And more effectively than any crowbar, that forces us back.

“What the fuck, Josie, you’re with someone who is ill, and you still brought that plague back into Hope?” I would kill her if I didn’t think she’d bash my brains in.

Her face crumples. “She isn’t ill anymore. She reacts to my voice and to my touch. She’ll let me feed her, but she keeps slipping away from me.”

“Who?” Sofia asks, softly.

Josie pushes the canvas open and shows us the makeshift camp they’ve built inside. “Saoirse.”

Saoirse lies on a bed of canvas and leaves. Her red hair lies in knotted strands around her face, and she’s all elbows and hard edges. Her clothes are baggy and dirty. She is as pale as anyone in our infirmary. A cup of water sits next to her, as well as one of the loaves of bread, some late-autumn berries, and the remains of—something. The food they stole when they left? Something Josie scavenged? I don’t want to know.

“She started coughing the day we left Hope, and Hunter and his cronies refused to let her come with.” All emotion disappears from Josie’s voice when she adds, “They suggested killing her, but I wouldn’t let them. They thought it would be more merciful—and safer for them.”

“That would be murder.” I might be angry at Josie, but I’m horrified by Hunter.

“I chose to stay behind with her. To take care of her, but her fever ran so high… I didn’t know what to do.”

“It could’ve killed you too,” Sofia says.

Josie juts out her jaw. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have wanted to survive on my own. Alone is not worth living.”

Behind her, Saoirse coughs and mumbles something.

Josie lowers her arms to glance back at her, and in the distraction of the moment, I dash forward and wrest the crowbar from her. She lets go of it with little to no resistance, and once I have it, she sits down hard. She glares at me with eyes as dark as the night. “We have as much a right to live as you do, you know.”

“At any cost? At the cost of our food? Emerson’s health? Do you even care what happened to them?” I drop the crowbar before I use it on her.

She shrugs. “I take care of my own. Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

It is, and I hate it. I hate how much I understand her, now that I know she’s trying to keep Saoirse alive. It’s far easier to simply think of her as a villain.

I grit my teeth. “Saoirse needs medical care. We don’t have much to offer, but we do have some. We’ll take you both back to Hope.” I raise my voice before Sofia can interrupt me again. “We’ll figure out what to do with you there.”

Phone call between Mackenzi and her former best friend

MACKENZI: Look, I know this is awkward, especially after everything that happened. But…