The wire sang before it snapped.
Dana Whitlock froze at the edge of the tree line, her breath forming ghosts in the December air. Twenty yards ahead, something dark sprawled against the white. Her trap wire lay severed, its ends gleaming where they'd bitten deep before breaking. Blood dotted the snow in a line that stretched from the twisted metal to whatever had stumbled into her perimeter.
She should have turned back. Should have let the winter claim whatever fool had wandered into her territory. The orchard didn't need more problems, and she didn't need another body to bury when the ground thawed.
But the thing in the snow wasn't moving.
Dana shifted her grip on the bolt-action rifle, finger resting against the trigger guard. Her boots crunched through the crust as she approached, each step deliberate. The blood trail told its story—deep gashes, arterial spray, the desperate scramble of something trying to free itself from barbed wire designed to hold.
The boy lay face-down, his dark jacket torn across the shoulders. Maybe sixteen, maybe younger. Hard to tell with the way starvation carved years off faces these days. His left leg was wrapped in wire, metal teeth buried deep in his calf. The wound had stopped bleeding, but not from healing. From cold.
Dana circled him once, rifle trained on his skull. No weapons visible. Hands empty. His breathing came shallow and quick—alive, but not for long. She could see the hypothermia setting in, the way his body had stopped shivering and started shutting down.
"Stupid," she muttered.
The word hung in the air between them. Stupid to walk into a trap. Stupid to travel alone. Stupid to bleed out in someone else's territory.
She turned to leave.
The boy's fingers twitched against the snow.
Dana stopped. Something about the motion—not desperate, not grasping. Just... still. Like he was listening. Like he knew she was there but wouldn't beg.
That stillness caught her. Most people thrashed when they were dying. Screamed. Bargained with God or the devil or anyone who might listen. This one just lay there, accepting whatever came next.
It reminded her of soldiers. The ones who'd stopped believing in rescue.
"Hell." The word escaped her lips like steam.
She slung the rifle across her back and crouched beside him. Up close, she could see the sharpness of his cheekbones, the way his clothes hung loose on his frame. Three weeks without food, maybe four. His wrist bore the faded outline of a tattoo—scratched raw, like someone had tried to carve it away with a blade.
Dana worked her fingers under his shoulders and hauled him upright. The boy's head lolled back, revealing a face that might have been handsome before hunger and cold had hollowed it out. Dark red-brown hair fell across his forehead, and when his eyelids fluttered, she caught a glimpse of brown eyes that tracked to her face without surprise.
"Can you walk?" she asked.
His lips moved, but no sound came out.
Dana sighed and hefted him over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. He weighed nothing—skin and bones and wet clothes. The wire around his leg dragged through the snow behind them as she trudged toward the farmhouse, leaving a fresh trail of blood in their wake.
The orchard stretched around them in skeletal rows, apple trees bare against the gray sky. Most of the fruit had rotted on the branch months ago, filling the air with the sweet stench of decay. But the smell had faded with the cold, leaving only the clean bite of winter and the metallic tang of blood.
Dana's boots found the familiar path between the trees, worn smooth by two years of solitary patrols. The farmhouse squatted ahead of them, its boarded windows like closed eyes. She'd fortified it herself—steel plates over the doors, shooting ports cut into the walls, razor wire strung around the foundation. It looked like what it was: the last place someone would make a stand.
She shouldered through the reinforced door and dumped the boy onto the kitchen table. He landed with a wet thud, consciousness flickering in and out like a dying bulb. Dana lit the oil lamp with steady hands, then set to work.
The wire had bitten deep, twisting through muscle and scraping bone. Dana unwound it slowly, working each barbed coil free while the boy's breathing hitched and steadied. Blood welled fresh from the wounds, running down his leg to pool on her table.
She'd seen worse. Done worse, back when she'd worn the uniform and believed in causes. Her hands moved with practiced efficiency—irrigation, pressure, sutures. The needle bit through skin and muscle while the boy drifted somewhere between pain and unconsciousness.
When she finished, Dana stepped back and studied her work. Clean lines, tight stitches, no sign of infection yet. He might keep the leg if he lived through the night. Might even walk again if the tendons held.
The boy's eyes opened. They fixed on her face with an intensity that made her step back toward the rifle leaning against the wall.
"Why?" His voice came out cracked and raw.
Dana didn't pretend to misunderstand. "Don't know."
He studied her for a long moment, then closed his eyes again. No thank you. No promises. No lies about making it worth her while.
Just acceptance.
Dana pulled a blanket from the shelf and draped it over him. The kitchen fell silent except for the whisper of wind through the boards and the soft hiss of the oil lamp. Outside, snow began to fall again, erasing their tracks and filling in the blood trail that led from the wire to her door.
She settled into the chair by the window, rifle across her knees, and watched the boy sleep. His breathing came easier now, deeper. Color was returning to his lips. He might live.
But morning would bring questions. And questions led to names, and names led to the past. Dana had spent two years burying her past in the frozen ground of the orchard. She wasn't eager to dig it up for a stranger.
Still, she didn't move from the chair. Didn't carry him back outside to let the wire finish what it had started. Something about that stillness, that acceptance, had hooked itself into her chest and wouldn't let go.
The snow kept falling. The lamp kept burning. And Dana Whitlock kept watch over the boy who'd bled his way into her fortress, carrying secrets in his silence that might destroy them both.