Lily
There was a noise at the door to the railcar. Lily jumped, shoving Georgi behind her to protect him. Nik and the other patients all lay motionless, too sick to move, and the few other people who had accompanied them into the car did not react. Lily reached under her dress and tore the taped gun from her skin, holding it low to her leg. She had never fired a gun before, but she was prepared to use it if she had to.
There was a cracking sound as someone broke off the bolt that locked the door. Lily reared back as the door slid open. Then, seeing a familiar figure, she was overcome with relief. “Matteo!” she cried as he climbed inside the car. Matteo gestured her over to the entrance hurriedly and she led Georgi carefully around the others who lay on the carriage floor, staying close behind him.
“We broke into the other car,” he said. “You weren’t there. I thought something had happened to you.”
“They assigned Nik here and forced us to come with him.”
The train began to rock as the engine prepared to go once more. They only had a few moments to get off the train before it would be moving again. Matteo peered over her shoulder at Nik, a concerned look spreading across his face. “We can’t take him with us. In his condition, he would never survive.”
Lily looked at Nik, the undeniable truth sinking in. Nik would never live through the rail journey or what lay at the other end. “You and Georgi need to come with me now, while you can.”
“But there’s no way I can leave my husband,” Lily protested, tears of desperation filling her eyes.
Matteo looked as if he wanted to argue with her about going. But he knew her well enough to recognize that she would not budge. “Let me take Georgi.” Matteo gestured toward the child.
“But...” A thousand protests rose inside her. She couldn’t possibly be separated from her son again. She wouldn’t be abandoning him, though: she would be giving him to Matteo and offering him his only chance at freedom, while not deserting Nik. Matteo would protect Georgi like his own. Even if he did not know the truth, he would lay down his life for the boy.
“Take him.” She thrust Georgi at Matteo, knowing if she didn’t do it quickly she would lose her nerve and never let go. Matteo wrapped the boy in his coat.
Georgi stared at Matteo wide-eyed, apprehensive of the stranger. “The man who came to our house that night,” he said, remembering.
“Yes, the man from the house,” Lily repeated, aching that she could not tell him how much more Matteo really was to him. Lily pressed her hands to Georgi’s cheeks and kissed his forehead, wanting to hold him in that moment forever. She pulled away from him with effort. “You have to go now,” she said to Matteo.
Matteo stood, his eyes pleading. “Are you’re sure you won’t come with us? I think Nik would want you to.”
It was true. Nik would insist that she save her own life and live to take care of Georgi. But it was also true that he would never leave her. Lily shook her head. “I can’t. Go now,” she said firmly, then took a step back into the rail car toward Nik. The train lurched forward.
Matteo took Georgi’s hand and started to climb from the railcar. “Matteo, wait. There’s something else.” She needed to tell him while there was still time that he was Georgi’s father. But as she opened her mouth to speak, the words stuck in her throat. Suddenly a shot rang out behind them. A German guard had hopped down from the train and was racing along the track toward their wagon, his pistol pointed in their direction. Matteo pushed her and Georgi down to the floor of the railcar. Lily realized then that he was weaponless except for the crowbar he had used to break into the railcar. “Here!” she cried, tossing him her gun.
Matteo faced the guard and returned fire. The guard crumpled to the ground. Just then, the train began to move.
Matteo picked Georgi up again and started to climb down from the wagon. But as he did, another shot rang out. Matteo fell backward from the railcar, his grip on the child releasing. “No!” Lily let out a shriek, then grabbed Georgi as he wobbled near the edge. His foot slipped from the railcar and dangled midair as he hung precariously, caught between one world and the next as the train picked up speed.
Lily started to pull him back into the railcar. But doing so was consigning him to a horrific end. Behind him, the open sky and fresh air beckoned, representing a chance. Lily did then the only thing she could do for her child.
She let him go.
She released Georgi’s hand, and he sailed backward. “Mama!” he cried. Lily was seized with regret. What kind of mother threw her own child from a train? But it was too late now, the decision made, their fate sealed. The train sped forward, and Georgi disappeared into the darkness behind them.
The door to the railcar banged shut, eclipsing Georgi from sight.
Lily sank to the floor of the car amid the sick and dying, wracked with despair. Georgi was gone. Had he fallen beneath the moving train? She prayed that he had landed safely and that Matteo would be able to find him. She had sworn not to be separated again from her child. And then in the name of saving him, she had broken that promise. Everything that she lived for was gone, and there was no way she could go on without him. She selfishly wished they had both died instead, together.
Hearing a noise behind her, she turned. Nik made a raspy noise, struggling to speak. “Nik.” Lily crawled toward him, praying in his delirium that he did not realize what had happened or know that Georgi was gone.
She leaned close to hear him, his words not more than breath. He uttered just a single syllable. “Go.” Then he fell back, unable to say more.
Lily paused, not sure that she had heard him right. But the word hung in the air between them.
Nik would not make it. Lily knew that, as surely as she knew her own name. But still she could not leave him. She studied him, memorizing each line in his face, like a map of the life they had shared together. She felt a pang of remorse for all that she had not been able to give him. He was a good man, and he deserved unconditional love, without any encumbrances from her past.
“Go,” he breathed again.
Lily wanted to argue, but he was right. To stay here was to watch him die, but to go after Georgi was to give her child—and herself—a chance to live. He was setting her free.
In that instant, she knew she had made a mistake by not going with Matteo and Georgi. The possibility of life was so much better than suffering and inevitable death. She wrapped her arms around Nik, cradling his head like a child. “I will always love you,” she said, kissing him a final time softly on the lips.
Then she walked to the door of the railcar and tugged at it, but it was sealed shut once more. She was trapped.
Something caught her eye. The corner of the railcar where the slats had ripped apart, forming a hole no bigger than a shoebox. Lily could make out the smoke and darkness on the other side. She stepped toward it hesitantly. Through the tiny space, she could see glimpses of the outside world passing. Hope.
Lily pulled at the edge of the hole, but the boards around it remained firmly in place. Shards of metal and wood ripped at her already cracked fingers, causing them to bleed. She hurried to the suitcase and opened it, pulling out the crowbar Hannah had given her and used it to pry at the wood around the hole. She tore at the wagon with all her might. The boards around the hole gave way, creating an opening just big enough for her to squeeze through.
Lily looked back at Nik with a heavy heart. He had sacrificed everything for her. She had failed him and their marriage vows in his time of greatest need, and it seemed that every decision she had made, selfish and wrong, had brought them to this moment. But his eyes were closed, as if already gone.
She pushed through the opening and stood on the narrow ledge of the railcar, staring at the ground in disbelief as it raced by. How had she gotten to this place? One minute she was shopping and taking her child for walks in the park, and the next she was dropping from a moving train to try and find him. Life had changed, the whole world she had known and everything she held dear gone in an instant.
Lily looked from the ground to the starry sky, which seemed to beckon her. She wanted to freeze time so she would not be faced with the unthinkable need to jump. She didn’t even know if she could do it. But each second she waited drew her farther away from Georgi and her chance of finding him again.
She took a deep breath and leaped.