Page 45
45
Thomas
“W ill!” I shouted from the top of the stair.
Like a startled leopard, the guard spun, his rifle swinging even more wildly than his frantic gaze.
Will didn’t miss a beat.
A shot fired.
Then a second.
The guard and his rifle clattered to the floor.
Before I could move, Will stood over the fallen man. He kicked his rifle away and checked for signs of life. Finding none, he looked up.
“Let’s go.” His voice was harder than I’d ever heard.
I was growing too weak to argue. Eszter—tiny, little Eszter—wrapped her arm around me and tried to keep me upright. We couldn’t descend the stairs that way, so she released me and went first, stepping backward down the stairs and holding me up with both hands. In any other time and place, it would’ve been comical. How she walked backward while going down a flight of stairs—while holding a wobbly man three times her weight upright—would forever baffle me.
And yet, she did.
“I’ve got you,” she said, her voice a sparrow’s call.
Will took me from her at the bottom of the stairs, his strength an immediate relief, and I sagged into him.
“Damn it, Thomas. I told you not to fucking get shot.”
I grimaced and tried to laugh. It hurt too much.
Will had my right arm draped across his shoulders, and I wasn’t walking so much as being dragged in a controlled fall.
My left shoulder pulsed with heat. Not fire— weight . Like something had buried itself in my flesh and now refused to let go. Adrenaline blurred it for now, but it wouldn’t forever.
We turned onto a side street.
There were no headlights, no dogs, no voices.
Just the wind threading through barren trees and broken gutters and the crunch of our boots on frost.
Eszter was just ahead of us, wrapped in her blanket like a ghost, glancing back every few steps. She hadn’t said a word since leaving the mansion. She hadn’t screamed when shots were fired. She didn’t even flinch, just froze—and ran when Will told her to.
She was her father’s daughter. God help her.
Will whispered, “Stay with me,” and I wasn’t sure if it was to me or to her.
Or maybe both.
I nodded, my breath shaking. “Still here.”
The cold did its best to numb the pain, but it didn’t work. Every step sent a sharp jolt from my shoulder to the base of my spine. Will’s grip around my waist was the only thing keeping me from collapsing onto the sidewalk.
The mansion was behind us now. Two blocks. Three. More?
Time wasn’t working properly. It stretched and compressed between breaths.
Each crunch of our boots on the frost-bitten pavement echoed too loudly.
A car engine hummed in the distance.
Will froze.
I did, too, heart thudding.
Eszter pressed against a brick wall, her eyes wide, white orbs in the blackness of the night.
Headlights washed across a corner a block away.
A black sedan coasted past. Not fast enough to be casual. Not slow enough to be certain.
We didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
The car didn’t stop.
I didn’t suck in a breath until it was out of sight.
“Keep going,” I murmured.
Another street. Then another.
I could feel the blood—wet and warm—spreading beneath my shirt.
Will hadn’t said anything, but I saw it earlier, in the way his jaw clenched when he looked at me.
“You’re pale,” he whispered.
“I’ve been paler.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not.” I paused. “Okay . . . I’m okay. Just keep walking.”
The next car was worse.
It didn’t pass.
It slowed at an intersection a block behind us, braked for no reason, then sat there.
“Turn now,” Will said.
We ducked down an alley between two narrow houses.
A cat hissed and bolted across our path.
Trash crunched beneath Eszter’s feet.
The car never turned the corner. Maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe it was.
The not knowing—it tore at me.
We kept moving until the streets began to widen. The houses thinned, replaced by storefronts with shuttered windows and flickering signs. Budapest was asleep, but ghosts were awake.
At a main road, we found a battered taxi idling near a darkened pub. The driver looked up as we approached—Will waving, me leaning heavily against him, Eszter trailing close.
The driver didn’t ask questions, just looked us over in the rearview mirror and nodded once.
I slurred a few words in Hungarian, remembering how to say, “vodka” and “more.”
Being drunk was an act. Slurring the words wasn’t.
Will gave the man two streets, a crossroads several blocks from our true destination.
The man grunted, and we slid into the back seat. I rested my head against the window, eyes slipping shut for just a second.
“Don’t you dare,” Will whispered in Russian. The last thing we needed was a taxi driver being alerted by our use of English.
I smiled through the haze. “You’re bossier than usual.”
“Stay . . . the fuck . . . awake,” he hissed.
The driver didn’t say a word, but he watched us. I felt his eyes checking the mirror.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The moment we climbed out of the cab, the frigid night bit into my skin, and Budapest began to spin. I couldn’t tell if the sky was below or the ground above. I vaguely heard Will’s voice but had no idea what he was saying.
He sounded urgent, almost panicked. I just wanted to sleep.
The walk to the safe house was a blur of turns and ducking into shadows, skirting streetlamps and avoiding passing cars. The safe house itself was a narrow brick building tucked between a grocer and a factory that hadn’t produced anything since the war ended.
Egret opened the door before we knocked. I was just awake enough to catch the scowl that deepened as he reached forward and lifted my weight from Will’s arms.
Sparrow appeared behind him, her mouth tight with concern, then turned back into the house, probably to prep supplies or something necessary, though my foggy mind failed to grasp what might be important in the moment.
Eszter stepped in without a word. Her father appeared like a wraith out of mist, wrapping weathered hands around the girl and pulling her into him so tight I wondered how she was able to breathe. Something stirred in my soul, a warmth, at seeing them reunited. It fled as quickly as it tickled my senses.
The door clicked shut behind us, and two bolts slid into place as Will secured the deadbolts. For the first time all night, I felt something akin to safety.
Will’s voice urging me to stay awake was the last thing I remembered as I ceded myself to the darkness that had threatened at the edges of my vision since we’d left the mansion.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45 (Reading here)
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64