He was dying.
That was the only thing that mattered.
"We need to get him inside," Harper said. Her voice was calm because she was a doctor and doctors were calm even when they wanted to scream. "Now."
Katya glanced over her shoulder and blinked as if Harper had dropped out of the equation entirely. She looked at Harper properly for the first time. Harper straightened and smoothed hair back from her face. She tugged at the collar on her jacket. As if that made a difference.
Katya nodded. “Inside. I have a room. Can you take his legs?"
“Yes.”
She helped Katya pivot him in the seat.
“On a count of three.” Katya slid her arms under his arms and locked her hands across his chest while Harper took his knees.
Even with both of them carrying, Pav was a dead weight, his body slack and burning with fever, his head lolling against Katya's shoulder.
Harper looked away. It didn't matter but somehow it did.
They carried him inside into a narrow hallway. A row of boots lined the wall, heel to heel. Faded wooden floors, white-painted walls, the scent of baking bread. A different world to the last few days of dirt and snow and ice.
At the end of the corridor, Katya shouldered open a door. A room. A bed. Actual sheets and a blanket and pillows. Harper almost cried at the sight of it because she'd forgotten that beds existed and you didn't have to share a survival blanket on frozen ground to be warm. The room smelled of clean linen and soap, undercut with starch.
They laid him down. Katya levered his boots off, then his jacket, pillows propping him up.
Harper pulled his shirt open.
Katya swore under her breath.
The wound was worse. The red streaks had spread since the gorge, tracking further across his chest, the edges of the laceration weeping and hot. The butterfly strips were curling and useless. His skin radiated heat tangible from six inches away.
"How long?" Katya was beside her, looking at the wound with an expression that was calm but underlaid with something Harper recognized because she felt it herself. Carefully managed fear.
"The infection started eighteen to twenty-four hours ago. The streaking has accelerated in the last six hours. He needs IV antibiotics." Harper pressed her fingertips to her closed eyes. They’d made it here but you couldn’t just go out and buy IV antibiotics?—
"Da." Katya moved to a cabinet in the corner of the room. Inside, shelves were neatly stacked with IV bags, tubing, sealed packs of needles, bottles of saline, and antibiotics.
Harper stared. "You keep all this here?”
Katya pulled out antibiotics and a bag of saline. She looked right at Harper and lifted one shoulder. “I keep a lot of things here. Safe houses don't stay safe if everyone dies."
Okay.
“I’m a doctor. I can administer it.”
Katya didn’t move. Her eyes dropped to Harper’s hands—tracking the cuts, the ingrained dirt. “What’s the dose?”
Harper lifted her chin a fraction. “One gram now. Repeat depending on response. Slow push or infusion depending on what you’ve got.”
Katya held her gaze before she nodded and passed her the antibiotics. “Do it.” She folded her arms. “Don’t miss.”
Harper met her eyes. “I won’t.”
Katya gestured to the small washstand in the corner. Harper scrubbed her hands with soap and antiseptic until the cuts stung, her fingers becoming instruments again instead of survival tools. Hands clean, she pulled on the gloves Katya gave her.
She mixed ceftriaxone into the saline bag. Primed the line then checked for air bubbles with the familiarity of a thousand IV setups in brightly lit wards that felt like they belonged to another life.
She took his arm. His right—the good arm, the one she hadn't had to relocate. She palpated the skin, feeling for the vein beneath. Dehydration made it tricky to locate the vein and it rolled under her fingers but finally she found it. A hot flush swept up her throat as she swabbed his arm with antiseptic.
