Tessa found the first missing injury while asking for an ordinary dressing count.
The small clinic had sent more requests than the official depot casualty figure appeared to allow. That could mean supplies had gone to unrelated patients. It could mean a request had been repeated when the first delivery failed. The nurse opening the cupboard said it meant three people had arrived from the depot street who were not on the list the council had circulated.
“Do they want their names shared?” Tessa asked.
The nurse shut the cupboard. “One doesn’t want the council to know he’s here.”
“Then we start without sending his name.”
Eli stood near the door with the replacement boxes. He had come to help carry, expecting a short task before the forum resumed. Tessa asked him to set the boxes down and fetch the ledger of requests the rescue network had retained. The discrepancy would not wait merely because it had appeared in the wrong part of their day.
At the clinic desk, the nurse produced cards with treatment times and brief notes. One described a crushed wrist. Another recorded breathing trouble after dust exposure. A third contained an uncertain name and a transfer mark. The official figure had reached the council as a clean total, useful for judging the response. These cards were not clean. One had been written while the power failed. Another bore a correction in a different hand.
