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It was in that moment I really wondered what I was doing. He certainly didn’t want me with him. So why was I still here? One call and I could be home. Safe and warm.

You are not a clinger. You don’t need anyone.I railed at myself, embarrassed I let it go this far.

“Fuck this.” I turned, ready to walk back to Sebe?, when a rumble vibrated the pavement under my feet. We were on a bend in the road, not able to see what was coming, but it sounded closer than it should have—and heavy.

“Ash,” I whispered his name, panic bristling up my neck, intuition scraping my stomach, The vibration and noise escalated with every second.

“Szar.” His arm came around me, hauling me back with him into the snow-covered field. “Get down,” he ordered. Following me into an irrigation ditch, he pressed us against the side closest to the road, hoping no one would see us.

The ground shook with weight, the sound of machines tearing through the snow to the asphalt. Peeking up, I felt a hammer come down on my chest.

Tanks.

They were dated, as if they were resuscitated from some war way before my time, but the size and number of them stilled my lungs. An exhibition of ten tanks paraded along with a dozen large, covered trucks carrying more unseen items, moving in a procession line down the road.

“Military convoy,” Ash muttered.

“They’re traveling west.” I swallowed, knowing what it meant.

“Yeah.” Ash’s throat bobbed. “But that’s not to protect their border. That’s laying down a threat to Hungary, and our country is too fragile to handle a war right now. And they know that.” Emotion and fury lit behind his features. “That bitch. I know she’s behind this… I’m going to kill her. I promise both of you that.” He muttered so low I barely heard him, like he was talking to someone else. He wagged his head with a huff, still talking to himself. “Gods, Killian, don’t take her bait. Don’t do anything stupid.”

My heart shuttered when the convoy came to a stop, brakes squeaking in the evening air. Men climbed out of the cabs, yelling and talking to each other, their speech too quick and convoluted for me to understand perfectly.

Ash stiffened with dread.

“What?”

“They found our footprints in the snow.”

“So?” My mouth dried. Many people walked these paths—except I hadn’t seen any prints but ours. They would stand out in the fresh, clean snow.

My heart was pounding as I watched a man look at the ground and point in our general direction, noting where the footsteps stopped and headed into the field. A man barked out something, and three soldiers started turning our way.

We had nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

“Scarlet.” Ash’s chest started to rise and fall, his tone filled with all the things he didn’t say, but I heard them anyway. Run. And don’t stop.

His eyes went behind us, across a huge field to another tree line, the darkness making the leaves blur together in one painted canopy.

Adrenaline poured into my veins, though my body shook from weakness, the metal around my wrist biting into my skin, keeping me from being able to protect myself. Protect Ash.

The men stomped toward us, searching. His eyes met mine one more time, feeling like they punched through all the cobwebs and exhaustion, giving me life. “Run!”

My legs took off, stretching as far as they could go.

“Stop!” Bellows hummed in my ear before the encroaching night was filled with gunfire.

Bullets zipped near me. Any one of them could embed into my spine or go through my brain. Game over.

Ash had warned me. Told me this was no place for me. That Romania might be the land I die in, far from my loved ones. I was used to being protected. Nothing too dangerous. But as each bullet brushed by me, missing its target, there was a strange sort of high—I had never felt more alive than I did in the hands of death.

Even when the bullets quieted, we did not stop, breaking through the tree line and jumping a stream before crossing another field. Ash weaved us through a small village several miles away before we slowed down, catching our breath.

“Think we’re safe?” Sweat pooled under my clothes, my lungs heaving.

“A convoy like that can’t easily turn around or come after anyone.” He bent over his knees, sucking in breaths. “Plus, their order is the mission, not chasing two vagabonds. To them, we’re not worth the effort.”

“But if they knew who you were?”Or me. I lifted an eyebrow.