Smoke carved a thin line against the gray sky, rising from the woods two miles east of the orchard.
Dana tracked it through her rifle scope from the farmhouse's second-floor window. Not a wildfire—too controlled, too thin. Someone had built a careful fire, the kind that warmed without announcing itself to every scavenger within ten miles.
Someone who knew what they were doing.
She'd spotted it at dawn while checking her perimeter. Now, three hours later, the smoke still climbed in its disciplined column, steady as a prayer. No one survived alone in these woods without reason. No one lit fires in daylight without confidence.
Dana shouldered her pack and locked the trapdoor to the cellar. The boy had been quiet since yesterday's incident with the photograph. Sullen. Watchful. She'd left him water and canned peaches, but no apology.
The forest floor crunched under her boots, frost-brittle leaves shattering into fragments that caught the pale light. Her breath clouded the air in short bursts. She moved between the trees like smoke herself—present but not quite there, alert to every sound that didn't belong.
The smoke's source lay deeper in the woods than she'd estimated. Distance played tricks in winter air, compressing miles into what looked like walking distance. By the time she found the clearing, her legs ached and her rifle felt heavy as guilt.
The shack squatted against a hillside like something the earth had coughed up. Built from scrap wood and determination, walls chinked with mud and moss, roof barely visible under a layer of camouflaged tarps. Smoke drifted from a metal chimney pipe that jutted through the covering at an awkward angle.
Dana crouched behind a fallen oak and studied the structure. No obvious defenses, but that meant nothing. The best traps were the ones you couldn't see.
"You planning to squat there all morning, or you gonna announce yourself?"
The voice came from behind her. Dana spun, rifle raised, and found herself staring at a woman who looked like winter personified. Short, wiry, wrapped in layers of knit sweaters that had seen better decades. One eye milk-white with cataracts, the other sharp as broken glass.
"Easy, soldier. If I wanted you dead, you'd be feeding the crows by now."
Dana kept the rifle trained on the woman's chest. "Who are you?"
"Maeve. This is my place." The woman gestured toward the shack with a gnarled hand. "Been wondering when you'd come calling."
"You know about me?"
"Know about the smoke from your chimney. Know about the gunshots when you clear infected from your fence line. Know you're holed up in the old Hendricks orchard, playing fortress with yourself."
Dana's finger found the trigger. "You been watching me?"
"Don't need to watch. Sound carries in winter. Especially at night, when everything else goes quiet." Maeve stepped closer, moving with the confidence of someone who'd already calculated all the angles. "That rifle you're pointing at me? You fired it four times last week. Short bursts. Disciplined. Military."
"What do you want?"
"Same thing you want. To be left alone." Maeve gestured toward the shack. "But since you're here, might as well make it useful. Come inside before we both freeze to death."
The interior of the shack felt impossibly warm after the bitter air outside. A wood stove dominated one corner, its iron surface radiating heat that seemed to seep into Dana's bones. Shelves lined the walls, packed with mason jars containing dried herbs, preserved roots, and liquids that caught the firelight like trapped sunsets.
Maeve poured tea from a kettle that had been simmering on the stove. The liquid was dark as mud and smelled like medicine.
"Willow bark and elderberry," Maeve said, pushing a chipped mug across the small table. "Good for pain. Better for inflammation."
Dana didn't touch the mug. "You're a healer."
"I'm a survivor. Sometimes that requires healing."
"What's your price?"
Maeve's good eye studied Dana's face, reading lines that years of careful isolation had carved there. "Direct. I like that. No time for pretty words anymore, is there?"
"What do you want?"
"Ammunition."
Dana's hand moved toward her sidearm. "How do you know I have any?"
"Because you're still alive. Dead people don't need bullets." Maeve reached for a jar filled with pale, twisted roots. "Valerian root. Chamomile. Peppermint. Mix them right, they'll help someone sleep without nightmares."
The offer hung in the air between them like a challenge. Dana thought of the boy in her cellar, the way he thrashed and moaned through the nights, fighting battles that existed only behind his eyelids.
"How much?"
"Five rounds."
"That's expensive tea."
"It's not tea. It's peace." Maeve set the jar on the table. "Question is, who needs it?"
Dana stared at the jar. The roots looked like tiny bones, bleached white by time and careful preservation. "Maybe I do."
"No. You sleep like the dead when you sleep at all. This is for someone younger. Someone whose dreams are still trying to kill him."
The words hit Dana like a physical blow. She kept her face still, but Maeve's sharp eye caught the slight tightening around her mouth.
"Got yourself a stray, don't you?"
Dana said nothing.
"Young man, I'd guess. Probably injured when you found him. Probably running from something that wants him dead." Maeve leaned back in her chair. "The question that matters is what he's running from."
"Everyone's running from something."
"Not everyone's got FEDRA hunting them."
Dana's hand moved to her rifle. "What makes you think—"
"Because they've been through here." Maeve's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Three of them. Armed. Asking questions about a boy. Described him down to the color of his eyes."
The shack suddenly felt too small, the walls pressing inward like a closing fist. Dana's mind raced through possibilities, calculating escape routes and defensive positions.
"When?"
"Two days ago. They were thorough. Polite. The kind of polite that comes with an implied threat." Maeve reached for another jar, this one filled with something that looked like dried bark. "They left me alive because I had nothing to tell them. But they'll be back."
"What did they want to know?"
"Whether I'd seen him. Whether I knew where he might go. Whether I understood the consequences of harboring a fugitive." Maeve's good eye fixed on Dana's face. "They seemed to think those consequences might be severe."
Dana stood abruptly, chair scraping against the wooden floor. "I should go."
"Should you?" Maeve remained seated, hands folded calmly in her lap. "Or should you listen to what I'm about to tell you?"
"I don't need advice."
"You need ammunition. I need payment. We both need to understand what's at stake here." Maeve gestured toward the chair. "Sit. Listen. Then decide if you want to walk back to that orchard blind or informed."
Dana hesitated, then sat. Outside, wind rattled the shack's walls like an impatient hand.
"If that boy is who I think he is," Maeve said, "you're not sheltering a stray. You're harboring a weapon that someone very much wants back."
"He's just a kid."
"Kids don't get FEDRA death squads sent after them unless they're special. And by special, I mean dangerous." Maeve opened the jar of bark and removed a piece that looked like petrified wood. "This is willow bark. Chew it, it kills pain. Brew it wrong, it kills you. Everything useful is dangerous in the right hands."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that boy in your cellar isn't just running from FEDRA. He's running from himself. From what they made him into." Maeve set the bark on the table between them. "The question you need to ask yourself is whether you're strong enough to handle what he might become."
Dana stared at the bark, seeing not medicine but warning. "You don't know him."
"Don't I? Let me guess—he's quiet. Haunted. Grateful but not effusive. He watches you when he thinks you're not looking, trying to figure out if you're a threat or a salvation." Maeve's voice carried the weight of experience. "He's been trained to kill, but he doesn't want to. He's been taught to follow orders, but he's learning to think for himself. He's caught between what he was and what he might become."
Each word landed with uncomfortable accuracy. Dana felt exposed, as if Maeve were reading from a journal she'd never written.
"If I'm right," Maeve continued, "then you've got two choices. Send him away now, while you still can. Or accept that keeping him means you're at war with people who have longer reach and deeper pockets than you do."
"And if you're wrong?"
"Then I'm a paranoid old woman who's spent too much time alone in the woods." Maeve smiled, but there was no humor in it. "But I'm not wrong. Those men who came through here? They had the look of people who don't give up. Ever."
Dana thought of the boy in her cellar, the way he'd held the photograph with such careful reverence. The way he'd asked simple questions that cut to the heart of complicated truths.
"Five rounds," she said finally.
"Five rounds," Maeve agreed.
Dana counted out the ammunition, each bullet feeling heavier than the last. Maeve accepted them with the satisfaction of someone completing a fair trade, then packed the herbs into a cloth bag.
"One more thing," Maeve said as Dana prepared to leave. "If he really is FEDRA-trained, he won't stay weak forever. Bodies heal. Minds adapt. Skills come back." She tied the bag with a piece of twine. "When that happens, you need to be ready."
"Ready for what?"
"To decide whether you trust him with your life. Because the moment he's strong enough to leave, that's exactly what you'll be doing."
Dana took the bag and slung her rifle across her shoulder. The herbs felt light as air, but the weight of Maeve's words settled on her shoulders like stones.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I like you. Because you remind me of myself, twenty years ago. Because I've seen what happens when good people make bad choices about who to trust." Maeve opened the shack's door, letting in a blast of cold air. "And because those men who came through here? They'll be back. When they are, you'll need to know which side of the war you're on."
Dana stepped into the cold, her breath immediately visible in the bitter air. Behind her, Maeve closed the door with a soft click, cutting off the warmth and returning Dana to the frozen world beyond.
The walk back to the orchard took longer than expected. Dana found herself checking her back trail, studying shadows that might conceal watchers, listening for sounds that didn't belong to the natural rhythm of winter woods.
She was a mile from home when she found the rabbit trap.
It had been sprung but reset, the mechanism carefully disarmed and then armed again. No rabbit in the snare, but fresh boot prints in the mud nearby. Large prints. Military tread.
Someone had found her trap, studied it, learned from it, and left it as a message.
We know where you hunt. We know how you think. We're closer than you believe.
Dana knelt beside the trap, her fingers tracing the outline of the boot print. Deep impression, confident stride, no attempt at concealment. Whoever had done this wanted her to find it.
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of snow and something else—something that might have been smoke from a distant fire, or the lingering smell of gun oil, or the ghost of her own fear made manifest.
Dana reset the trap with hands that didn't quite steady, shouldered her rifle, and walked the final mile home with the certainty that she was being watched.
Behind her, the forest held its breath and waited.