Chapter 14 · First Aid, Fifty Bucks

Three hunters hit my front gate before dawn, and two of them are bleeding.

I feel them through the foundation the second their boots cross the threshold. One's got a gash across his ribs that's leaking all over my tile. The other's cradling her arm like it's not attached right. The third guy's fine, just pissed, and he's the one doing all the yelling.

'We heard you got a healer!' he shouts at nothing. At the air. At me, I guess, except he doesn't know I'm the walls. 'Open up!'

Ivy's still in the old security office. She hasn't slept. Her coat's on the floor and there's dried blood on her knuckles from where she punched the intercom after Eli's voice cut out. She hears the shouting and her head snaps up.

'Noah.'

'I know,' I say through the nearest speaker. 'Three of them. Two need help.'

'I'm not a clinic.'

'They think you are.'

She swears, grabs her coat, and heads for the main floor. I unlock the interior door and guide her with the emergency track lights. The fluorescents still don't work but the path lights do, and they make her look like she's walking through a runway.