He reached toward my face again. I shrunk into Jeb’s side like before, but Jeb flexed his arm and nudged me forward. The tall man touched my jaw below my ear, his fingers gentler than I expected, and turned my face away. I felt his finger trace a line on the back of my neck, and I realized that he was examining the scar from my insertion.

I watched Jared’s face from the corner of my eye. What this man was doing clearly upset him, and I thought I knew why—how he must have hated that slender pink line on my neck.

Jared frowned, but I was surprised that some of the anger had drained from his expression. His eyebrows pulled together. It made him look confused.

The tall man dropped his hands and stepped away from me. His lips were pursed, his eyes alight with some challenge.

“She looks healthy enough, aside from some recent exhaustion, dehydration, and malnourishment. I think you’ve put enough water back into her so that the dehydration won’t interfere. Okay, then.” He made an odd, unconscious motion with his hands, as if he were washing them. “Let’s get started.”

Then his words and his brief examination fit together and I understood—this gentle-seeming man who had just promised not to hurt me was the doctor.

Uncle Jeb sighed heavily and closed his eyes.

The doctor held a hand out to me, inviting me to put mine in his. I clenched my hands into fists behind my back. He looked at me carefully again, appraising the terror in my eyes. His mouth turned down, but it was not a frown. He was considering how to proceed.

“Kyle, Ian?” he called, craning his neck to search the assembly for the ones he summoned. My knees wobbled when the two big black-haired brothers pressed their way forward.

“I think I need some help. Maybe if you were to carry —” the doctor, who did not look quite so tall standing beside Kyle, began to say.

“No.”

Everyone turned to see where the dissent had come from. I didn’t need to look, because I recognized the voice. I looked at him anyway.

Jared’s eyebrows pressed down hard over his eyes; his mouth was twisted into a strange grimace. So many emotions ran across his face, it was hard to pin one down. Anger, defiance, confusion, hatred, fear… pain.

The doctor blinked, his face going slack with surprise. “Jared? Is there a problem?”

“Yes.”

Everyone waited. Beside me, Jeb was holding the corners of his lips down as if they were trying to lift into a grin. If that was the case, then the old man had an odd sense of humor.

“And it is?” the doctor asked.

Jared answered through his teeth. “I’ll tell you the problem, Doc. What’s the difference between letting you have it or Jeb putting a bullet in its head?”