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“When I asked you where you learned all this, you said you had training.” Her voice is gentle. “What kind of training?”

My hands are still on her ankle.

“I was a paramedic,” I say. “Before.”

“Before you changed?”

“And after.” I tape down the last edge of the dressing. “Most people in town didn’t know what to do with me. The ambulance service did. They needed someone strong, and they didn’t care what I looked like. For a while, it was fine.”

She doesn’t say anything. She just waits.

“There was a car off the county road,” I say. “It had rolled, and the driver was trapped. I got the door off and got her out, and I was checking her airway when she came around. When she opened her eyes, my face was six inches from hers.” I look at my hands on her ankle. “She screamed. She didn’t stop screaming.”

Wren’s hand finds my shoulder.

“The second crew had just pulled up,” I say. “One of them heard her and came running. He got between me and my patient with his hands up. Like I was the emergency.” I breathe out. “I finished the job. I stabilized her and handed her off. Then I went back to the station, put my kit in my locker, and never returned.”

The fire pops, and rain streams down the windows.

“She was scared and hurt and confused,” Wren says softly. “That’s not on you. But that other guy?” Her voice hardens. “He saw a paramedic in uniform saving someone’s life, and he decided you were the danger. That’s on him.”

I look up at her. She’s furious on my behalf.

“So you came to the forest,” she says.

“Where nobody screams.”

She smiles, but she’s shivering, even with the blanket. Tucking it tighter doesn’t help, so I sit on the cot beside her and pull her into my side, blanket and all.

“Oh,” she says. “Okay. Bossy.”

“You’re cold.”

“You’re wet.”

“I run hot,” I tell her. “I always have. It got worse after I drank the spiked punch. You might as well use me.”

She considers that for two seconds. Then she tucks her cold nose into my neck like it belongs there.

My jacket drips water from its hook. I’ve laid out all the things from my pockets on the windowsill to dry: a knife, almonds, a stub of a pencil, and my small green notebook with a loose elastic.

Her eyes land on the notebook and stay there.

“Can I?” she asks.

No one’s asked before.

I reach over and hand it to her.

She opens it cautiously and tilts it toward the lantern.

Frog ramp, evening count: 31.

Bench 4 held through ice.

Girl, approx. 5, yellow coat. Laughed at the frogs. Ten minutes.

She turns a page, then another. I’m waiting for the joke.