I wipe the blood away. Barely notice.
“There is a way,” Dragana says quietly.
I turn to her, hope sparking despite everything. “What way?”
“Not to save him now. You cannot.” She meets my gaze with those sharp, ancient eyes. “But to find where they take him. To bring help that can.”
“How?”
She gestures toward the eastern slope. “There is only one route to move heavy equipment from these mountains quickly. The lower cut, near the ravine. Where the old mining road runs.”
“Mining road?” My brain latches onto the concrete detail. Something actionable instead of despair.
Andrei nods. “From before the wars. Abandoned now, but the road remains. Wide enough for vehicles. It leads down to the highway, two hours’ drive from here.”
“You heard engines?” I say, remembering. “Before the attack. You said they came with transport.”
“Yes. Down there.” He points. “You can see it from the goat ridge. The road. Where they went.”
My mind starts working again. Practical instead of emotional.
I can’t rescue K alone. Can’t even reach him without getting killed in the process.
But I canfindwhere they’re taking him. Get eyes on that road. Track which direction they went.
“Show me,” I say. “The ridge. I need to see it.”
Andrei exchanges a glance with Dragana. She nods once.
“I will take you,” he says. “But we go carefully. Those men may have left watchers.”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
Nicolae appears with my messenger bag. “You forgot this.”
I take it automatically, check the contents. Battered phone. Cracked iPad. But lower altitude might mean signal.
Might mean contact with the outside world.
With people who can help.
My hands work on autopilot as I fumble for the cable and plug my phone into my spare battery bank. Thank God I always have backup. Though I never thought it would be for anything like this.
Live, K’s voice echoes in my memory.You are what I come back for.
“Yeah,” I whisper to the empty path. “And you’re what I’m coming backwith.”
The descent takes twenty minutes. It feels like twenty days.
Andrei leads, moving with the easy confidence of someone who knows every stone. I follow, ignoring the pain in my shoulder, the way my ribs protest with each jarring step. My chest feels like it’s constricting, a tugging sensation that makes my throat feel tight.
The forest thickens around us. Pine and scrub giving way to denser growth. We’re below the village now, following a deer trail that winds between massive boulders.
“There,” Andrei says quietly, pointing.
I look.
Through a gap in the trees, I see it: a wide cut through the mountainside. Graded earth, still visible despite years of disuse. Tire tracks in the snow—fresh, deep.
