Lorna’s legs and back burned with the effort of dragging a man through a foot of snow, but every time she realized her efforts were slowing, she always quickened her pace, pulling the man with all of her depleting strength. It took her longer than ten minutes to return to the cabin, and she was certain that the stranger would be dead by the time she made it home with him.

Once at the door, Lorna dropped the stranger, and she leaned down to press her fingers to his throat again. She felt a faint pulse, and she raised her eyebrows in surprise despite there being no one around to see it.

The stranger looked dead in her unprofessional opinion. He was so pale, and his lips were blue. His faint pulse should have gone away by the time she had gotten him to the cabin, but it was still there.

Ean might not have trusted it, but his blood had been normal. There were no signs of him becoming a Merged human, and he was not there to tell her to abandon him.

Lorna unlocked the door, and she dragged the man inside the cabin. With how hard her arms shook as she lowered him onto the floor, she was grateful she did not drop him.

Lorna locked the door. She ran to her uncle’s bed, and she tossed her coat and rifle onto the bed. Her legs protested as she crouched, and she fumbled with her hands under the bed. There was a plastic box next to the metal box, and she pulled it out, leaving bloody fingerprints on it.

Ean was anal-retentive about making sure they had a first aid kit full of fresh supplies, and she knew that everything in it was good and well within date, even if he had not been home in a while to check it.

Lorna popped it open, and she slid it toward the stranger. She used the bed as leverage in helping her stand, and she ran to the bathroom sink, where she counted two minutes as she scrubbed her hands clean.

Her knees made a loud thump as she fell onto them next to the stranger. Lorna dug into the box. She put on a pair of latex gloves, snapping the ends of them against her skin to help her stay alert.

Lorna grabbed a pair of scissors, and she cut off his sweater, revealing a sparsely haired chest covered in blood-soaked bandages, an arm that was covered in even more blood-soaked bandages, and a set of dog tags with the edges covered to prevent them from making too much noise.

Ean and Lorna both had a set of dog tags of their own. It had their names and vital health information, like their blood type and allergies. Many years ago, these sorts of dog tags had been associated with the military, but after the Merge, it had become standard for everyone to have them just in case they found themselves in emergencies just like this.

Lorna turned the tags so she could see them. The stranger’s name was “Alex the Drifter.” It was not a name, but she could wonder about it after she has helped him gain back a stronger pulse. His blood type was AB+, and lucky for him, Lorna had A- blood, making her a suitable donor for him.

Lorna pulled out a saline drip from the box. She hooked an intravenous catheter into his good arm, and she hung the bag on a hook that was reserved for hanging plants during the summer.

The stranger needed a professional’s help. There was no fancy equipment in the cabin, but in the middle of the forest, Lorna’s limited medical knowledge and Ean's special first aid kit was all he was going to get.

Lorna cut off the bandages on his arm, and she grimaced as she revealed the hamburger meat than had been made out of his arm. Blood seeped out of the wound and pooled onto the floor.

Ean was going to be upset with her for getting blood on the floor.

Lorna poured alcohol over the wound to help her see the damage. The wounds were deep and messy like a large animal had torn into him. She spotted a torn artery, and she immediately pinched it closed with her fingers. There were several arterial forceps in the box, and she used one to replace her fingers.

The arm stopped leaking blood, so she assumed she could move onto his chest.

Lorna grabbed the scissors again, and she cut off the bandages on his chest. There were deep gashes in his chest. They were cleaner, like knife wounds, but with the amount of them, she assumed they were from the same animal that had torn his arm to shreds.

Lorna poured alcohol over it, but she did not notice any blood rushing out of the wound again. That might have been the blood loss, so she did not assume it a good sign at all. She reached back into the box, and she pulled out a curved needle and a spool of dissolvable thread.

Lorna had had plenty of practice in threading a needle while under stress. When she had first done it, she had been such a shaky mess that Ean had to do it himself despite being the one who had been injured.

Lorna removed the arterial forceps in his arm to sew up the artery. Some blood spurted out, but she sank the tip of the needle into the artery. It was easier than sewing up leather, but it was more difficult than patching torn clothes.

Once the artery was closed, she moved on to the rest of the wound. It was more like leather, but fresh skin was less stiff to work with. Lorna had yet to decide if that made it easier to sew or not, but she hated to do it either way.

The chest took the most time with the amount of them on his chest. There were twelve of them in all—an odd number for what appeared to have been a fight from a normal animal. Once she was done, the stitches were nothing to brag about, but she had stopped the bleeding.

Lorna wrapped it up the stitched-up wounds with a bandage to help protect it and keep it all together. Once that was done, she peeled off her bloodied gloves, and she threw them in the lid of the box.

Lorna searched in the box for a syringe. She ignored the slight pinch she felt as she stuck it into her arm, and she pulled the plunger to fill it with her blood.

Once it was full, Lorna would stick it into the intravenous drip, and she would do it again and again until she had given him two pints of her own blood. She would have to make sure he had not also sustained injuries on his lower body.