"Can you walk?"
His eyes lift, not locking onto mine at first. They find my mouth, then my shoulder, then my eyes, dragging focus up from the bottom of a well.
"I can manage."
He states it as a fact, like it's something he's already decided and his body will follow out of obedience.
He tries to stand anyway.
The injured leg makes its own decision. It trembles, then buckles. His mouth tightens into a flat line.
I step back into the boat, hook one arm under his, and haul. The movement pulls a sound from him that he would deny making if he had breath to spare.
His weight hits me.
For a second, it's all I can think about—how heavy a man becomes when he can't carry himself. How fragile the machine actually is.
He gets one boot onto gravel, then the other. He's shaking, just at the edges.
"Slow," I say.
He doesn't answer. He hooks his arm over my shoulders, a hard drape of muscle and bone, and we stagger toward the treeline.
His skin is cold where it presses into my neck. Clammy.
I've seen men die like this. Not from the bullet—those deaths are loud and clean. This kind is quiet. It's watching the color drain from a face while the person insists they're fine.
He needs a hospital. He needs bright lights and sterile gloves.
But hospitals mean questions. Questions mean systems. Systems mean my uncle learns we're alive.
And if Boris learns we're alive, he sends an ending.
So I keep walking.
Years ago, when I bought the lake house, I mapped the area as if it were a military operation. I noted roads, boat ramps, and seasonal cabins. One cabin stood a few miles north of the shoreline. I remember it because it had a faded sign nailed to a tree:SUMMER HAVEN.
I direct us toward it.
Maksim's steps drag. Every third step, his wounded leg threatens to buckle. Each time it does, his breath catches, and his fingers grip my shoulder tighter.
By the time the cabin appears between the trees, my shirt is damp with our sweat.
It's smaller than my house was. One story. Cheap wood siding. A porch that sags near the steps.
Perfect.
The lock appears solid to someone unfamiliar with doors. A twist. A hard shove. A crack of cheap metal gives way.
Inside smells of dust, damp wood, and mice.
I lower Maksim onto a couch that groans under his weight. Dust cloths shift. His eyes close immediately.
For a moment, my stomach drops.
Then his hand moves. It finds mine. His fingers grip my knuckles with surprising strength.
"Still here," he murmurs.
