Zubair stayed crouched a moment longer than necessary, watching her.
She sat on the bed with her knees drawn up under the blanket she'd pulled around herself, her shoulders leaned against the mattress like she'd forgotten what a bed was for.
Her bare feet rested on the cold concrete floor, pale toes curled slightly against the chill she probably didn't even feel.
Zubair felt it.
Not on his skin—he was as impervious to cold as she was—but somewhere deeper, a place beyond sense and nerve that measured comfort in ways he couldn't name.
She shouldn't have been sitting like that, as if the floor could take something from her just by existing.
So he slid one arm behind her knees, the other around her shoulders, and lifted.
It wasn't strength; strength had nothing to do with it.
She weighed less than his gear used to back before the world ended, before the labs, before the hunt. It was the care in the motion that slowed him down, the precision of it.
