We sprint toward the forest, feet sinking in the drifts. Before we reach the tree cover, I look back and see our driver fall. The man with wild blond hair and a scar grins and slams on a metal helmet like a medieval knight. He steps forward and splits the dead driver’s head with a hatchet in one brutal motion.
My stomach twists into a knot of rage and fear.
The helmeted man calls out to me in Russian, voice booming.
“Leave the women. We only want them. Pretty little things. Bring them back to play.”
Maddened laughter ripples through the trees. The sound feels wrong, too human and too feral all at once.
Peighton clings to me harder. I feel her shaking.
Voices swell in my mind.
You cannot protect her. They will rip her apart. Kill her now before they get the chance.
Another. Mother.
Run. Hide. Protect her.
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches.
Cannot lose Peighton.
Not her.
We reach a cluster of boulders deep in the forest and drop behind them. Our breath frosts in the air. Petyr reloads. Keira shivers quietly. The woods creak above us.
I check my gun. Two bullets left.
Peighton stares at me with wide, terrified eyes. She does not speak, but the question is all over her face: Can you protect me?
I tuck her under my arm, hold her tight, and lie — the thing I prayed we would never do to each other — my voice steady.
“You are safe. Nobody will hurt you, moyá mishka.”
But the truth sits heavy in my lungs.
I have never been less certain in my life.
Chapter 43
Gustav
Iknow the exact moment the forest turns against us.
The light changes first. Gray pulls out of the sky like someone is bleeding the color away drop by drop. The temperature drops with it. Each breath comes out in a thick cloud and hangs in the air before breaking apart. Snow dusts down through the pines, soft and quiet, as if the world is trying to pretend it is peaceful.
It’s not.
And Peighton violently shivers.
That harsh movement does more damage to me than any bullet. Her shoulders hunch, her teeth chatter, and my coat I wrapped around her is nowhere near enough for night in the Chernobyl woodlands. We have no proper clothing, no fire,no shelter, no food, no spare ammo. Just four bodies in an irradiated graveyard pretending to be a forest.
I promised to protect her from everything. This place feels like it exists for the sole purpose of proving me a liar.
I take what is left of my jacket and shove it tighter around her shoulders, fingers lingering on the curve of her neck. Her skin is so cold. I want to lift her, stuff her inside my chest, close her away from the wind, the snow, the wolves, the ghosts.
Instead, I step back and scan the trees, pulse ticking in my throat.
