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Then I turned the key.
The stolen sedan coughed, then started.
I pulled out carefully, keeping distance between us, letting another car squeeze between, then two, then three.
I watched brake lights.
Watched mirrors for tails.
Watched everything.
They weren’t trying to hide, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t notice if someone followed.
This had to work. We needed to know where Eszter was being held. Everything would come apart if this piece of our mission failed.
My skin felt more electric than any of Farkas’s designs. This thrill, this terrible, wonderful excitement, was what I loathed—and loved—about our game. It wasn’t the glory of the win. There was no glory for those who lived in darkness. No, it was the chase, the hunt, the ever-present threat of discovery—and the consequence it carried. The whole thing was a rush, and no matter how often I tried to deny it, how many times I argued with Thomas about finding a farm in Montana and leaving it all behind, being a player in the game was everything our lives had become, everything we worked for, everything we lived for.
The Soviet sedan turned east, gliding down the street like a shark that knew it ruled the ocean. The cold made everything sharper: every engine sound, every flicker of exhaust, every face on the street blurred past my window in flashes of gray and brown.
We moved at a steady pace, cutting through neighborhoods still choking on the dust of the war. We passed rows of apartments with laundry frozen stiff on lines, children in threadbare coats kicking battered balls between their boots, and old men on corners, smoking the same cigarette for what probably felt like years.
Near Rákóczi Square, they turned left into the edge of a busy street market. I cursed under my breath. Dozens of stalls sprung up—crates of potatoes and cabbage, steaming loaves of rationed bread behind cracked glass, a man pushing fish from a barrel that smelled like rust and sorrow.
The Reds crawled through.
I followed, gripping the wheel tighter.
A trio of bicycles wove past me, laughing boys shouting in Hungarian. A cart veered too close, its driver glaring as I edged past.
Then the car slowed—too much.
I tapped my brakes, my heartbeat thumping in my ears.
Was I too close?
I glanced in the rearview mirror—and my heart froze.
There, two cars back, was a black Moskvitch. It wasn’t the same make as mine. It was clean, angular, the kind issued to someone with a badge and a license to kill.
It followed me into the market.
I swallowed.
I wanted to speed up, to break cover, to make a run for it.
But no. Eszter needed us. The world needed us to succeed.
I took the next corner, as though looking for a side street.
The Moskvitch turned, too.
Sweat built at my collar. It was suddenly far too tight, too stiff.
Then a truck rumbled between us, cutting off my line of sight.
I took the gift, turning down a narrow lane, more alley than street, barely wide enough for two cars.
One second. Then two. Then—