Ned didn't wait for an answer. He didn't even wait for Will to stop coughing. He simply turned on his heel and walked out of the longhouse, his boots thudding against the packed dirt with the steady, heavy rhythm of a man who had long ago run out of buckets for the fires he had to put out.
"Don't let them die yet," Ned's voice drifted back from the doorway, low and clinical. "I can't interrogate a corpse, and I certainly can't use one for labor."
The heavy fiberglass door groaned shut, and for a moment, the only sound in the longhouse was the hum of a flickering halogen strip and the wet, ragged sound of Will's breathing.
Then, the side door creaked open.
