The "healing" had left Marie a ghost. She was no longer a person, but a wound that walked. True to his word, Roch forced her into the trenches the next morning. Gabrielle watched, her heart a cold stone in her chest, as Marie dragged her mangled foot through the freezing muck, her face a mask of silent, white-hot agony.
That night, the cabin was silent except for the rhythmic, heavy snoring of the other followers and the distant, lonely howl of a timber wolf. Gabrielle lay awake, her eyes fixed on the sliver of moonlight cutting through the cracks in the shack's wall.
I have to do something, she thought. If I don't, she won't last the week.
She slid out of her bunk, her bare feet silent on the dirt floor. She moved toward the main cabin—Roch’s sanctuary. She knew he kept a "medical kit" in the small pantry, mostly hoarded supplies he stole from the followers before they were fully initiated.
The main cabin door creaked. Gabrielle froze, her breath hitching. The "Hum" of the camp felt different at night—sharper, more predatory. She slipped inside, the smell of Roch’s tobacco hanging heavy in the air.
She found the pantry. Her fingers scrambled in the dark until they hit the cold glass of a bottle. Rubbing alcohol. Next to it, a roll of real cotton gauze and a small tin of antiseptic salve. These were treasures in the Ant Hill—things Roch called "crutches for the weak" while he kept them for himself.
"What are you doing, Gabrielle?"
The voice was a whip-crack in the dark. Gabrielle spun around, the bottle of alcohol clutched to her chest.
It wasn't Roch. It was Jacques, the man who had held Marie’s legs during the surgery. He stood in the shadows, his face skeletal in the dim light.
"I’m saving her, Jacques," Gabrielle whispered, her voice fierce. "He’s rotting her alive. You saw it. You felt her skin."
Jacques stepped forward. For a second, Gabrielle thought he would shout for the Prophet. But then he looked down at his own hands—scarred, filthy, and trembling.
"He says the pain is the path," Jacques murmured, but his voice lacked the drone of the others. "But my brother... he followed the path. Last winter. Roch 'healed' his lungs with a hot poker. He never woke up."
Gabrielle reached out, grabbing Jacques’s arm. "Then help me. If we can keep her infection down, she might get strong enough to walk. And if she can walk... we can leave."
The word leave hung in the air like a sin. Jacques flinched, but he didn't move away.
"He’ll kill us," Jacques whispered. "He has the rifles. He knows the woods. No one leaves the Hill."
"Marie is nineteen, Jacques," Gabrielle said, her eyes burning. "She’s a child. Do you want her blood on your hands too?"
Jacques stared at her for a long time. Finally, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, sharp piece of a broken mirror he had hidden. "I’ll watch the door. Be fast. If he wakes up, I’ll drop this on the floor to warn you."
Gabrielle didn't waste another second. She slipped back to her shack, the supplies hidden under her shirt.
The "surgery" she performed that night was the opposite of Roch’s. It was quiet, tender, and clean. She used the alcohol to wash away the mud and the "bad blood," biting her lip as Marie whimpered in her sleep. She applied the salve and wrapped the foot in clean, white gauze, hiding the bandage under a thick, filthy sock so Roch wouldn't see it during inspection.
"We’re going to get out, Marie," Gabrielle whispered into the girl’s ear, pulling her close to share her body heat. "I don't know when, and I don't know how. But I am going to take you home."
Marie didn't answer, but her hand reached out, feebly gripping Gabrielle’s sleeve.
In the darkness of the shack, the pact was sealed. It wasn't a pact with a god or a prophet. It was a human pact of survival. Gabrielle knew that if Roch found the bandages, he wouldn't just "heal" Marie again. He would destroy them both.
But for the first time in weeks, Gabrielle didn't feel like an ant. She felt like a woman again. And a woman with a purpose was a dangerous thing for a man like Roch Thériault.
The Pressure Builds
The secret is kept for now, but Roch is beginning to sense the "dissent" in the air. He is a master of reading his flock.
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