Petra Vane's Arc

Chapter 9 of 10

The marked man would come back with others. Petra knew it in her gut. She could not treat anyone in a room that a stranger had already found. So she made a choice before dawn. She would strip the hideout bare and carry her clinic somewhere new. She turned to Lior and the three-legged hound. "Gather everything," she said. "The tools. The medicine. All of it." Lior worked fast. The girl wrapped blades and pulled jars into a sack. The hound dragged a strap in its teeth, crutch leg clicking on the stone. They followed the old drainage path back toward the ruined block, past broken windows and sagging storefronts, to the crumbling shop where Petra once kept her table. Juno was already there. He was the first fugitive Petra ever cut free, the boy with twin scars up both arms who still flinched at every number. He crouched by the door in his oversized hazmat suit, guarding the dark. When he saw Petra, his shoulders dropped an inch. "You came back for this?" he asked. He touched the old surgical table like it might break. "It's heavy. I'll take the end." They worked together in the gray light. Juno lifted the table. Petra carried her black bag of meat tools and her worn shelf of surgical steel. Lior balanced the medicine crate. The hound guarded the load. Piece by piece, they emptied the shop until only dust and glass remained. But Petra had no place to set any of it down. That was the whole trap. She had the clinic in her arms and nowhere to put it. "Where do we go?" she said, more to the cracked ceiling than to anyone. Juno set the table down. His hands shook, but his voice stayed level. "My aunt lived at the tents," he said. "By the apartment buildings. She's gone now. Nobody claimed her tent after she died. It's still standing." He swallowed. "It's empty. It's ours if we want it." Petra studied his face. "Patrols?" "They don't sweep the tents," Juno said. "Too many people, too little to gain. She's just one dead woman's shelter to them." It was a risk. But it was a door that no man from the old block had marked. Petra nodded once. "Show us." They carried the clinic through the ruined street to the encampment. The tent stood among a cluster of patched coverings, weathered but whole, its ropes still taut. Petra pushed the flap aside. Bedrolls lay folded in the corner. Room enough for a table. Room enough to cut a chip free. She set the shelf of blades against the canvas wall. Juno stood the table in the center. Lior arranged the medicine within reach of Petra's hands. The old hideout was lost. But the clinic was standing again, in a place no one hunted. Petra pulled on her rubber gloves. "Tell the next one to come," she said. "We're open."