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Egret’s and Farkas’s eyes met across the narrow hollow we huddled in, and something passed between them. It wasn’t a threat, not quite; but something raw and unspoken, a warning, maybe, or a promise, or both?
I could feel it like static on my skin.
Will’s hand brushed mine briefly—just enough to ground me again.
A flashlight beam swept closer, dancing across the water not twenty feet from where we hid.
None of us breathed.
Not until it passed, and the voices faded again into the hush of the trees.
I looked at Egret. His face was stone now, unreadable again. Whatever he was thinking, he’d buried it.
Farkas shifted away, pressing himself back into the hollow as if the mud might protect him.
And that was when it hit me—not just the weight of the box, or the mission, or the danger waiting across the river—but the fact that trust, real trust, was dissolving between us like ice in the current. All it would take was one poor decision, one hard shove in the wrong direction, and this team—this family, fragile and blood-worn—would break.
I closed my eyes for a moment, just a moment, and tried to imagine a world where we all made it across.
Only darkness stared back.
58
Will
IwatchedtheSovietsdriftwest, their flashlights bobbing like fireflies swallowed by fog. The light faded, their voices thinned, and the sound of boots grew fainter until there was nothing left but the whisper of the river and the crackle of frozen brush under our coats.
I leaned toward Thomas, our shoulders close enough to touch, and whispered, “How deep do you think it is?”
He didn’t answer right away. His breath was slow and visible in the cold, each cloud rising between us like another uncertainty. He glanced at the water, then closed his eyes briefly, as if consulting a memory. When he looked back at me, his gaze was dim but steady.
“Based on the maps, probably up to our waists, chests at most.” He hesitated. “But who knows? It might be deeper in the middle. I can’t be sure.”
I nodded. That was as close to certainty as we were going to get out here.
“And the current?”
“Slow,” he said. “The danger is the cold, not the current.”
I looked out at the water again. It did seem sluggish, crawling through the night like it was too tired to run. It didn’t whisper like a stream or roar like a river; it just moved—quiet and certain.
“We have to go,” I whispered.
“I know,” he said, not turning his head.
We waited a beat longer, just to be sure, then Thomas shifted and turned to the others.
“Time to move,” he said, just above a breath. “We’re crossing.”
Eyes lifted. Egret’s jaw clenched. Sparrow tightened her grip on Eszter, who blinked up at her with wide, understanding eyes.
“We’re going in the river?” she asked.
Thomas nodded. “Yes. It’s our best shot.”
“How deep?” Sparrow asked.
“Maybe chest height. Be ready to swim just in case.”