Chapter 25 Crimson Sky
TWENTY-FIVE
CRIMSON SKY
TOM
I'd been halfway across the courtyard when the sirens screamed again, a second wave tearing through the blackout sky like God's own fury.
The first bomb hit somewhere beyond the perimeter, a dull crump that shook the earth beneath my boots, and then the world fractured into noise and fire and the smell of cordite thick enough to choke on.
“Down!” I bellowed at the young lance corporal stumbling beside me, a boy who couldn't be more than nineteen with eyes too wide and hands fumbling at his rifle strap.
I grabbed a fistful of the lad's collar and threw us both behind the low stone wall edging the chapel path.
We hit frozen ground hard, my shoulder screaming where old shrapnel wounds remembered every impact, and overhead the whine of falling ordnance split the air like a saw through bone.
The second bomb landed closer. Much closer.
Hut X.
My heart stopped. Just stopped, ice flooding my chest, because Art was in Hut X.
Art had been working on that intercept, the one Finch had given him, convinced his patterns mattered more than shelter.
Ruth had told me he'd cracked it, had sent her running to Finch with the decoded intelligence while he stayed behind to pull the final details.
Stayed behind. In a building now taking direct hits.
“Sarge!” The lance corporal was pressed against me, breath coming in panicked gasps. “Sarge, what do we—“
“Stay down.” My voice came out rough, mechanical.
My hands moved on instinct, checking the boy for injuries, scanning the courtyard through smoke that rolled thick as London fog.
Flames licked up from somewhere near the motor pool, painting the snow in shades of orange and red.
Glass littered the ground like stars fallen wrong, crunching under boots as figures ran through the chaos.
Another plane roared overhead, low enough that I could see the black cross on its belly.
Low enough to shoot at, if I had a clear line and the rifle in my hands instead of tucked inside by the security office.
My fingers itched for it, muscle memory screaming that I was naked without the weight of the weapon, vulnerable in a way that made my skin crawl.
Then I saw it: the gunner's position hanging open on the plane's underside, a figure leaning out, muzzle flash lighting up the darkness as they strafed towards the manor.
I was moving before thought caught up. Yanked the lance corporal's rifle from his shaking hands, dropped to one knee, and brought the scope to my eye.
The world narrowed. Breath, heartbeat, the cold kiss of metal against my cheek.
The plane banked, trying to line up another run, and for half a second the gunner was perfectly framed, backlit by his own fire.
I squeezed the trigger.
The gunner jerked, slumped, and the stream of bullets went wide, chewing up snow and dirt thirty yards from the nearest hut. The plane veered off, engines screaming, disappearing into the smoke and darkness beyond the tree line.
“Christ,” the lance corporal breathed. “You just—“
“Go.” I shoved the rifle back at him. “Get to the shelters. Now.”
“But Sarge—“
“Go!”
The boy went, scrambling across the courtyard with his head down and his shoulders hunched. I watched him go for half a second, then turned towards Hut X and started running.
Debris everywhere. A section of the manor's east wing had collapsed, stones and timber spilling across what used to be the formal gardens.
Windows blown out all along the ground floor, blackout curtains hanging in shreds, and somewhere underneath it all someone was screaming, high and thin and endless.
I registered it, filed it away, kept moving.
Medics would get to them. Or they wouldn't. Right now there was only one person I gave a damn about.
My boots hit ice and I nearly went down, caught myself on the corner of a wall that was still standing.
My hands came away wet. Not water. Blood, dark and sticky in the firelight.
My stomach lurched but I shoved it down, shoved everything down except the need to move, to get there, to find Art and drag him out if the whole bloody estate came down around us.
Hut X was destroyed.
I stopped running. Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Just stood there staring at what had been a building and was now a mountain of shattered wood and broken beams, smoke rising from the wreckage in lazy spirals that caught the firelight and turned it hellish.
The near corner had taken a direct hit. Roof gone entirely, walls collapsed inward, desks and papers and everything that had been inside now just debris. The far end was still partially standing, one wall upright through some miracle of physics, but the rest...
“No.” The word came out airless. “No, no, no—“
I was climbing before I knew I'd started. Hauling myself over broken timber, shoving aside chunks of plaster, cutting my hands on shattered glass and not caring because somewhere under all of this was Art. Had to be. Had to be alive, had to be breathing, had to be—
“Art!” My voice came out hoarse, scraped raw. “Art, can you hear me?”
Nothing. Just the creak of settling wood and the distant wail of sirens and my own pulse hammering in my ears.
“Art!” Louder now, desperate. “Answer me! Please, God, answer me!”
A sound. Faint, muffled, but definitely a sound. A cough. Weak and wet, coming from somewhere beneath a fallen beam near what had been the back wall.
I moved faster than I'd ever moved in my life.
“Art! I'm coming! Hold on!”
The beam was massive. Oak, thick as my thigh, pinning down a section of collapsed ceiling. I grabbed it, pulled, felt my muscles scream and my back protest and didn't care, didn't care about anything except getting to the sound of that cough.
“Tom...” Art's voice, barely there, coming from the darkness beneath the rubble. “Tom, I can't... I can't move...”
“I know. I know. Just hold on. I'm getting you out.”
The beam shifted. An inch. Two. I braced my legs, pulled harder, and something in my shoulder popped in a way that would hurt later but right now was just noise. The beam moved again, enough to create a gap, enough to see—
Art.
Pinned beneath the debris, face grey with dust and blood, one arm twisted at an angle that made my stomach turn. His eyes were open, blinking slow and unfocused, and in his good hand he clutched a crumpled piece of paper like it was the only thing keeping him alive.
“Art.” I dropped to my knees beside him, hands already moving, checking for injuries even as my vision blurred at the edges. “Art, look at me. Stay with me.”
“Tom.” His voice was a rasp. “You came.”
“Of course I came. You think I'd leave you under a collapsed building? What kind of bloody idiot do you take me for?”
He laughed. Or tried to. It turned into a cough that brought blood to his lips, and my heart clenched so tight I thought it might stop entirely.
“The intercept,” Art said, shoving the crumpled paper toward me with shaking fingers. “I finished it. The decryption. Finch needs to see. Two-wave attack, the second wave follows pathfinder markers, if we kill the lights and move the decoys—“
“Art, I don't care about the intercept right now—“
“I do.” His eyes focused, sharp despite the pain. “People will die if Finch doesn't get this. Please, Tom. Take it to him. Then come back for me.”
“I'm not leaving you.”
“You have to.” His good hand found mine, gripped with surprising strength. “I cracked it. I finally cracked it. All those patterns, all those hours. This is what they were for. This saves people.” His breath hitched. “Let me save people, Tom. Please.”
I looked at the paper in his hand. Looked at his face, grey and bloodied and so determined it broke my heart. Looked at the rubble still pinning him down, the beam I couldn't lift alone, the fires burning all around us.
“I'll get help,” I said. “I'll take this to Finch and I'll bring people back to dig you out. But you have to stay awake, Art. You hear me? You don't get to close your eyes.”
“Wouldn't dream of it.” His smile was weak, pained, but real. “Go. Save the world. Then come back and save me.”
I took the paper. Pressed my forehead to his for one desperate second, breathing in dust and blood and the smell of him underneath it all.
“I love you,” I said, and the words came out rough and broken. “You hear me? I love you, Arthur Pembroke. So don't you dare die before I get back.”
“I love you too.” His fingers tightened on mine, then released. “Now go.”
I went.
Running through the chaos, paper clutched in my fist, dodging debris and flames and people who called out to me for help I couldn't give. Finch. Had to find Finch. Had to get this intelligence to someone who could use it before the second wave arrived and turned everything to ash.
Found him near the manor entrance, coordinating defensive response, his face grey with exhaustion and his uniform torn. He looked up as I skidded to a stop in front of him.
“Hale. Report.”
“Pembroke cracked the intercept.” Shoved the paper at him. “Two-wave attack. First wave is pathfinders marking targets. Second wave follows in fifteen minutes to bomb whatever the pathfinders identified. If we kill all lights, move the emergency markers to decoy positions—“
“We can confuse their targeting.” Finch grabbed the paper, scanned it rapidly. I watched understanding dawn on his face. “This is it. This is everything.”
“He's still in there.” My voice cracked. “Art's trapped under the rubble. I need men to dig him out.”
Finch looked at me. Looked at the paper. Made a decision.
“Kill all lights!” he roared to the officers around him. “Emergency blackout, now! Move the decoy markers to secondary positions! And get a rescue team to Hut X, we have personnel trapped!”
Officers scattered. Finch turned back to me, and something in his expression shifted.
“Go,” he said. “Get him out. I'll handle this.”
I didn't wait to be told twice.
Back through the chaos, back to Hut X, where a group of soldiers was already converging on the wreckage. I pushed through them, dropped to my knees beside the gap where I'd left Art.
“Art! Art, I'm back! Help is here!”
No answer.
My blood went cold.
“Art!” Louder, desperate. “Art, answer me!”
Silence. Then, faint, so faint I almost missed it: “Still here. Just... resting my eyes.”
“You promised you wouldn't close your eyes.”
“Didn't close them. Just... rested them. There's a difference.”
Relief hit so hard I nearly collapsed. “You stubborn bastard.”
“Takes one to know one.” His voice was weaker now, each word an effort. “Did Finch get it?”
“He got it. Lights are going out all over the estate. They're moving the decoys.”
“Good. That's... that's good.” A pause. “Tom? I'm very tired.”
“I know. Just hold on a little longer. We're almost there.”
The soldiers were working now, hauling debris, shifting beams. Someone found a lever point that let us move the massive oak timber, and suddenly the pressure was off Art and hands were reaching in to pull him free.
He screamed when they moved him. A horrible sound, torn from somewhere deep, and I was there beside him immediately, holding his good hand, murmuring words that didn't mean anything except I'm here, I'm here, I'm not leaving you.
They got him out. Laid him on a stretcher while Dr Hart appeared from somewhere, already barking orders. I followed as they carried him toward the manor, toward the library that was serving as an impromptu medical station.
“Broken arm,” Dr Hart said, fingers moving efficiently. “Possible internal bleeding. Concussion, almost certainly. He needs surgery I can't do here.”
“He'll live?” My voice didn't sound like mine.
Dr Hart looked at me, and something in her expression softened. “He's young and strong and too stubborn to die. Yes, Sergeant. He'll live.”
The relief was a physical thing, buckling my knees. I caught myself on the doorframe, breathing hard, and felt tears burn hot and sudden in my eyes.
Art was alive. Broken and bleeding and barely conscious, but alive.
Above us, the drone of aircraft engines faded. The second wave, confused by killed lights and moved markers, dropping their payload somewhere else. Somewhere that wasn't here. Somewhere that wasn't Art.
We'd done it. He'd done it. Cracked the code, saved the estate, nearly died in the process but lived anyway.
I made my way to the settee where they'd laid him, pushed past the medics who tried to stop me, and took his good hand in both of mine.
“Tom?” Art's voice was slurred, barely conscious.
“I'm here.”
“Did it work? The decoys?”
“It worked. Bombs fell on empty fields. We're safe.”
“Good.” His eyes fluttered. “That's good. I did something useful.”
“You did something brilliant.” My voice broke. “You saved everyone, Art. You saved me.”
“Only fair.” His fingers squeezed mine weakly. “You saved me first.”
I leaned down, pressed my forehead to his, and let myself believe that we were going to be all right. That we'd survived the worst the war could throw at us, and whatever came next, we'd face it together.
“I love you,” I said quietly.
“Love you too.” Art's smile was barely there, but real. “Now stop crying and let me sleep.”
“Bossy even when you're half dead.”
“Someone has to be.”
I laughed, wet and broken, and held onto his hand while the fires burned down outside and the all-clear sounded and the estate began the slow process of putting itself back together.
We'd made it. Against all odds, against everything trying to tear us apart, we'd made it.
And I was never letting him go again.