The baby kicked, and Katerina glanced down, her hand tightening on her abdomen.
“No,” she said again, and with a sudden burst of energy, she pushed him hard on the chest. Caught off guard, Lio stumbled backward.
It was enough.
Katerina put her head down and ran, ignoring the scream of pain in her joints, the burn in her lungs, the fear that snapped at her heels. The house was in sight, a glow of amber light in a downstairs window, salvation within grasping distance. She cried out as Lio thundered toward her, felt his boot connect with the back ofher legs, saw the glint of his blade as she fell, tumbling over and over. He loomed above her, straggly hair obscuring the stars, malevolent grin opening wide. Katerina groped desperately at the ground, gathering nothing but wet turf until at last she found something.
She had one chance, only one. Katerina took it, hurling the small rock at Lio’s head as hard as she could. A crunch sounded, then a grunt as he staggered backward, falling to one knee.
She crawled onto all fours, transformed, a snarling wildcat hunting for prey. Lio touched his head. A damp patch of blood was spreading, and his bewilderment turned instantly to fury. With a great roar, he swung the saber, missing her face by a mosquito’s breath. Katerina ducked away, flattening herself into the mud as he advanced. She raised an arm, the hot fire of the blade slicing through her flesh. It cut from wrist to elbow, and she cried out in pain.
He would slice her into pieces where she lay; they would find her corpse in the dawn light, battered and bloody, the baby dead inside her.
Stefanos’s words came to her:You must use your head, not your body.
But he was not here. Nobody was. She was the one who must protect their child.
Before Lio could raise the saber again, Katerina surged up from the ground. A raw cry tore from her throat as she hurled herself at him, driving him backward. He hit the ground with a sickening thud, air ripped from his lungs.
Her breath rasped in her ears.
Lio twitched, his legs kicking out like a severed puppet, and then nothing. Stillness.
Katerina approached slowly, kicking away the blade he had dropped into the dirt. The rain began to grow heavier, dropletsstreaming across his frozen cheeks, his open mouth, his staring eyes. She dropped to her knees, saw the rock she had thrown at him lying beneath his head, understood that it was over.
“No,” she said quietly—to him, to the world, to whatever god may have been watching—“means no.”
Another sound came, the scuffling of feet, hushed voices.
Katerina scrambled upright. It was too late to run, or to hide. The Italians would not believe it had been an accident. They would take her to the square in Chora and shoot her. With a sob, she bent and raised the saber, the blade trembling in her hands. Two figures emerged on the shadowy pathway, and she charged forward, letting out a wail of relief when she saw who had come.
Phaedra, her cloak swaddled around her, the young Esther by her side.
“We heard screams,” Phaedra said. “What has ha—” She fell silent as Katerina stepped aside.
“He was going to rape me,” she said. “Kill me. I pushed him. I did not— It was not—”
“He is dead?” Esther asked, her tone measured, curious not afraid.
“Yes.” Katerina whispered.
Esther nodded. The moonlight had painted her eyes into something feline.
“Good,” she said. “I am glad.”
Katerina glanced at Phaedra.
“We cannot leave him here,” her friend said. “If the soldiers find him…”
“I know.” Katerina agreed. “How shall I do it?”
Phaedra put a hand on her arm.
“Éla,” she said. “Wewill do it. There is a cart. I will fetch it and some cloth to put around the body.”
She turned and went back down the hillside, leaving Katerinaand Esther alone. The young Jewish girl was crouched beside the body, examining the wound. With careful fingers, she eased the rock from beneath Lio’s smashed skull and held it out.
“Take this,” she said with quiet authority. “Hide it or throw it away.”
