One wing had been crushed under a bootprint. He bent, picked it up, and held it where the wounded man could see.
The man’s shoulders dropped by a fraction.
A small girl appeared at the mouth of the passage.
She was perhaps six or seven, dusty, barefoot on one foot, the other wrapped in a sock. She stopped when she saw the uniforms in the room.
The wounded man made a sound that was unmistakably her name even though Leah did not understand the word.
The girl ran toward him.
Colin stepped instinctively into her path, then froze as she recoiled.
Leah lifted one hand.
“Let her through.”
Colin moved aside.
The girl dropped beside the wounded man. He touched her hair, her face, both shoulders, checking her with desperate speed. She began speaking rapidly. He answered through clenched teeth, then pointed at the shoe.
The teammate placed it beside her.
The girl clutched it to her chest.
No translation was needed for the next part. The man pushed the child gently toward Leah.
He wanted her moved first.
Colin stared.
Minutes earlier he had said they should leave the man where they found him. Now the stranger was doing what Colin’s own father would have done with any of his children: directing help toward the smallest person in the room before accepting it himself.
That did not erase the uniform. It did not answer whether the man had fired at them. It did not make Colin’s injured friend less injured.
It made the room harder to simplify.
Leah preferred that to a lie.
She called for the child to be moved with the evacuation group. The girl refused to leave her father’s side.
The wounded man understood what was happening before she did. He took the paper bird from Colin, smoothed the damaged wing once, and put it into the girl’s hand. Then he pointed toward the passage and pushed her shoulder gently.
She shook her head.
He raised his voice.
The child began crying openly.
Leah crouched until they were nearly eye level. She pointed to herself, then toward the exit, then back to the wounded man. “We take him too.”
The girl could not know whether that promise was trustworthy. Leah could not even be certain transport conditions would allow them to remain together.
Still, the child watched her face.
Leah repeated the gesture.
Colin did something Leah did not expect. He held out the missing shoe.
