The woman carrying the child had blood on both forearms and none of it appeared to be hers.
She came out through the space where a shop window had been, walking sideways because the boy would not release her neck. Behind her, two hunters lowered a broken stair onto the pavement. Someone cheered too early. The woman turned her head and shouted that there was still a man inside.
Eli stopped the approaching volunteers before they ran into the doorway together. The floor beyond it had sunk around a dark rectangle. He did not need an inherited sight to see the open joint moving beneath the third hunter’s boot.
“Left wall,” that hunter called. “Don’t put anyone through the middle.”
Tessa was already kneeling beside the child. She asked his name and received a cough instead. The hunter tried to set him down. His grip tightened until she winced.
“Stay with him a moment,” Tessa said. “We’ll do this with you here.”
Eli took the hunter’s place at the window. A man lay behind a counter, conscious, one leg pinned beneath a cupboard that had fallen away from the failing stairs. The third hunter held the top of it with a length of shelving. Every breath moved the wood against his shoulder.
