“You were gone a long time today,” Nolan murmurs later that night.

I lift my gaze from my bowl of meat and diced vegetable soup. “You sent me to collect firewood during torrential rain. How long did you think it would take? Five minutes?”

Meeting Mack, seeing him, touching him has remotivated me to keep fighting when I was getting so tired before. Now I know he’s alive, Nolan is just a little more bearable. Not much, but some.

This will all end soon, and then Mack and I can go home to ...