Drake lifted his charred stumps—still raw and weeping despite the cauterization—and let his voice carry, hoarse but deliberately loud.
"Are you people just going to sit here and wait to die?" he rasped, eyes sweeping the crowd.
"Dexter has crates of food—canned meat, fresh bread, fruit that isn't rotten. Clean water you don't have to boil. Blankets that aren't crawling with lice. Medicine—real medicine—that could save Paul's life tonight instead of watching him cough blood until morning."
"And you're all just… sitting here? Starving? Freezing? While he lives like a king with my wife on her knees and a warm bed every night?"
A low murmur rippled through the group—heads turning, glances exchanged. The children huddled closer to their mothers; the old man Paul coughed wetly into his sleeve.
Jack stepped forward first—face hard, eyes burning with the same old fury that had simmered since Mira walked away.
