Page 38 of Horsemen and Hot Chocolate

A crack as loud as thunder ripped through the air. Johannes jerked. Willem stared wide-eyed as his friend’s body collapsed in a heap. Smoke filled Willem’s vision, but the gunfire and screams distorted into a faint hum in the back of his mind.

Johannes groaned beside him. Willem’s sight blurred with tears as he stared wide-eyed at the red stain that bloomed beneath Johannes’s uniform.

Willem’s breath hitched. His hands flew to the wound, trying and failing to keep the blood from spilling.

“No, no, no,” he pleaded.

Bayonets sliced above, but a comrade pushed the British soldier back. Willem didn’t flinch; his attention glued to his friend.

Johannes’s lids fluttered, his voice a faint rasp. “Watch over her… Tell Katrina… I love her.”

Then, Johannes’s eyes shut. His body grew limp in Willem’s arms.

Horror seized him. His mind stuttered, his mouth parted until another musket fire blared past him. Whimpering, Willem scrambled back as a bayonet stabbed into the ground where he once lay.

Twisting around, he stumbled to his feet. Screams rose in the air. The sound of clomping hooves vibrated through the ground.

“Hessians!” a soldier yelled.

The fearsome Hesse-Cassel mercenaries charged from the right, their swords raised on horseback.

His commander called above the chaos, ordering the men to counterattack. Instead, Willem dropped his musket and sprinted. His feet carried him away from the slaughter, from the only friend he’d ever had. Terror drove him, screaming at him to survive.

A brittle cough squeezed his lungs, but he kept moving. The air burned his throat, punishing him for his exertion. Gunshots continued to roar, and one shot sprayed the dirt at his feet. Willem’s breath heaved, begging him to rest. In the chaos, a riderless horse trotted ahead of him, its saddle still secure. Without a second thought, Willem scampered toward the animal. Tears burned his eyes as he hauled himself up. He seized the reins and urged the horse to run from the booming gunfire and the war he could no longer face.

As the wind tore through his hair, one thought crept into his mind, echoing a truth that would haunt him forever.

Johannes was dead, and it was all his fault.

Chapter twenty-two

Katrina’s face was flushed with tears. Her heart ached from Willem’s story, which he shared between sobs—but not for reasons he might suspect.

“I-I just sat there,” he whispered, his breath hitching as though he were holding back the flood of emotions. “I sat there and did nothing. I cowered behind the barrier and couldn’t face the battle.”

“But—”

“I should have moved or done something, but I froze!” he continued, his voice panicked and ragged. “Johannes forced me up—told me to move. But there was so much smoke and screaming. The muskets fired, and I thought I had met my end. But when Johannes fell…” His body shuddered. “The blood! So much blood. I couldn’t keep it all in. It kept pouring and pouring…”

A choked gasp emitted from the cavity of his chest as he raised his trembling hands. “I can see it all. I can see the way men fell around me.” He pointed to the hill. “There… that’s where it happened. Where I-I should have bound Johannes’s wound, I should have dragged his body away, or just listened and moved when he told me to, but… The muskets came over the barrier and… I ran. I took one of the Hessian horses and never looked back.”

He slammed one fist into the ground. Katrina flinched at the weight of his confession, crushing over him.

“I watched him die,” he whispered.

A new wave of tears stung Katrina’s eyes. Her throat tightened at the palpable disgust rolling from his trembling form, the self-hatred threatening to tear him apart. She realized he had lost more than Johannes that day—he had lost himself.

“He loved you, Katrina. He loved you so much and couldn’t wait to see you again. But I took that from him. I cannot bear to even look at you,” he wept. “For I am so ashamed. I did this to you,” he said, gesturing to the unmarked graves. “I am the reason you no longer have your brother. It’s all my fault!”

It was a grief so deep she felt it in her soul. He bent over, wrapping his arms around his torso, and she crawled closer.

“And all this time, how could I have forgotten? How could I let his memory die? I deserve to feel this pain.”

Willem curled his fists, his shoulders hunched, as if he were collapsing under the weight of despair. Katrina would not let him bear it alone. She embraced him, her arms propping him up against her. Cold tears slid down her cheeks, freezing against the wind.

Willem froze under her touch, his body trembling beneath her. “Katrina,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t—what are you—?”

“No more,” she whispered.