been using it."

Thorne leaned forward just enough to look at the rough map the clinic worker had brought. "My old people know that road. We’ll ask them."

Ash’s gaze moved to him. For a moment, Dove thought the dragon would object to another man having the next useful answer. He did not.

She appreciated that. She was also annoyed that appreciating it felt like praising a grown man for not making an emergency worse.

When the worker left to contact the workshop, Dove drank from her own bottle and looked at the courtyard. Her father-in-law was helping shift chairs into shade. A child slept against a man’s shoulder near the treatment door. People were still trying to get through a day, while somewhere else men had decided the confusion was an opportunity.

"I want us out before they make the choice for us," she said.

Thorne’s hand settled at her back. "Then we work toward that."

Edrik nodded. Ash opened his mouth, closed it, then looked toward the gate.

"What?" Dove asked.

He met her eyes. "I was going to tell you to stay somewhere I could see you."

"Don’t."

"I know."

She held his gaze long enough to make sure he meant the answer. Then she looked back at the map. She had asked him here for a reason, and she could use what he knew without giving him the rest of her life.

Sprout remained quiet until she asked it whether the packed shop needed anything from her.

"Your fixtures are stored. Your owned supplies remain where you placed them."

"Good. Keep the romantic commentary to yourself."

"You have not requested any."

"I’m enjoying that. Don’t get ambitious."

Thorne noticed the edge of her smile and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back. Even here, she wanted them to know she was still herself beneath the planning and the worry.

Ash noticed the touch too. His face changed before he looked away, and Dove finally stopped trying to call it pride or irritation. He wanted to be the man she reached for. That did not make him that man.

Dove traced the clinic road with her finger and asked the worker to mark the turn beside the storage sheds. She had seen that one herself. Matching a report to a place she knew made the next choice feel less like guessing. If they had to move, she wanted her voice steady when she told the men which way to go, not because she knew everything but because she had checked what she could.

The runner returned with a new paper posted at the checkpoint. This was not the canceled transfer notice. It named supplies to be seized, households to be searched, and people to be held if they resisted the new command.

The clerk who had stopped the first list had not signed it. Neither had the district chief.

Dove read the bottom line twice.

They were not asking the office to approve taking people anymore. They were ordering armed men to do it.

She folded the paper and stood. "Thorne, let’s talk to your friends. Edrik, I want the truck ready."

Ash rose too, looking at her as if he could make her stay by wanting it hard enough.

Dove took her husbands’ hands and walked toward the gate. At the corner she looked back.

Ash was following. Edrik noticed at the same moment, let go of her hand, and turned back.