Page 61 of What Remains

She didn't care if the house had burned. If every horse had escaped, if every fence had fallen, she'd rebuild every board with her own hands. She just wanted them alive.

Please.

A knot of grief tightened in her throat so suddenly she had to press her lips together to keep from making a sound.

Across the room, Seth shifted slightly and looked up.

For just a moment, their eyes met across the fading glow of the fire. Neither spoke. Neither smiled. It was a shared look between two strangers carrying too much grief. In his gaze, she saw her own terror of the road ahead, and she was certain, down to her bones, that he was a parent, too.

Then Seth gave the smallest nod, as though he somehow understood exactly what kept her awake.

Josie looked away first, swallowing hard against everything rising in her chest.

Tomorrow—they'd finally learn whether hope had survived the apocalypse.

Or whether it had died with everything else.

As the first sliver of sunlight cut through the high windows, Josie listened to the fire station come alive. The quiet of the night surrendered to a now-familiar rhythm: the zip of a sleeping bag, the crunch of boots on concrete, the dull thud of a pack being loaded. A faint scent of old smoke hung in the air, and she could see her breath clouding in the cold that was reclaiming the building.

Jay rolled the sleeping bags tight while Cara folded the blankets they'd pulled from the bunk room. Seth checked both rifles—magazine, chamber, safety, sling—before stowing them behind the driver's seat of Beast. Every movement had grown automatic , work done by muscle memory, long since detached from thought.

Across the bay, Josie stood beside the old ambulance parked in the corner, studying it with the particular attention of someone who knew exactly what she hoped to find. The rear doors groaned open under her hands.

"If this thing was stocked before," she murmured, climbing inside, "there has to be something left."

Her voice was quiet, but Seth looked up from across the bay. He watched her disappear into the back for a moment before walking over. The interior looked as though it had been emptied in a hurry months ago—cabinets hung open, drawers pulled halfway out, torn packaging scattered across the floor.

"They cleaned it out pretty well," he said.

"They took the obvious stuff." She reached into a cabinet tucked beneath the bench seat, and a slow smile crossed her face. "But not everything."

One by one, she pulled supplies from the compartments the first scavengers had missed. IV tubing, syringes, and more gauze than she'd dared hope for went into the tote. Alcohol prep pads, bandages, tape, a handful of unopened trauma dressings—each discovery seemed to lift a weight from her shoulders. When she opened the compartment beneath the rear bench, she nearly laughed aloud.

"Oh..."

Seth stepped closer, peering into the compartment. "What is it?"

She held up several sealed packages, her eyes bright. "Sutures." She dug deeper, pulling out another box. "Lidocaine." A grin spread across her face. "Antibiotics."

Seth blinked. "I thought hospitals would have been stripped."

"They probably were," she said, carefully tucking the bottles into her backpack with reverence. "But ambulances get overlooked."

She continued working through the compartments—a blood pressure cuff, a stethoscope, a thermometer, an intact trauma kit—pausing only long enough to release a quiet, satisfied breath.

"This..." She smiled to herself, cradling the bag against her chest. "This might actually keep someone alive."

As she worked, something settled in Josie's chest. The familiar weight of fear in her shoulders eased, replaced by the crisp, certain movements of her hands. Everything had a place, a purpose. Sorting through the supplies, she felt a focus she hadn't realized she'd lost. For the first time in months, she wasn't just a survivor. She was a doctor.

"You miss it," Seth said, his voice low.

She stopped. "My job?"

He nodded.

Her smile faded slowly, replaced by something older and heavier. "Every day." She looked down at the supplies, the plastic and foil suddenly feeling impossibly heavy. "I spent my whole life learning how to save people. Then the world ended, and there was never enough of anything." She zipped the medical bag closed with careful deliberation. "It's strange. All that training, and now I'm just as scared of having the tools as I was of not having them."

Seth met her eyes and held them. "You will do fine,” he said, his voice steady and certain, leaving no room for argument. "You kept Layla alive. You've helped us understand things we'd never have figured out on our own." He nodded toward the backpack. "And if one of us gets hurt..."