Malcolm slept in a chair that had been bolted to the floor. It was a shallow, broken kind of sleep. His head tipped forward, then snapped up, and every time his right hand drifted toward his lap the same jolt went through him. Habit sent his fingers to a rifle that was not there.
The empty feel of his knees brought him back each time.
The cell smelled like disinfectant and old metal. Chain link made a faint rattle whenever a draft pushed through the corridor. Somewhere outside a generator coughed and caught. Boots moved past in pairs. A voice called for a stretcher. A radio hissed and clicked, then went quiet again.
When he finally woke for good, his neck ached and his back felt like someone had hammered a plate into it. He rolled his shoulders once and looked at Iyisha.
The bandage at her shoulder was soaked through to a heavy brown. Her skin had taken on a thin shine and the sweat along her hairline glued short strands to her temple. Her lips moved without sound. Her breathing came shallow and quick, like each inhale had to be decided and won.
He stood. The guard outside the cell shifted his weight and set the butt of his rifle harder on the floor. Malcolm did not look at him. He checked the wrap with two fingers, pressed the edge, and felt the warmth bleeding through.
"She needs fluids now," he said.
The guard did not answer. Guards did not answer.
"Hey." He shouted at the same medic moving past with a clipboard and a tray of ampoules. The man did not look up when Malcolm spoke.
"She needs fluids now."
"Not for civilians," the medic said, eyes on the paper. "IV stocks are for active personnel."
"She will be dead by noon."
"Orders are orders."
"Look at her."
The medic glanced in, more annoyed than concerned, then he saw the bandage. He came closer, set the tray on a metal cart, and leaned to the gate. He did not touch her. He did not take a pulse. He looked the way a man looks at a leaking pipe and decides whether he has time to fix it.
"Still breathing," he said. "We are short on bags."
"One rifle," Malcolm said. "You keep her alive."
The medic stared at him. His eyes went to the guard. The guard stared past them both, like a man who had learned that not seeing was safer than seeing. The medic looked back at him and shook his head.
"Even if I take it, the bags are logged," he said. "Command will count. When they count, they will ask. When they ask, my name will be on it."
Malcolm stepped in closer to the wire. The metal pressed his cheek. He could see the refusal in the man's eyes, the way rules mattered more than her bleeding out on a cot. The truth wasn't enough here.
So he made the choice.
"She is a doctor, her name is Iyisha Clarke of Redridge" he said. "We were headed to Motherhold. I am her transporter."
The medic stopped moving. He looked at Malcolm, then at Iyisha. His mouth opened and closed once.
"Proof," he said.
"Ambush on the road," Malcolm said. "Papers burned. Men dead. I dragged her here because this was the fastest way to a medic. If she was no one, I would not be standing here."
Silence held for a count of five. It was the kind of silence that had weight. The kind that made people choose which rules mattered and which did not. Malcolm did not blink. He did not add a word. He knew when to stop pushing.
The medic's eyes went back to the bandage. He watched her chest rise and fall. He looked at the sweat on her face and the way her mouth made little shapes without sound.
"If command finds out," he said, and his voice had a crack in it now.
"Then you tell them you saved a doctor," Malcolm said. "You tell them you kept one alive who might keep one of theirs alive tomorrow."
The medic cursed under his breath, short and hard. He glanced once down the corridor, then pulled a key from a chain and opened a small gray cabinet on the cart. He lifted a clear bag, a set of tubing, and a kit. He gathered them under his arm, then looked at the guard minding his own business and slid it under a stack of folded blankets.
"You never offered me anything," he said.
"I did not," Malcolm said.
The guard inside the cell backed up and opened the gate fully. The medic came in at a fast walk and set the bag on the pole above the cot. He moved with the same detached speed Malcolm had seen the day before. Tourniquet around her arm. A slap at the vein to bring it up. Needle in with a neat push. The bag hung and tilted as he bled the air. Clear drops began to tumble through the chamber, slow and steady at first, then faster with a twist of the roller.
The medic taped the line in place and stepped back to check the flow. He adjusted the bag so it sat higher on the pole.
"She will need blood," he said. "Saline buys time. It does not fix what was lost."
Malcolm nodded once.
The medic looked at him again, then at the guard.
"You did not see me," he said.
The guard stared at the corner where the wall met the floor. He did not speak.
The medic left the cell. The gate closed with a hard sound and the latch dropped. Malcolm went back to the chair and sat down. He set his elbows on his knees and lowered his head until his forehead touched the backs of his hands.
The drip made a soft tap as it fell. Her skin looked less glassy. A bead of sweat rolled from her hairline to her ear, and then another, slower, as if her body had stopped trying to push everything out at once.
Malcolm watched her face and said nothing. His mind ran through numbers. How many hours the bag would give. How many guards at the end of the corridor. How many ways a place like this could turn from safe to dangerous in a minute.
He reached out and took her hand. Her fingers were warm but slack. He pressed his thumb across the knuckles and felt the bones under the skin.
"Do not make me bury you here," he said. It came out as a whisper. It felt like a fact.
When the bag was half gone, the medic returned and took another look at Iyisha's face. He studied the way her breath moved between her lips and the way her throat worked when she swallowed. He nodded once.
"She will pull up from the edge if you keep the line open," he said. "She will still need blood."
"We will not be here that long," Malcolm said.
The medic looked at him and then at the guard. He lowered his voice.
"The rifle," he said. "I'll be there when you get your supplies. Is she a pediatrician?"
Malcolm gave a sharp nod. "Yes."
Even here, the name carried weight. Motherhold was one of the last safe zones that hadn't collapsed into ration camps.
It is a fortress built around childbirth and children. People whispered it had working clinics, real incubators, even blood banks.
The medic hesitated, then moved the blanket higher over Iyisha's chest and checked the tape again.
Malcolm let himself breathe out all the way for the first time since the checkpoint. The breath felt like it had been waiting in him since the river.
He looked through the wire at the rest of the quarantine side. Tents in rows. Boards over windows with slits for light. Water tanks on frames. Solar panels racked in angled lines. People queued with bowls and cups.
To most eyes this would pass for safety. To his it looked like order that paid for itself with small trades and quiet rules that no one said out loud.
"She will stabilize," the medic said. "A bag of saline helps. Do not think it is a cure. She'll still need blood."
Malcolm's jaw tightened.
The medic tilted the bag higher to keep the pace steady. He wrote on his clipboard and tapped the pen once against the metal. He looked at the guard, then at the corridor then left them with the sound of his boots sliding away down the corridor.
Malcolm sat on the edge of the cot and took Iyisha's hand again. Her fingers twitched, then settled.
Her eyelids fluttered but did not lift. A faint line of color moved back into her lips. When she exhaled, the sound lost some of its rasp. He let his shoulders drop by a notch.
He lifted her hand and set it back down under the blanket. He sat back in the chair and pulled it close to the cot. The metal legs scraped once and the guard pointed at the floor. Malcolm stopped the chair where it was.
He closed his eyes for a breath and opened them again. He would not sleep. Not while the bag still ran. Not while the count in his head still clicked off minutes.
The drip kept its beat. The corridor kept its hum. The world kept its small rules that men made to feel bigger.
Even here it took lies and the hint of a threat to keep her alive. He did not waste time disliking that. He set his jaw and planned the next move. When the bag was done and when she could walk, they would leave. He would take back what was his. He would get her to a place where the first question was not bite or no bite.
He watched the line. He watched the guard. He watched the door at the end of the corridor.
Then he watched her breathe.