I rushed to Commander Garrison’s outpost ready to let go of all dignity. Each inhale burned sharp against my throat, my lungs struggling to keep pace with legs that had carried me too fast than I thought I could handle.
The outpost loomed over me. Unlike my clinic, this structure bore the unmistakable signature of the Capital. The walls were reinforced with steel plates riveted into place, their edges still too clean to have belonged to this village for long.
It had risen quietly, piece by piece, in the months following the first rumors of unrest—an assertion of presence long before any threat had reached us. The Capital had never bothered to fortify the village itself. Only the command post had been deemed worth defending. I knocked and straightened myself just as the door opened.
Commander Garrison stood framed by the lantern light, his uniform crisp despite the hour. If the interruption irritated him, he did not show it openly—but the tension sat unmistakably in the tight line of his mouth. Shadows carved deeper lines beneath his eyes than I remembered.
I presented the case the way I had been trained to: symptoms first, prognosis second, then outcome last. No trying to appeal to his restrained emotion, just pure facts. Commander Garrison folded his arms once I was done.
“You’re asking me to authorize a breach.” His voice was low, controlled—too controlled for the middle of the night. It carried the restrained edge of someone who had already reached the limit of their patience long before being tested.
“I’m asking you to let me save a life for once.” The words left me before I could temper them.
His jaw tightened. “Those are not the same thing.”
I swallowed, my throat dry. “If he stays here, he will die.” For a moment, something flickered across his expression—fatigue, perhaps, or calculation—but it was gone before I could name it.
“If you leave,” he started, “you may never return.” He continued, his tone unyielding. “There will be no escort. No clearance. If you are stopped, you will not be claimed as Capital personnel on transfer.”
A part of me waited for him to argue further—to lecture me again on cost, on sacrifice, on the reality of war. But I had caught him in a moment where exhaustion dulled his appetite for confrontation. Whatever fire he carried for protocol, it burned low tonight. “I understand.”
“Do you?” His gaze slid past me, toward the unlit road stretching beyond the outpost, where darkness swallowed everything beyond the reach of the lantern. “Because once you step beyond this perimeter, you are not a doctor on assignment. You are a civilian abandoning post.”
I nodded anyway. He stepped back, retreating into the outpost in conclusion. The distance between us widened, deliberate and final. “You do not have my clearance,” he said. “But nor my interference.”
I did not wait to see whether Commander Garrison had changed his mind. Whatever resolve I carried would not survive hesitation. The stable gate did not creak when I pushed it open. It swung inward with the quiet efficiency of something properly maintained–another reminder that this, too, belonged to the Capital.
The enclosure stood apart from the village, its fencing reinforced with iron bands, as if livestock were worth safeguarding in ways people were not. The horse was already saddled. It stood tethered beneath the overhang. A Capital-issued brand marked its flank—it glimmered under the moonlight, unmistakable. I loosened the reins with hands that shook only slightly.
I returned to the Douglas household before the night could thin into morning. The lamps were still lit, their glow leaking through the warped planks. Crawley opened the door without a word and stepped aside for me to enter.
The air smelled of damp cloth and medicine. Mr. Douglas sat propped against folded blankets, his breathing shallow but steady enough to make hope feel reasonable. Martha knelt beside him, her hands busy with nothing, smoothing the fabric of his shirt as if tidiness might be a form of protection.
“We need to move now,” I said, and hated myself for how cold it sounded. Mr. Douglas nodded once. The motion seemed to cost him more than he let on. Crawley retrieved the rope from beneath the table and handed it to me. His hand shook but he steadied it before I could comment.
“You’ll be back,” Martha said. Her voice was even, practiced. Mr. Douglas reached for her hand; his grip weak but filled with intention.
“Don’t—” He stopped to catch his breath. “Don’t wait up.”
“We’ll leave the light on for ya.” Her voice wavered on the last word. She pressed her lips together, eyes fixed on a spot just past her husband’s shoulder.
Outside, the horse shifted as we approached, leather creaking softly. Mr. Douglas and I mounted the horse with Crawley’s help. He then tied our waists together, I wished he didn’t notice the slight tremor in my posture.
“He won’t slip,” Crawley said. Martha stood in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame, sobs threatening to spill. I gathered the reins and urged the horse forward; I did not dare look back.
The road stretched unguarded, flanked by fields that had once been dense with corn. Now they lay bare, stalks broken and soil turned dry, the land stripped down to its bones. The horse’s hooves kicked up dust that clung to my tongue, mixing with the metallic taste of fear I could not quite swallow down.
Every sound felt amplified: the thunderous galloping, the faint hitch in Mr. Douglas’s chest. Somewhere in the distance, something burned. The smell reached us in uneven waves, smoke and ash carried on a restless wind. I welcomed the pain in my lungs.
The farther we rode, the more the world felt unmoored. An abandoned watchpost slouched at the roadside, its banner torn loose and dragging in the dirt. Farther on, a half-collapsed barricade bore the signs of hurried retreat—boot prints overlapping and crates overturned. My grip tightened on the reins.
I was acutely aware of the Capital’s brand, the only thing that might distinguish us from an enemy or deserter. I kept to the center of the road where the moonlight fell thickest, unwilling to let shadow claim us entirely. Each bend made my shoulders tense, each rustle in the bush a reminder that I was no longer protected by title or uniform—only by momentum.
A shape appeared ahead, slumped near the edge of the road. I saw the torn sleeve first, then the blood darkening the soil beneath it. The horse faltered, sensing my hesitation, and for a brief, treacherous moment, my head turned on instinct.
Then Mr. Douglas coughed, a weak, rattling sound that vibrated through the rope binding us together. I urged the horse onward. Every choice made from here on would cost someone something.
The shape disappeared behind us, swallowed by darkness and dust. Guilt followed me close behind, but I kept my eyes fixed ahead. By the time the sky began to pale, the outline of the nearest clinic emerged. Relief flared sharp and sudden, only to be tempered by the knowledge that arrival was not the same as salvation. There was no guarantee that this clinic had the medicine we needed.
Horses crowded the yard, tethered haphazardly, their agitation evident in the restless stamping of hooves and the sharp, nervous snorts that cut through the morning air. I dismounted first, my legs stiff and uncooperative after hours in the saddle. Mr. Douglas followed more slowly, his weight sagging against me as I slid an arm beneath his shoulder.
His breathing had grown shallower, his steps uncertain, but he remained conscious—present enough that I could feel the effort it took for him to stay upright.
The clinic smelled of antiseptic barely masking rot. More than half the beds were occupied—soldiers with limbs bound in blood-soaked cloth, civilians curled inward with injuries too severe to ignore and too numerous to treat properly. Low groans filled the space, punctuated by the wet sound of coughing and the occasional sharp cry that cut off too quickly to be reassuring.
Two nurses moved between the beds, their faces drawn and hollowed by exhaustion. One looked up as we entered. “We need a bed,” I said. “Anywhere.” They exchanged a glance, then cleared a narrow space along the far wall.
Together, we eased Mr. Douglas down, his body sagging the moment the mattress caught his weight. I adjusted his position automatically, counting his pulse and breathing, grounding myself in routine. “Where’s the attending?” I asked.
“Out in the field,” one of them replied. “Trying to bring in who he can before it gets worse.” She explained. “Doctor Hale.” The name rang no bells.
“I can assist,” I said. I now had the attention of both the nurses. I reached into the inner pocket of my coat and drew out my identification, the metal tag cool against my fingers. “Doctor Genevieve Cohan, attending physician for Capital Central Clinic.” Former attending, but that was irrelevant
I continued. “He has leukemia. I need arsenic.”
One of the nurses inhaled slowly, as if bracing herself. “Doctor,” she said, “we don’t have the resources a Capital hospital does.”
“I am aware,” I replied. “But with proper medication, we can stabilize him—long enough to move him to a larger facility. I am not asking for a full course. Only enough to keep him alive for further transport.”
The other nurse spoke next, quieter but no less firm. “The medication he’d need to have any chance at all is already being rationed. It’s being used on soldiers. On younger civilians.” The words landed heavier than accusation.
I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it again. Around us, someone cried out, the sound raw and unfiltered. I took it all in—the stench of decay, the weight of bodies pressed too close together, the scale of need that stretched far beyond the edges of this room.
“Prolonging his life wouldn’t change the outcome,” the nurse added. “It would only delay it.”
My hands curled into fists at my sides. Mr. Douglas shifted then, and weakly gripped my hand. I turned to face him. “You don’t need to do this,” he said. His voice was hoarse, worn thin, but steady. “You’ve done enough.”
I shook my head on instinct. “We can go back. I can take you home. I can—”
The distant thud of an explosion cut through the air before I could finish, it was close enough to make the walls tremble. Somewhere in the clinic, a little girl cried out, the nurses trying to relieve her with empty comfort.
Mr. Douglas' expression changed. The tension that had lived in his face for weeks seemed to have loosened, as if a decision had already been made and accepted. “I don’t want you bringing me back like that,” he said quietly.
“That’s not your responsibility,” he continued. His words had a finality that left no room for argument. They were not spoken in fear, or resignation, but with a calm acceptance. The words should have landed cleanly. They should have offered relief. Instead, they pressed into me.
I wanted to accept them—to let his certainty override the instinct that had driven me here. I wanted his calm to be contagious, to settle something inside me that had been unraveling since the moment I chose him over everyone else. But it didn’t.
My chest tightened, breath catching in a way that had nothing to do with exhaustion. Every part of me rebelled against the idea that this was not my responsibility. Letting go felt indistinguishable from failure.
For the first time since we left the village, I understood that this was not a life being taken from him. It was one he was choosing to lay down. The knowledge did not absolve me. It only sharpened the weight of it.
His hand was still on mine, steady where I was not. I felt the contrast acutely—his resolve against my hesitation. I stayed still, caught between what he was asking of me and what I did not yet know how to release.
I refused to let go of Mr. Douglas’s hand until his heart rate stilled, until the shallow rise and fall of his chest settled into nothing at all. When it was over, I lowered his hand back onto the bed, careful to place it where it might have rested had he fallen asleep instead.
A nurse stepped in quietly and began the necessary work, her movements practiced and gentle. “It’s the least we could do,” she said. “Do you know the family’s details?”
I nodded, though I barely felt the motion. My gaze remained fixed on the far corner of the wall, afraid that if I shifted even an inch—if I allowed myself to look anywhere else—everything I had been holding together would finally come undone.