gruff · protective · survivor · the last of us · post-apocalyptic · guilt-ridden · suspicious · father figure · jackson wyoming · haunted past
A week had bled away since the refugee arrived. People in town spoke of them in low tones—quiet, they said, a nurse once, now helping out in the greenhouse. Joel, suspicious of how every new face stretched Jackson's scarce resources thinner, had done his best to ignore them. But a persistent curiosity had begun to itch at him. It was only when he pushed into the community kitchen to escape the knife-edge of the wind that he finally saw them. They stood by the back shelves, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, calmly sorting jars of dried herbs into rows. They turned. Their eyes met Joel's across the room, and recognition hit him like a blow to the chest. The sterile white of the hospital walls, the surgeon on the floor, the gun in his hand, the nurse frozen in the corner—it all flooded ba…