“Derrick, none of this is going to be fun for either of us. But I need you to cooperate. We’ve gotta get this done.” She reached over and placed a hand on his forearm.

He looked down at her hand, then up into her face. As much as this sucked—and it sucked so hard—she didn’t mind caring for him. She had nothing but concern: no pity, no annoyance, no urge to cut him loose and leave him.

“I know. I trust you.” He meant it.

She patted his arm and went to work. She sliced his pant leg and peeled it back—a painful removal, since some of the blood had already started to clot with the fabric in it. Then she poured the water from her bottle first over her hands and then over the leg, rinsing it as best she could. Then she added the salt packet to the last third of the water in the bottle and shook it up. This she poured close to the skin, making sure the solution drenched each puncture. Derrick threw his head back and screwed up his face, but he stayed quiet. Now that he had some of his wits back, he sure as hell wasn’t going to whine.

Rose tore the top elastic from the clean sock and used it to dab at the edges of the teeth marks; ten in all, two of them deep enough to require stitches. They hadn’t brought any needles or thread with them. They’d left in too much of a hurry for a thorough pack.

Annoyingly, Rose could hear Wab in her head, reprimanding her for trying to rush off. That’s how we make mistakes.

“Yeah, yeah,” she whispered under her breath. “I know. You’re right.”

Derrick raised his head. “What’s that?”

“Nothing.” She pushed him back down.

✦✦✦ ✦✦✦ ✦✦✦

She’d done her best to clean up the area and cover the open wounds, but the leg was already looking bad. The sides of the bigger punctures couldn’t meet to start stitching back together, and there was no medicine to stave off infection. But Derrick was asleep now, his sleeping bag opened over him. And they were warm enough in the yellow tent with layers underneath them, keeping the ground cold from seeping in. Rose couldn’t sleep. She had a hard time even relaxing, but she stayed in the tent. She had to try to rest her body, and she wanted to keep an eye on Derrick, who had already kicked the blanket off twice. She worried about a fever setting in. A small injury could mean death out here. And she was the one who had brought him along—against her will, but she hadn’t exactly insisted he stay behind, either. So she slept on and off, sitting up, the rifle across her lap.

The last thing Rose remembered before falling into a deep sleep, the kind with dreams and amnesia and resetting, was thinking that maybe Derrick was right, maybe there was a death tree in these woods after all.