Chapter 18 Thomas
Thomas
Otto was dead weight against my back as we ran, his blood soaking through my coat, his breath barely a whisper against my ear. I didn’t know how much longer he could hold on.
I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on.
Still, I ran.
Will was ahead of me, the Baroness cradled in his arms, his legs churning through the snow. Bisch brought up the rear, limping badly now, his pistol empty but still clutched in his hand like a talisman.
The trees blurred past. Branches whipped my face and left stinging trails I could barely feel. My lungs burned. My legs screamed.
Behind us, searchlights swept the mountainside.
I could hear engines—vehicles mobilizing, pursuit organizing.
They would find our trail soon. Snow held footprints like a confession.
“There,” Bisch gasped. “The car.”
Otto’s Mercedes, still waiting where he’d left it. It was little more than a dark shape against darker trees, but it was a promise of escape.
Will reached it first, yanked open the back door, and laid the Baroness across the seat with desperate gentleness. I followed, sliding Otto in beside her.
Bisch was already behind the wheel.
The engine roared to life.
“Get in!”
I threw myself into the passenger seat. Will dove in back, pulled the door shut behind him.
Gravel sprayed.
Tires screamed.
The Mercedes lurched forward, fishtailing on the icy road before Bisch brought it under control. Then we were flying, hurtling down the mountain road at speeds that should have killed us.
I twisted to look back.
Through the rear window, I could see lights cresting the ridge. They bobbed and shifted, almost in a panicked pattern.
Headlights.
“They’re coming,” I said.
“I see them.” Bisch’s knuckles were white on the wheel. “Hold on.”
The road twisted, dropped, then doubled back on itself.
Bisch drove like a man possessed.
The Baroness moaned softly.
Will was bent over her, checking her pulse, murmuring words I couldn’t hear.
“How is she?” I asked.
“She’s alive.” His voice cracked.
Otto hadn’t made a sound since we’d loaded him in. I reached back, found his hand, felt for a pulse.
It took a second to find it, but it was there, faint and irregular, but there.
“Otto’s hanging on.”
“He is too stubborn to die,” Bisch said. It might have been a joke, though it didn’t sound like one.
The headlights behind us grew smaller.
The curves were working in our favor. They couldn’t see us long enough to close the distance. And Bisch knew this road.
Five minutes passed. Then ten.
The pursuit lights disappeared entirely.
“Did we lose them?” I asked.
“For now.” Bisch didn’t slow down. “They will have radios. They will call ahead. We cannot go to any hospital, any police station, anywhere official. We should not go to any nearby town either.”
“Then where?”
“I know a doctor. Outside Bern.” Bisch’s eyes never left the road. “He will ask no questions.”
I slumped back in my seat and let myself breathe for the first time since the lights went out in that cell.
We were alive. Against all odds, against all reason, we were alive.
The Baroness. Otto. Bisch. Will.
All of us, still breathing.
My shoulder pulsed with something adrenaline hadn’t let me feel until that moment of calm. I was covered in the blood of another and hadn’t thought any of it was my own. A hole in my skin the size of my little finger oozed red-black. For some reason, looking at it made the pain suddenly real.
“Damn it.” I ground my teeth. My next thought was that Will would never let me live this down, getting shot on yet another mission. A laugh tumbled out of me.
“What?” Will leaned forward, his eyes taking in my face before falling to my shoulder. “Oh, shit, Thomas!”
“I’m okay, really. It’s—”
I let my head fall back and tried not to think about how bad it hurt as the road ahead fuzzed and faded to black.