It was only when Yael stepped outside into the clean air that she realized how much the inside of the cabin reeked of rot. Despite the vodka cleanings, Felix’s fingers (and accompanying fever) had taken a turn for the worse. The SS had crushed the life out of those bones. If Yael didn’t do something about it soon, the death would spread.
But there was a more immediate threat to worry about. Yael could hear the engines as she shuffled to the side of their cabin and grabbed the ax Luka had been using to split firewood. She started swinging, bringing its rusted edge down onto a piece of wood. Yael swung and split, trying not to think of Felix’s hand. Trying not to think of what would happen next, when the first truck rolled into the village.
Luka was right—they were Soviets. Not Wehrmacht. Whether this was a good thing or not remained to be seen. Yael’s experience with Comrade Commander Vetrov—the Soviet officer who’d kidnapped the Axis Tour racers between Baghdad and New Delhi—had been questionable at best, and the guerrillas who often raided the Urals were notoriously merciless when it came to National Socialists. If they discovered Luka and Felix in the cabin…
Yael brought the ax blade down a final time, resting it on the ground and double-checking to make sure her blanket covering was secure. The transport drew to a stop. And another after that, and another after that, and another after that…
These aren’t dart-and-run guerrilla fighters, Yael thought as the fifth transport rolled up. This is an army.
A man wearing the markings of commander leapt out of the first truck. He was younger than Vetrov, with a fuller head of hair and eyes that had seen fewer years of bloodshed. This did not stop him from staring warily at Yael and her ax.
“Good afternoon,” she greeted him in Russian. (Another gift from the Babushka, passed to her word by word during Barrack 7’s frigid nights. Honed into perfect accent and syntax, years later, by Vlad. In this moment, Yael thanked both wolves for it.)
The sound of his mother tongue from an old woman’s lips put the officer at ease. His hand slid off his holster. His eyes ranged down the pitiful row of houses, taking in their caved roofs and sagging window frames. “Are you alone, Grandmother?”
“Da.” Yael nodded. “For many years. The National Socialists killed my family and my neighbors while I hid in the cellar. Then they left this place and forgot it.”
The Soviet commander kept staring down the main path. Was he noticing Luka’s faint, too-large footprints along the borders of the cabins? Was he questioning the depth of her wrinkles against the harshness of the surrounding wilderness?
Yael’s hands tightened around the ax handle.
The officer’s stare turned back to her. Yael became all too aware of the military-grade boots and leather jacket under her blanket. One flutter of breeze is all it would take for her story to unravel.
“What happened to your face?” he asked.
My face? Oh, right, her face. In all the fretting over Felix’s wounds, Yael had almost forgotten her own. The days had been mirrorless, and she had no idea how badly the SS-Standartenführer’s fist had messed up her features. “My steps aren’t so steady anymore,” she told him. “I fell.”
The officer’s mouth wilted into a frown. Behind him the soldiers were starting to climb out of the trucks, stretching their limbs and walking about.
“I have a medic in my company,” the commander said. “Let him examine your face.”
—DO NOT LET THEM GET CLOSE—
But they already were close. The fact that the soldiers’ footprints covered Luka’s was a useless comfort as they drew nearer to her smoking cabin and its dingy windows and the two very recognizable German boys.
“Nyet, nyet.” Yael shook her head, drew the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. “Thank you, comrade. But I don’t need your help. I’m used to being alone. I prefer it.”
After a pause, the officer nodded. “Forgive me, Grandmother. I know this must be a shock. My comrades and I have been pushing hard for days, and we need a short respite. We’ll camp for the night and be out by dawn. I assure you my soldiers will be of no bother to you.”
“Thank you, comrade.” Yael—amazed at the boldness of her own lies and the ease with which the young officer chose to accept them—rested her hatchet against the cabin.
It was at that very moment Felix Wolfe chose to scream.
The sound was stripped of words—torturous, undeniable. Yael’s heart stuttered. She wished, very much, that she hadn’t let go of the ax handle, but retrieving the weapon would’ve done little good. A whole unit of soldiers faced her, armed to the teeth. A handful rushed toward the cabin, breaking down its door with a single kick. In seconds they returned with a foulmouthed Luka. Felix was carried out, too, still howling in his bloodstained parachute.
One of the men nodded at Felix’s Hitler Youth uniform. “They’re National Socialists, Comrade Commander Pashkov!”
“Not simply National Socialists,” the commander said as he stared at the boys. “They’re Axis Tour racers. The very same ones who slipped out of Vetrov’s grasp.” He turned back to Yael. “What strange company you keep, Grandmother.”
Another pair of soldiers grabbed Yael. Her blanket twisted off, landing in a heap by her boots.
—FIGHT RUN RUN RUN GET OUT AS FAST AS YOU CAN—
She didn’t try to fight or run. Her thoughts grasped for an excuse that might get her and Luka and Felix out of this alive.
“And what strange clothes you wear.” Pashkov stared at Yael as if she were some fairy-tale creature, set to vanish if he blinked. “Vetrov said the racers had a face-changer among them. A girl who called herself Volchitsa. He also said she spoke flawless Russian.”
A dozen watered-down lies flowed through Yael’s head—I don’t know them; they’re not who you think they are; we’re seeking asylum in Novosibirsk—none of them good enough.
She dropped the old woman’s appearance, features smoothing back to default. Not Yael’s birth face, but her barest one: blank-slate hair and skin, eyes made of the most brilliant blue. One hundred soldiers watched this shift—ancient crone de-aging into young, supple thing. Every one of them reacted the exact same way: not at all. It was the same response she’d received from Comrade Commander Vetrov when she changed in front of him. Aweless, fearless, nothing.
Luka was the only one who spoke, muttering something about a “tough crowd” before a soldier shoved him to the ground, barking “SILENCE!” in a language the victor could not understand.
“Quiet, Luka,” Yael instructed him.
His eyes met hers. He gave a slight nod.
There was nothing to be done about Felix. His wail was now a whimper. His injured hand hung off the parachute. The surrounding soldiers frowned at the blood-soaked splint, noses scrunched at the smell.
Yael turned back to the commander. “We’re not your enemy.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” Pashkov said, then shifted his attention to his men. “Take Löwe and the sick boy back into the warmth. Watch the face-changer until I return. I must radio Novosibirsk. They’ll want to know what we’ve found.”