The helicopter turned away from the still-smoking basin of Hollow Pit Marsh only after both of them were certain nothing below still moved.Clementine kept the craft low and steady on the flight back. The air that came through the vents carried the distant reek of burned pitch and scorched flesh, but the sour under-note of the living disease was gone. When the sealed gates of Hardtooth came into view again, the square looked smaller than it had that morning, quieter, waiting.They landed in the same open ground. Residents who were strong enough to stand watched from doorways and the edges of the square, faces marked by exhaustion and the first fragile signs of recovery. Liliana and Clementine stepped down together and, without needing to discuss it, moved toward a quieter corner where the wind did not carry every word across the open space.“Recovery comes next,” Liliana said. “Supplies, clean water, medicine, another full batch of Antitoxin, clothes, and enoug
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