The warehouse breathed with the rhythm of survivors learning to rest.
Mina had claimed the northeast corner on the second day, dragging salvaged crates into a rough semicircle, draping a threadbare blanket over a broken pallet to create something like privacy. Her medical station. The word felt too formal for what it was, a collection of scavenged supplies and desperate hope, but she arranged the bandages by size, the bottles of antiseptic by potency, the makeshift splints by length. Order in chaos. Control where none existed.
Gray watched her from across the main floor, his back against a concrete pillar, his eyes tracking the movements of her hands.
She was treating David's forearm, a shallow cut from a supply run that morning. Her fingers moved with quiet certainty, cleaning the wound with practiced efficiency, wrapping it with gauze that had been boiled clean. David sat still, his jaw tight, his eyes on the far wall. He didn't like being tended to. None of them did. It meant admitting vulnerability, and vulnerability had become synonymous with death.
But Mina's presence made it bearable. She didn't fuss. She didn't offer false comfort. She simply worked, her attention absolute, her touch gentle without being soft.
"There," she said, tying off the bandage. "Keep it dry for two days. If it starts to throb, find me."
David nodded once, a curt acknowledgment, and retreated toward where Sarah sat with Emma. The child had attached herself to her mother's side since they'd arrived, her stuffed rabbit clutched to her chest, her eyes tracking every movement in the warehouse. She still hadn't spoken. None of them knew her voice.
Mina's hands didn't stop. She turned to the pile of salvaged supplies beside her, sorting through them with methodical focus. A bottle of ibuprofen, half-empty. A roll of medical tape, the edges frayed. A pair of scissors, rusted at the hinge but still functional. She catalogued each item, her lips moving slightly as she counted, as she calculated how long each supply would last.
The shadows under her eyes had deepened since they'd found this place. Gray could see them from here, the dark crescents carved into her skin like bruises that refused to fade. Her movements were slower than they'd been a week ago, her fingers occasionally pausing mid-task as if she'd forgotten what she was doing.
She was giving too much. He recognized the pattern because he'd lived it, because he was living it still. The compulsion to pour out until there was nothing left, to give until the giving became a kind of erosion. He'd watched her heal three people in the past two days alone, each time using that strange warmth that flowed from her hands, each time emerging paler and more unsteady than before.
She didn't know how to stop. Neither did he.
Ren appeared at Mina's side, his small frame materializing from the shadows between crates. He'd been doing that more often lately, moving through the warehouse like a ghost, appearing where he was needed without being called. The cough that had plagued him for days rattled in his chest, a wet sound that made Gray's own lungs ache in sympathy.
Mina looked up, and something in her expression softened. Not pity, Gray thought. Recognition. She saw the boy's stubbornness, his refusal to acknowledge weakness, and she understood it.
"Sit," she said, her voice gentle but firm. "Let me listen."
Ren hesitated, his eyes flicking toward Gray across the room, then back to Mina. He sat on the crate she indicated, his spine straight, his hands folded in his lap. Trying to look stronger than he was.
Mina pressed her ear to his chest, her eyes closing as she listened to the rhythm of his breathing. The warehouse fell quiet around them, the ambient sounds of survival fading into the background. Gray could hear the distant drip of water from a leak in the roof, the soft shuffle of Emma's rabbit against the concrete floor, the shallow catch in Ren's breath each time he inhaled.
"It's settling," Mina said finally, straightening. "But you need rest. Real rest, not just lying awake and worrying."
Ren's jaw tightened. "I can still take watch."
"I know you can. That's not the point." She reached out, her fingers brushing his forehead, checking for fever. "Your body is fighting something. Let it win."
The boy's expression flickered, something vulnerable surfacing before he buried it beneath a mask of stoicism. He nodded once and slid off the crate, retreating toward the corner where he'd claimed a pile of blankets as his own.
Mina watched him go, her hands falling to her lap. For a moment, she simply sat there, her shoulders curved inward, her breath shallow. The exhaustion was visible now, a weight that pressed her down into the crate beneath her.
Gray pushed himself to his feet and crossed the warehouse floor. His footsteps echoed in the vast space, announcing his approach, but Mina didn't look up until he was standing beside her.
"You should sleep," he said.
She smiled, a thin expression that didn't reach her eyes. "I will. Soon."
"You said that yesterday."
"And I meant it yesterday. I mean it today." She gestured at the supplies around her. "I need to finish inventory. We're low on antiseptic, and I need to figure out what can be substituted, what can't. If someone gets a serious infection—"
"Mina."
She stopped. Her hands stilled over the bottles and bandages. She looked up at him, and he saw the tremor in her fingers, the slight quiver that she'd been hiding all day.
"I'm fine," she said.
"You're not."
"Neither are you."
The words hung between them, honest and uncomfortable. Gray sat on the crate beside her, his shoulder almost touching hers, and let the silence stretch. He didn't have an argument. He didn't have a solution. He just had the recognition of a kindred pattern, the same self-destructive impulse that drove him to use his sight until his vision blurred and his head split open.
"I don't know how to stop," Mina said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. "Every time I think about resting, I remember that someone might need me. And if I'm not ready, if I'm not here, then—"
"I know."
She turned to look at him, her hazel eyes searching his face. "Do you? Do you actually know, or are you just saying that?"
"I know." He met her gaze, held it. "I use my sight until I can't stand. I push until my body forces me to stop. And every time, I tell myself it's necessary. That people are depending on me. That stopping would be selfish."
Mina's breath caught. "And what do you do about it?"
"Nothing. I haven't figured that part out yet."
She laughed, a soft sound that was more exhale than humor. "That's not very helpful."
"No. It isn't."
They sat together in the dim light, two people who had built themselves into tools and didn't know how to be anything else. The warehouse settled around them, its strange stability a comfort that neither of them could name. Somewhere across the floor, Emma finally fell asleep, her small body curled against her mother's side. David took position by the main door, his hand resting on the knife at his belt. The silent teenager appeared in the shadows near the upper walkway, his presence announced only by the faint creak of the floorboards.
Mina's hand found Gray's in the darkness between them. Her fingers were cold, her grip loose. She didn't squeeze, didn't pull, just let the contact exist.
"I'll try to sleep," she said. "If you will."
It was a bargain, a compromise, a small acknowledgment that neither of them could do this alone. Gray nodded, though he wasn't sure he could keep the promise. The pressure behind his eyes had been building all day, a dull ache that threatened to become something worse. But he would try. For her, he would try.
"Okay," he said.
Mina stood slowly, her body protesting the movement. She gathered a blanket from the pile beside her station, draped it over her shoulders like a shawl, and walked toward the corner where the others slept. Gray watched her go, noting the slight drag in her step, the way her hand trailed against the wall for balance.
She was giving too much. They all were. But in this broken world, giving was the only currency that mattered.
He stayed where he was for a long time, sitting in the dark, listening to the warehouse breathe. The threads of light that only he could see moved through the walls in slow, ordered patterns, the strange stability of this place made visible. An anchor, his mind had called it. A point of stillness in chaos.
He hoped it would be enough.