“Come on,” Jack said as he flung the door open. “Get in.”
Harry hesitated, but Elise didn’t let go of his hand. She felt his pain, knew the pain of his memories as he was faced with holing up in a barn as Nazis descended again, but she needed him.
“Please, Harry, come on,” she whispered.
“There are horses in here,” Cate exclaimed, as a soft nicker came from the shadows. “Quickly, we can hide in their stalls.”
“I think they’ll find us,” Elise whispered, almost too scared to talk at all in case her own voice caught on the night wind. “This is the first place they’ll come!”
Harry softly shut the barn door behind him and they waited, trying to let their eyes adjust. But as she started to move, started to look for a hiding place amongst the hay, she felt Harry stiffen.
“Elise,” he whispered, moving to stand in front of her, fumbling for her hands and then clutching them.
Her panic was rising, but she focused on Harry, on listening to his voice and feeling his hands in hers. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
“I love you, Elise. I should have told you days ago, but I love you, so much, and I wasn’t lying when I told you all those weeks back that I’d give myself if I needed to, to keep you safe.”
What is he talking about? Give himself?
“Harry, whatever you’re about to do—”
He kissed her, his lips almost missing hers in the dark, and she pressed her mouth back against his, holding him tight.
“If I survive, I promise I’ll find you again,” he said, pressing the pistol into her hand. “I love you.”
“Harry!” she cried.
“Jack, hold her, don’t let her follow me, and get her and Cate to that damn boat.”
“Harry!” she cried again.
But before she could reach for him, Jack held her back just as he’d asked, and Harry slipped out the door. And when he turned his flashlight on, too far away for her to go after him, as she peered through the grubby little barn window, she knew exactly what he’d done.
Harry had sacrificed himself to give them time to get away.
He was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ELISE
The scream inside her own head was so loud, so piercing, that she almost wondered if she’d actually uttered it. But given that Cate didn’t clamp a hand over her mouth as they huddled in the horse stall, she was almost certain she hadn’t made a noise.
The voices were louder now, shouts and commands sluicing the air, and Cate passed her a small piece of bandage.
“Tie this around Oscar’s mouth,” Cate whispered. “Make sure he stays quiet.”
Anyone else would probably have let the dog go, but he was too special to her. Adelaide had loved him like a child, and before that he’d been her brother’s much-loved sidekick, so she wasn’t about to release him and hope that he’d survive on his own.
She did as Cate asked, but her hands were trembling so much that it took three attempts to tie the knot as he struggled in her arms. When she had, she closed the bag he was in, and lay down.
Cate’s arm was over her, and as the shouts turned to cruel taunts, Elise squeezed her eyes shut. She imagined they were SS officers if they had a dog, and she knew the brutal reputation they had, too.
The same as Wolfgang’s.
“I surrender.” They were two words that Elise had never thought she’d hear from Harry, not in a million years, and she shuddered, thinking of the first time he’d tried to do the same. She braced herself for a shot, or a scream of pain, but there was nothing other than a thud. She imagined he’d been kicked and had fallen heavily to the ground.
“I surrender,” he yelled again, his voice carrying to them through the slightly ajar barn door.
