As soon as Sam got his wits back, he hurried over to where Tasha lay crumpled on the floor. She’d been thrown at the wall hard, and she was not a big girl. She’d possibly suffered some sort of trauma, maybe even serious damage.

His motions were surer than he was. He began checking for any obvious bleeding or swelling, and was relieved not to find any. Blood loss would have been a disaster out in the middle of nowhere, especially in such an unsanitary environment.

Tasha's eyes fluttered weakly open, though she seemed to have trouble focusing her vision for a moment. She began saying something in Russian, but started again in English when she saw him “What… Happened?”

She tried to sit up, but Sam held her down with a gentle hand. “Stay down,” he ordered. “I’m trying to figure out if you have anything bad.” Loss of consciousness, trouble focusing eyes, difficulty with short-term memory. Probably a minor concussion. Hopefully just that.

Camille came over to their side and regarded him with frowned eyes. “Are you a doctor?”

Sam’s lips pressed into a flat line for a few seconds, before he forced his jaw to unclench. When he spoke, he carefully schooled his tone into neutrality. “No, I’m not. But I know a few things, enough to check her out.” He turned his attention back to Tasha. “Okay, does it hurt anywhere in particular? You’re probably going to be black and blue with bruises soon, but I’m going to check to make sure there’s nothing broken.”

“Uhm…” she said, still struggling to focus properly. “My, uh, shoulder. It hurts. A bit.”

Sam frowned. “Your shoulder? You mean, here?” He pressed a finger gently against a particularly ugly bruise on the right side of her collarbone, and she instantly sucked in air. Sam tried not to wince. The clavicle was one of the worst possible bones to break, usually not deadly, but debilitatingly painful. She must have been really out of it when she’d woken up not to notice, or trying to play tough about the pain.

“Okay,” he said, trying for a soothing voice. Tough or not, she wasn’t going to like what came next. “I think you might have broken your collarbone. I’m going to try to check how bad it is, but this might hurt a bit. You’re going to have to bear with it, alright?” It was a filthy lie. It would hurt a lot.

She nodded slowly, though she winced from the notion, and Sam pressed a bit more forcefully on the bright spot, remaining as gentle as he could, trying to feel the bone beneath the skin. Tasha’s face twisted as she clenched her teeth. The pain must have been absolutely excruciating, but to her merit she didn’t make so much as a noise of discomfort.

After a few moments, Sam sighed in relief. “You got lucky, it must be a hairline fracture. No displacement, as far as I can tell, but it’s impossible to be certain without an X-Ray. It’s going to hurt like absolute hell, and you’ll be wishing for painkillers every second you’re up, but you should recover. We’re going to have to put that arm in a sling, though, and get you to a hospital as soon as we can.”

He stood up from the dirt floor and dusted himself off. “For now, just stay lying there, and try not to move your arm, chest, or neck. I’ll help you get up in a moment, after I improvise you a sling.” He could have done it right there, of course, his jacket or shirt would have done the trick, but she probably needed a moment with nobody watching to drop the tough act.

Camille rose with him, her eyes still narrowed, but if she thought anything of his improbable medical knowledge, she thankfully chose not to say it. Instead she shook her head, “We definitely can’t stay here now.”

Sam frowned and looked around him. The wolf’s assault on the small cabin had taken its toll. Aside from the gaping hole where the door had once been, logs had been knocked out of place all over the walls and ceiling, especially around the frame and the spot where he’d been slammed into the back wall, giving the shack a particularly ragged appearance. Rain now freely streamed in through the holes in the ceiling. The whole thing looked even more unsteady than it had when they’d found it, and swayed ominously as a gust of wind blew through the hilltop.

Still… “This place is a mess, but we can’t go outside like this. Tasha’s collarbone is broken. Even if it’s a small break she’s not going to be up to trekking through the woods. Besides,” he waved his hand in the direction of the dark treeline, “there’s still that massive freak of nature out there, and we barely survived it with four walls around us. Out in the open, on its hunting grounds? It’ll tear us apart!”

“But we can’t stay here either,” Camille repeated, pointing at the ruined door for emphasis. “This hut is a mess, and it’ll break apart if we lean against it too hard. If that thing wants to attack us, the walls aren’t going to stop it. But it’s got a big hole in its neck thanks to Tasha. Maybe it’ll bleed to death! Or maybe it won’t want to attack us again after that. Or maybe it’ll come back here as soon as it recovers, and I’d rather be gone when it does.”

“I might have agreed, but we have no idea where to go!” Sam snapped. “We can’t just pick up a wounded person and go out into the forest with no food or water and hope to stumble onto civilization! If the wolf doesn’t get us, nature will!”

Camille glared at him for a few seconds. “Fine,” she eventually huffed, “we’ll do it your way.”

Sam blinked. “Wait, just like that?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, just like that. What, was I supposed to just keep arguing beyond common sense? You made good points. We don’t know where to go, and forcing Tasha to trek aimlessly through the forest would just be pointless and cruel.”

She regarded the wrecked hut for a moment. “We still need to get out of here, though, if not today then tomorrow. We don’t have any more food in this hut than we’d have in the forest. Until we have an idea of where to go, we might as well use whatever’s left of these walls. Let’s say this: we’ll spend the night in here, but by morning, we need to have come up with something.”

“But… what about the wolf?” Kaisei asked. He’d had time to calm down and now he sat with a distant look and his arms around his legs.

“We keep the fire lit at all times,” Camille answered. “We’ll use the shack’s walls if we need to. And someone will have to stay awake in case it comes back, and to keep the fire going, but we can take turns.”

“I’ll start. Got too much adrenaline in my system to even think about sleeping right now, honestly.”

“Alright. I’ll go second, and Kaisei can go third. I don’t think Tasha’s going to be up for it. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from her back pocket, and her fingers trembled as he tried to smoothly remove one from the pack. She managed to jerk one out on the third try. “I really need a smoke right fucking now.”

Sam sat next to the small campfire, facing what was left of the doorway as he gazed into the dancing flames. Outside, the rain had quieted to a soft pitter-patter, though it still managed to drip through the broken ceiling in several places. Wetness had long since permeated Sam’s shirt, and he shivered as he huddled closer to the fire.

In the end, they’d talked back and forth for hours, but no one could come up with any way to have an idea of where to head in the morning. Ultimately they were in a valley, so heading towards the mouth of the valley might lead them towards civilization.

Maybe.

He took another rotten plank from the pile next to him, pulled from the many that had gotten dislodged during the attack, and tossed it into the fire. The wet wood hissed and sizzled as it touched the flames.

“Do you want to sleep?”

Sam’s heart jumped into his throat at the unexpected noise and his hand whipped to the plank he’s just tossed into the fire, but he stopped himself. It was a stupid reflex, anyway, it wouldn’t be lit yet. He turned to the side, where Tasha had somehow sat up without him ever hearing her move. She stared at him with dark, intense eyes.

Sam forced his shoulders to relax and he unclenched his jaw. He turned back to the fire. “No, thanks. It’s about to be morning. Or, it’ll be, if any sun shows through the clouds. Not worth trying to sleep at this point.”

“You were supposed to wake Camille to take over,” Tasha noted.

Sam rubbed at his neck. “Right, I guess I was. But honestly, I don’t think I could have slept if I’d wanted to. Figured I might as well let you guys get some rest. Honestly, I’m impressed any of you managed to get some sleep in these conditions, especially you.”

He turned back to Tasha and regarded the improvised sling around her arm with a critical eye. It wasn’t great, though it was the best he could have done under the circumstances. The main body of the jacket formed the main elevation sling, while the arms, tied around her back, held the arm close to her body in place of a broad-fold bandage. Still, this would be painful even with a professional sling, and this one was barely adequate. “How’s the shoulder? Does it hurt a lot?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “But not so much as before, if I don’t move too much.”

“Thank you,” she added quietly after a moment.

Sam blinked. “Uh, what for?”

“For the sling. You used your jacket, even though it’s cold. You didn’t need to.”

“Ah, well,” Sam said, shifting uncomfortably, “it wasn’t that bad, really. I had the fire. Besides, we needed to immobilize your arm as best as possible. Neither of the others had a jacket, and we weren’t going to use yours. A broken clavicle is bad enough without running the risk of you catching some nasty cold overnight.”

Tasha listened to him quietly as he spoke. “How do you know how to do this?” She asked eventually. “Are you a doctor?”

Sam tensed. “I – no, no I’m not a doctor. I’m just… a bit knowledgeable. Anyone could have made that sling, really.”

Tasha hummed thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think most people could have. You knew what the problem was right away, and what to do. And your hands were very sure. You didn’t fumble. You’ve done something like this before.”

“Look it’s –” he started, a bit more forcefully than he’d intended. He took a breath. “It’s not important,” he continued, lower. “What matters is that you needed help, and I knew how to give it to you. That’s what anyone would have done.”

Tasha hummed again, but said nothing. Sam breathed out, and some of the tension left his shoulders. They sat in awkward silence as the rain continued to fall outside. A piece of wood popped in the campfire, sending a puff of hot embers into the air.

“Here, take this,” Tasha said eventually. Sam turned to her. She was holding her rubber-gripped knife by its bright orange plastic sheath in her good hand, handle out towards him.

“Uh,” Sam hesitated, “are you sure you want to give me this?”

“Yes,” She answered simply, the knife still outstretched towards him. “I can’t use it right now. It’s better if you have it.”

“I… thanks.” Sam took the knife and slipped it into his pocket.

Silence stretched out for a while, as they watched the clouds brightening to a light ashen gray out the cabin’s door. “You know, you remind me of my sister,” Sam said after a while.

“Me?” Tasha said, sounding surprised.

“Yeah, Claire. She’s only fifteen, but she’s so fierce. She gets in fights all the time, even with the bigger kids.” Sam scratched his chin with a smile. “Especially with the bigger kids, actually. If it’d been her in your place, she’d have jumped right in front of that wolf too, and gotten her shoulder just as busted up.”

“Ah.” Tasha nodded. “And does that work well for her?” she asked.

“Oh, please,” Sam chuckled. “She’s always coming home with some new bruise and an angry note from the principal. Once, when Mom asked her why she kept picking fights with other kids, she answered ‘I’m not the one picking the fights Ma, they are when they start talking shit to me!’”

Tasha burst out laughing and winced as she clutched at her shoulder. “She sounds very wise. If someone doesn’t want to get punched, they should watch their tongue.”

“No matter the bruises?” Sam asked.

“Bruises heal. Broken shoulders too.” she smiled into the fire.

They stayed in companionable silence for a while and said nothing. Light began streaming into the cabin, and even the clouds looked to be getting thinner and sparser. If they were lucky, the rain might stop soon. For a moment, Sam could even pretend that he was just out camping in the Black Hills, rather than lost and fighting for his life.

“Sam?” Tasha said from next to him.

“Hmm?” He looked over to her.

“Isn’t that…?” Her good hand pointed out the door, towards the brightening sky. Sam scanned it without seeing anything, and was about to ask her what she meant when he spotted it too. Some miles away, out and over the dark forest valley where the deadly man-hunting wolf now prowled, a small plume of smoke rose, faint and almost invisible against the gray clouds, but unmistakable once he’d spotted it.

“A campfire…” he whispered.

People.