Chapter 67: She Could Be Brave After She Stopped Shaking

Thorne turned toward the rear door as flame caught beneath the front one. Dove pressed her face into his fur, gripping with fingers that barely obeyed her. The oldest caretaker pulled his injured companion away from the spreading gasoline while the third dragged their bound prisoner after them.

Outside, a narrow concrete yard ended at steps cut into a steep drainage slope. Beyond it ran a low western track through the trees. Dove called for the couriers, and the red wolf rounded the building with their pack hanging from his harness. Blood marked one side of his fur.

Edrik and the stag brought one courier sled between them. The other had tipped beside the garage during the fight, its load abandoned. Thorne waited behind the concrete corner until the others reached him, refusing to carry her away while they were still trapped.

The bear pressed a paw against the rear door’s hinge while the caretakers shut it. Under his power, the metal held against two blows from inside. His shoulder shook before he let go and followed them down the steps. He had bought seconds, and everyone used them.

Thorne carried Dove into the trees. The caretakers helped lower the surviving sled, keeping the prisoner between them. Something struck the concrete above their heads. Dove held tighter and stopped looking back because she could not make herself stop imagining a bolt finding Thorne instead of her.

They reached a stone culvert off the western track after dark. The oldest caretaker knew it from maintenance checks. Its wide upper shelf was dry, with an old drainage channel below and a narrow inspection opening at the far end. They could shelter here for a few hours if somebody watched the water.

Edrik checked both openings, then shifted and dressed behind the sled. Thorne lowered Dove onto a folded blanket, shifted, and pulled on his clothes while the caretakers secured their prisoner against the wall. Once dressed, the wolf courier showed his partner the shallow cut along his ribs. They had ordinary bandages and clean water in the saved supplies.

Dove tried to count them again, needing to hear Thorne confirm that everyone had escaped. He crouched beside her and asked to see her hands.

She held them out and found that she could not make them still. There was dirt beneath one torn glove, but no wound that explained what was happening. She looked at his face, expecting to manage one more stupid joke, and started crying instead.

The first breath hurt. Then she couldn’t catch the next one without making a sound she hated. She had talked back to men with weapons, and she had stolen a whole sled, and she had been so frightened that every word had felt like asking them to shoot her.

"I couldn’t stop shaking," she managed. "I kept thinking if I fell off, they’d get me."

Thorne sat and gathered her into his lap. He wrapped his coat around her back, holding her head against his chest while she clutched his shirt. He didn’t ask her to calm down or tell her how impressive she had been.

"I’ve got you," he said. "You don’t have to hold yourself up anymore."

Edrik stood a few steps away with an armful of dry branches. His mouth tightened when another sob broke out of her. He moved as if he wanted to come closer, then stopped, looking helplessly at the space beside Thorne.

"If you’re staying, be useful," Thorne told him. "Start a fire near the open end and get food ready. She needs warmth."

The bear nodded at once. Dove heard him arranging stones and asking the caretaker about ventilation while Thorne’s hand moved slowly over her back. She cried until her head ached, then cried again when he adjusted the coat around her cold feet without asking her to move.

Nobody told her she should be over it. After a while, Edrik brought warm canned spaghetti and bread. He put the bowl where she could reach it from Thorne’s lap.

"I cut it up," he said awkwardly, indicating the bread. "Your hands are still shaking."

That almost started her off again. She thanked him and ate with Thorne’s arm around her. Food and rest steadied them both. Sprout stayed quiet until she asked about the stolen sled, and she appreciated that enough not to argue with its answer.

It was secured inside the space, still loaded. She could inspect it later, but she wasn’t strong enough to move it again tonight. She told Thorne, keeping her voice low near their prisoner. Edrik already knew she had caused its disappearance; she gave him no tour of how.

The captured guard spoke when she finished eating. "That reward’s been copied at the crossings. Other crews won’t care that you say it’s canceled. They’ll take you first and ask who pays afterward."

Dove looked at him over the bowl. "Then it’s lucky I’m done asking men like you for permission to leave."

Her hands still trembled. Thorne covered one with his, and Edrik moved between the prisoner and her bedding. The oldest caretaker unfolded their map, pointing out a back road through a small shopping strip that avoided the nearest checkpoint. Pine Ridge remained beyond it, and Terminal was farther still.

They kept a watch through the night. At dawn on Day Thirty, Dove managed her pool wash behind a blanket, seated against Thorne whenever her mind went inside. Sprout offered four packs of butter cookies: sell three for twelve normal coins, earn six fresh Favor to unlock an eighteen-coin insulated mug, and store three newly found items. She accepted without spending. Her balances remained eighteen normal and one thousand eighty-three Favor.

Water tapped the stone beside her. Sunlight had reached the road above, and the first thin stream of thaw ran down the culvert wall. She wanted to be happy until the caretaker heard something shifting upstream.

"The drain’s blocked with ice," he said. "If it breaks, this channel fills. We need the inspection opening."

Before Thorne could lift her, voices came from the main entrance. One man told another to watch for white hair and a black panther. Dove heard the word reward, then the click of something metal against stone.

Dark water pushed through a crack behind their bedding, and someone outside called for them to come out with their hands empty.