The boy didn't move.
He sat beneath the desk with his knees drawn to his chest, his arms wrapped tight around them, his eyes fixed on the doorway with an intensity that made Gray's skin prickle. The flashlight beams caught the angles of his face - too thin, too sharp, the bones pressing against skin that had gone the color of old ash. His eyes were too wide, the pupils dilated despite the light, and they tracked Elias's approach with a wariness that spoke of weeks spent hiding from things that walked on two legs and things that didn't.
Elias stopped at the threshold, his hands raised, palms open. "Hey," he said softly. "It's okay. We're not going to hurt you."
The boy didn't respond. His gaze slid past Elias, past Mina who stood just behind him, and settled on Gray with a weight that felt almost physical. There was recognition in that look - not the recognition of someone who knew him, but something deeper, something that seemed to see past his skin and into the threads that ran beneath.
Gray's pattern-sight flared involuntarily, reaching for the boy's thread, and what it found there made his breath catch. The thread that connected the boy to the distant brightness was still there, still pulsing with that strange rhythm, but now he could see something else - a complexity in the boy's own pattern that mirrored his own. Not identical. Not even similar, really. But related, somehow. Like two instruments playing different notes in the same key.
The boy's eyes widened further, and for a moment, Gray could have sworn he saw the flash of understanding pass between them - a recognition that went both ways.
Then his migraine surged, and the moment shattered.
"Gray?" Mina's voice cut through the pain. "Are you okay?"
He forced himself to nod, to push the agony into the background where it lived most days. "I'm fine. Just... give me a moment."
Mina studied him for a beat longer, then turned her attention to the boy. Her expression softened, the grief and exhaustion from the surgery theater falling away to reveal something gentler beneath. She moved past Elias, slow and deliberate, and crouched down to bring herself to the boy's level.
"Hey there," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "My name is Mina. What's your name?"
The boy didn't answer. His eyes were still fixed on Gray, still wide with that strange recognition, but his body had begun to tremble - a fine vibration that seemed to emanate from somewhere deep inside.
Mina reached into her pocket and withdrew a protein bar, the kind they'd scavenged from the vault. She held it out, her arm extended, her palm open like Elias's had been.
"Are you hungry?" she asked. "It's not much, but it's something. I promise it's safe."
The boy's gaze finally shifted, drawn by the offering. His nostrils flared, and Gray could see the hunger that lived beneath the fear - a desperate, gnawing thing that had probably been his constant companion for days. But he didn't reach for the bar. He just watched it, his body still trembling, his eyes still wary.
"It's okay," Mina said. "I know you're scared. I would be too, if I'd been alone here for so long." She kept her voice soft, steady, a lifeline in the darkness. "But we're here now. And we're not going to leave you."
Something in those words seemed to reach him. The trembling slowed, then stopped. His eyes moved from the protein bar to Mina's face, searching for something - deception, maybe, or the kind of cruelty that wore kindness like a mask.
Whatever he found there must have satisfied him, because he slowly, slowly extended one hand and took the bar.
He ate like a wolf - tearing into the wrapper with his teeth, stuffing the food into his mouth with desperate urgency, barely chewing before swallowing. Mina watched him with a pain in her eyes that Gray recognized from the surgery theater, from the room with the dead child, from every moment she'd been forced to witness suffering she couldn't fix.
"Slow down," she said gently. "There's more. You don't have to rush."
But the boy couldn't slow down. The hunger was too deep, too old, and it drove him until the bar was gone and he was licking the wrapper for crumbs. Only then did he seem to remember they were watching, and his eyes darted between them with a renewed wariness.
"What's your name?" Elias asked, stepping into the room. His voice was calm, measured, the voice of someone who knew how to get information without seeming to ask for it.
The boy's mouth opened, closed, opened again. His throat worked, as if the words were stuck somewhere deep inside, buried under weeks of silence and fear.
"Ren," he whispered finally. The word came out cracked, broken, a sound that barely qualified as speech. "My name is Ren."
Elias nodded, filing the name away. "How long have you been here, Ren?"
The boy - Ren - didn't answer. His gaze had drifted back to Gray, and there was something in his expression that made Gray's chest tighten. It wasn't fear, exactly. It wasn't even recognition anymore. It was something closer to... longing. Like he was looking at something he'd been searching for without knowing he was searching.
"Can you walk?" Mina asked, drawing his attention back to her. "We have supplies downstairs. More food. Water. We're going to take you somewhere safe."
Ren's eyes moved to the door, to the darkness beyond, and Gray saw the fear return - a flash of it, bright and sharp, before he buried it again.
"The things," Ren said, his voice still barely above a whisper. "They come at night. They walk the halls. I hear them." His hands clenched at his sides. "I've been so quiet. So quiet. That's how I stayed alive."
Mina reached out and took one of his hands in hers. The gesture was simple, natural, but Gray saw the way her face changed when their skin touched - a flicker of something that might have been pain, quickly suppressed.
"We'll protect you," she said. "You won't be alone anymore."
Ren looked at their joined hands, then up at her face. And slowly, so slowly, he nodded.
---
They made their way back through the pediatric wing in a loose formation, Elias in the lead with his flashlight cutting through the darkness, Mina walking beside Ren with her hand on his shoulder, Gray bringing up the rear with his pattern-sight sweeping the corridors for threats.
The boy moved slowly, his steps uncertain, his body still weak from weeks of deprivation. He startled at every shadow, every creak of settling metal, every distant groan of the building's frame. But he kept moving, guided by Mina's gentle presence and the promise of safety that hung in the air between them.
Gray watched them from behind - watched the way Mina positioned herself between Ren and the darkest corners, her body a shield against the terrors that lurked in his imagination. He watched the way Elias glanced back every few seconds, his measuring gaze tracking their progress, calculating the time it would take to reach the ground floor.
And he watched Ren.
The boy's thread was easier to see now that he was moving, easier to trace through the darkness. It pulsed with that same strange rhythm, that connection to something distant and bright, but there was something else there too - a complexity that Gray had only glimpsed before. The threads that ran through Ren's body were denser than they should have been, more intricate, as if the pattern of his existence had been compressed into something harder and more resilient.
It reminded Gray of his own threads. Of the cold-water sensation that had saved his life more times than he could count. Of the pattern-sight that showed him things no one else could see.
He didn't know what it meant. He didn't know if Ren had abilities like his, or if the similarity was just a trick of the light, a misreading of patterns he still didn't fully understand. But something in him responded to the boy's presence - a resonance that felt like recognition, like finding a piece of himself he hadn't known was missing.
His migraine pulsed, and he pushed the thought away.
---
They reached the ground floor without incident.
The gurney still sat by the ambulance bay, loaded with supplies, waiting for them like a promise kept. Elias began checking the loads, redistributing the weight to account for their slower pace, while Mina helped Ren sit on a bench near the entrance.
"Here," she said, pressing a water bottle into his hands. "Small sips. Don't drink too fast."
Ren obeyed, his eyes never leaving her face. He looked at her the way a drowning man looks at a life preserver - with a desperate, disbelieving gratitude that seemed too big for his small frame to contain.
Gray stood apart from them, his pattern-sight still sweeping the area, still watching for threats. But his attention kept drifting back to Ren, to the thread that connected him to something distant, to the complexity of his pattern that seemed to echo Gray's own.
He wanted to ask the boy what he'd seen in the hospital. What he'd experienced in those weeks alone. Whether he'd felt the patterns too, the threads that ran through everything, the sense that the world had become something more than it used to be.
But the words wouldn't come. He didn't know how to ask without sounding crazy. He didn't know how to explain what he saw without making the boy think he was one more threat in a world full of them.
So he stayed silent, and he watched, and he waited for something he couldn't name.
---
The journey back would take twice as long with Ren.
Elias said it quietly, pulling Gray aside while Mina continued to tend to the boy. His voice was calm, but Gray could hear the calculation beneath it - the weighing of risks and resources, the measuring of their chances.
"He's weak," Elias said. "We'll need to stop more often. Move slower. That means more time in the open, more exposure to whatever's out there." He paused, his blue-gray eyes meeting Gray's. "Are you seeing anything? Any threats?"
Gray's pattern-sight reached outward, searching the threads that ran through the streets beyond the hospital. The agitation he'd sensed that morning was still there, still building, but it hadn't crystallized into anything specific. The city was still holding its breath.
"Nothing immediate," he said. "But something's coming. I can feel it."
Elias nodded slowly. "Then we move fast as we can, and we hope we make it back before whatever you're sensing arrives." He glanced toward Mina and Ren, his expression unreadable. "We're not leaving him behind. That's not who we are."
Gray wasn't sure who "we" were yet - weren't they still strangers, still feeling each other out, still learning to trust? But he didn't argue. He'd seen the way Mina looked at the boy, the fierce protectiveness that had risen in her the moment she'd touched his hand. He'd seen the way Ren looked at her, like she was the first good thing he'd encountered in weeks.
And he'd felt the resonance in his own chest, the sense that this boy was important in ways he couldn't articulate.
"Let's go," he said. "Before the light changes."
---
They stepped out of the hospital into a morning that had grown darker.
The sky above Ash Harbor had deepened from bruised purple to something closer to black, and the wrong-color light pulsed more rapidly now, its rhythm matching the agitation in the threads that Gray could feel all around them. The city was still holding its breath, but the exhale was coming - he could sense it building in his bones, in the cold-water sensation that ran along his spine.
Elias took the lead again, pulling the gurney with one hand while the other rested on the knife at his belt. Mina walked beside Ren, her arm looped through his to support his weight, her body still positioned between him and the shadows. Gray brought up the rear, his pattern-sight reaching in all directions, watching for the first sign of danger.
Ren stumbled twice in the first hundred yards, his legs weak from disuse and hunger. Each time, Mina caught him before he fell, her grip steady, her voice soft with encouragement. Each time, Gray felt something warm bloom in his chest despite the tension that gripped him - something that looked almost like hope.
They moved through the commercial district in silence, their footsteps echoing in the empty streets. The silence was heavier now, more oppressive, as if the city itself was watching them, waiting for them to make a mistake.
Gray's pattern-sight caught movement at the edge of his perception - threads tangling in the distance, something moving through the ruins. He focused, pushing past the migraine, trying to see what it was.
But the threads were too far away, too indistinct. All he could tell was that something was out there, something that didn't move like a human, something that pulsed with a wrongness that made his stomach clench.
He said nothing. There was no point in alarming them, not yet. Not until he knew what they were dealing with.
They kept walking, and the city held its breath, and somewhere in the distance, something howled.