Rocks scraped under Kat’s stomach as she crawled along the bank. She spat out the mud that Ellie’s feet in front of her kicked back. How far had they gone? They must’ve been moving for at least an hour . . . a day. Twisting her head, she sighted the fading sun that had barely moved in the orange sky. Ten minutes was closer to the mark. She tugged on Ellie’s leg, pulling her to a stop. Silence all around. No gunshots, no voices, not even a whisper of wind.
And no movement behind her.
Uneasiness prickled along her skin.
He’d told her not to stop, not to turn around, but the stillness behind her rang like a death peal. She looked back. A wall of reeds surrounded them. She twisted left and right, frantically pawing at the stems for a glimpse of him. Barrett was nowhere to be seen. Icy fear spilled into her blood, freezing the air in her lungs.
He’d promised to be behind her the whole way. The fear lunged into her brain. No, he’d said somewhere behind her.
The anguish in her heart threatened to stop the words before they spilled out. “He stayed behind.”
“What? Why?”
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was pulling him back from the danger that he’d placed himself in so that they could get away. Kat sat up and looked over the tops of the reeds. The setting sun slanted across the deep-orange sky, turning the field around them to a blaze of gold. But nothing else stirred.
He wouldn’t leave her with such a stupid decision, and she sure wasn’t about to leave him. Stupid decision or not.
She turned back to Ellie. “Stay here.”
Ellie shook her head. “I’m coming with you.”
“I’ll be back within an hour.” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the knife Barrett had given her and pressed it into Ellie’s hand. “Take this.”
Ellie’s eyes widened with terror. She grabbed Kat’s hand. “And if you’re not?”
Icy fear warped the words on Kat’s tongue. She pushed it back. “I will be. Promise.”
Sidling away before Ellie could latch on to her, she scanned the area across the field, down the small valley the stream sank into, and back across to where a clump of trees stood a hundred yards to the east. Wisps of white curled above the fading green boughs. Fire.
She hunched over and ran toward the trees. Dried stalks slapped her face, stinging her ears and crunching beneath her feet. Please, please, Barrett. Don’t do anything stupid.
She stopped just inside the cluster of trees. Heart racing, blood rushed to her ears. She took a long, deep breath to calm the intensity, forcing herself to focus all around her. Just as Father had instructed her during shooting parties. The slightest detail might give away your quarry, he’d said. But it would also give you away to them.
As the blood abated from her ears, voices carried from far in front of her. She picked her way through the brambles until the faint orange glow of a fire came into view. On the edge of the tree line, one of the soldiers hunkered down over the flames, coaxing them to brightness. The other two bent over a log with a rope tied around one end. The other end of the rope had been thrown over a tree branch. Kat crept closer as her heart thundered in her chest. Where was Barrett?
The two men finished tying off the rope and stood. Kat’s heart raged into her throat. Not a log. Barrett.
His shirt was ripped at the collar with bright-red splotches of blood down the front from where they dripped from his nose. Bruises curved around his neck, and raw, pink rope burns slashed around his wrists. Curled into a ball on the ground, his body heaved with ragged breaths.
A soldier with greasy black hair falling below his ears squatted in front of him waving Ellie’s comb. “Wo ist die frau?”
Barrett shook his head.
The soldier smacked him on the cheek with the comb. “Wo ist die frau?”
Once again, Barrett shook his head, refusing to tell him where the woman who owned that comb was. The black-haired man motioned to his comrade, who yanked on the other end of the rope, jerking Barrett up. He scrambled to his feet before the rope pulled his wrists out of socket, but it didn’t stop the men from yanking harder to lift him up in the