Chapter 238: Thirst Things First

DOVE’S POV

The rain came back every day, usually after the heat had spent hours making people desperate for it. Dove began to hate the first cool breeze.

Clouds gathered. Someone looked hopeful. Clear drops struck the road and left red water where clean puddles should have been. Then the heat returned, lifting a damp stink from the drains while flies settled over anything people forgot to cover.

Base B still served meals. It still had mechanics, guards, kitchens, and people trying to solve the problem. The trouble was that each closed collection point made the next working one busier, and each delayed truck took another bite out of reserves.

Dove watched the water line from her shop doorway and made herself think before reacting.

She had water. That did not mean she could quietly provide enough for an entire district, or that she wanted people deciding her body was the door they could force open to get it.

"What can I actually keep doing?" she asked Sprout privately.

"Prepare a finite quantity. Account for the clean water used to dilute it. Keep your household supply separate."

"You make that sound much less exciting than being adored by grateful customers."

"Adoration will not carry the containers."

She looked at the row she had filled that morning. Her back ached from moving the containers, and one damp patch spread beneath a lid she had tightened badly. She crouched to fix it. If people started lining up for a refill, they would soon be asking why she ever stopped. She wanted to help on her own terms, without spending every waking hour filling somebody else’s cup.

She prepared no new healing batch that day. The two household bottles stayed packed for their own use. A disappointed buyer asked whether she was hiding the rest of the crate.

Dove met his eyes. "I’m telling you what I have available. You’re welcome to dislike the answer from farther away."

Edrik laughed quietly behind her. The man left muttering, which she preferred to him staying.

On the food day, she chose substantial pantry stock and kept a family pack after paying the established fee. Rice, beans, sealed sauce, and canned meat did not feel glamorous, but they could become several proper meals without depending on a delivery truck that might never arrive. She traded other goods for vegetables while the local kitchen still had them.

That evening, Thorne cooked meat and peppers over the small outdoor burner while she washed the rice. Edrik cut bread and kept stealing the crisp pieces from the edge.

"You are very brave when the victim is dinner," Dove told him.

"It keeps failing to defend itself."

She flicked a drop of wash water at his wrist. He caught her hand and kissed it, making her forget the next insult for an annoying second.

Thorne saw and smiled. She liked that he no longer looked as if affection was something that might run out before he got his share. When she reached for him next, he came readily, leaning down for the kiss instead of making her stretch.

They ate well. Dove wanted that fact to remain stubbornly true even while the road outside grew uglier.

The men practiced in the shaded yard afterward. Thorne’s book now lay open beside a loose board and a metal strip fixed to a sound support. Edrik stood ready to catch anything the small web failed to hold. Dove watched from a chair with her own water bottle, making it clear that passing out would not impress her.

Silver strands spread between Thorne’s palm and the supported metal. When the board slipped from the short test height, the strands caught it at arm’s length.

For several breaths, it stayed there.

Then Thorne released the effort, and Edrik caught the board before it hit the ground. Thorne sat immediately, breathing harder, his hand trembling just enough that Dove noticed.

"That’s plenty," she said, passing him water.

He looked at the place the web had been. "It held longer."

"I saw. Now let me enjoy you being clever while you’re conscious."

He laughed and rested against her chair. She touched his hair while Edrik checked the support. She watched his fingers settle against her knee, waiting until the trembling eased before letting him reach for the book again.

Across the street, Ash paused on patrol. He watched the empty air above Thorne’s hand, then looked toward Dove’s fingers in the panther’s hair. His expression tightened. Dove wondered whether the new web or her hand in Thorne’s hair bothered him more, then decided she did not need the answer.

Dove turned her chair slightly and kept talking to her husband.

The next morning, Edrik returned from buying bread with a different look on his face. He set the bag down and pointed toward the small mark scratched beside the neighboring shop’s door.

"That wasn’t there yesterday."

Dove went to look. Another mark sat beside a store farther along the street, one that had recently received sealed food. She asked both owners whether it belonged to a delivery crew. Neither knew.

She checked the next three doors rather than staring only at the marks she had already found. The empty stall had none. Neither did the repair shop with its tools openly displayed. The two places with fresh sealed deliveries did. It was not proof, but it gave her a better question to ask when she went to the office. She took a scrap of paper and wrote the locations down before heat and worry muddled them together.

She did not immediately decide the whole base had become a trap. She also did not dismiss the pattern because nobody had explained it politely.

They moved their ready bags nearer the back room and checked both exits. Thorne adjusted the existing rear-door fastening with his hand against the metal. Edrik inspected the pickup. Dove asked Iris whether her kitchen had seen anything similar.

By evening, they had three reports and no answer.

Dove closed the front curtain, carried her mug through the bedroom, and stepped into the yard to bring in a drying towel.

A fresh mark had been scratched beside her back door.

Someone had come close enough to put it there while they were home.