“But where would she have gone?”
Dalek looked at the floor again. “The day before you were shot, I saw her talking to an officer in Kolchak’s army. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop—I was just trying to look out for her. It sounded like they were engaged to be married before the war.”
Filip nodded. “She was supposed to marry one of her brother’s friends. She said it wasn’t a love match, but the families were pleased with it.”
“He offered to marry her when they met at the train depot. When she said she was already married, he offered to whisk her off anyway, said he could take care of her current marriage. She told him no. I was proud of her, sticking with you when he was offering luxury, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Not all the Russians who left that morning were going west. Major Petrov was on the eastbound train. It left that morning, a little after you went on patrol. I assumed he was a courier, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Petrov?” In the Ukraine, Nadia had told him her maiden name was Petrova. That was no coincidence. Had she loved her former fiancé more than she’d let on, loved him enough to use his name? “I need to get out of this hospital. Nurse!” he shouted the last bit.
“Are you well enough to leave?”
“Not well enough for patrols but well enough to go back. I have to see for myself.”
Dalek stood. “Filip, there’s nothing to see. Just an empty boxcar. Don’t ruin your health because she’s gone and left you for some tall officer with a rich father.”
Filip didn’t care if the boxcar was empty. He had to know what she had taken and what she had left.
“At least stay in bed until it’s time for the westbound train to depart.”
“I have to be on the next one.” He would wait at the station overnight if needed, anything to get back as soon as possible to the boxcar he’d shared with Nadia.
Dalek stood next to the bed, making it hard for Filip to get out. Probably on purpose. “I’ll fetch you when I find a train. I promise.”
He had the feeling Dalek would stand there for hours, keeping him in bed if he didn’t cooperate. “The very next train.”
“You have my word.”
Filip waited the rest of the afternoon. Nadia couldn’t have left him. They were in love. As soon as the war ended, they would go to Czechoslovakia and have a family together. They knew where they would christen their babies, knew which bakeries they’d patronize, knew which colors of paint they would use in their rooms above the watchmaker’s shop. It was all planned out, and he thought she’d been just as eager as he was to see it through. He’d hurt her by keeping that secret from her, that Kral would have given her refuge even if she hadn’t been married to a legionnaire. But she’d forgiven him—hadn’t she?
Dalek came back just after supper and helped him to the depot. Filip’s shoulder was sore, but his legs worked well enough. Maybe she’d spoken with someone from the patrol and caught a train before she saw Dalek. She might have gotten off at the wrong depot or gotten delayed somewhere. But as long as she found the railroad, she’d come back. Maybe she was waiting for him in their boxcar now.
The journey should have been short, but at one of the depots there was a delay getting wood, and at the next, they had to wait for a special train to go by. When they finally reached the village, it was nearly morning.
The boxcar was cold when he pushed inside. Of course it was. The stove hadn’t burned for almost a week. Dalek started a fire while Filip looked around. He’d left before she had gotten out of bed that fateful morning. He still remembered sitting next to her and kissing her. She’d smiled up at him and run her hand down his back. It had felt normal, part of the richly satisfying routine they’d fallen into.
The bed was made now. The blankets were tidy and the pillows fluffed and untouched. He grabbed Nadia’s and pressed his face into it, trying to catch her scent. Still there but faint.
Half the clothes were gone—hers and a few of his. “If she was running away, why would she take some of my clothes?” It didn’t make sense, so she couldn’t have really left him. She’d just gone to do the laundry.
“Maybe he was deserting and needed something other than his uniform.”
That thought was particularly bitter. Nadia knew how hard it was to get clothing out here. Would she really rob him of trousers and tunic so her former fiancé could blend in with the masses? “I thought you said he was tall.”
Dalek finished with the fire. “Taller than you. But he could wear boots or puttees if the trousers were too short.”
She’d left their cooking supplies, their dishes, their bag of potatoes. They didn’t have much else other than the bed, the table, and the stove. Filip hesitated before looking through her leather case. What he might not find there would confirm his fears. He shifted through the meager contents—letters from Veronika, a newspaper clipping about the founding of Czechoslovakia, sketched out maps, and some Kolchak rubles.
It wasn’t there. And that made everything clear. “The annulment paper is gone. She must have taken it with her.” It wasn’t true anymore, but she’d taken it and left him. Would it have been any different if he hadn’t held back the truth about Kral’s intentions in Piryatin? He should have told her as soon as he’d heard. Or kept it a secret forever. It shouldn’t have mattered. They were in love now—or he was. And she had said she was too.
He sat on the bed. His shoulder ached worse than it had in days, and grief and hurt pulled at him with the weight of a train engine. He thought back to that night when he’d told her. Those minutes when she’d faced away from him. That must have been when she’d made her decision. She’d told Petrov no. Then she’d found out Filip had deceived her, and she’d changed her mind. The rest of the night had been playacting so Filip wouldn’t suspect a thing until she was gone.
He buried his face in his hand as pain of the betrayal closed in around him. Never before had he felt such agony. “I thought she was happy with me.”
Chapter Thirty-One
It was dark when Nadia woke. The wind howled outside, and the men snored nearby. How many days had passed? Six? Seven? Time had become murky after day four when she’d come down with a fever. She shifted on the cold dirt floor. The pain—sharp and achy and internal—wasn’t quite so bad when she moved her legs now. She tried to sit, and unlike the day before, her head didn’t spin. She glanced at the men, wanting to see their location, not their faces. Usually one of them slept in front of the door, but tonight the exit was clear, her dizziness lessened, and the pain from her injuries was no longer crippling.
She’d borrowed Filip’s trousers the morning she’d been abducted. She grabbed them again. Blood stained the fabric, but she pulled them on under her skirts and petticoat. She needed all the layers she could get.
The smoky hut was dim, lit only by dying embers from the large clay oven. It reeked of vodka and unwashed bodies. Thinking of those unwashed bodies almost made her cry. But she couldn’t think about what the men had done to her now. She had to escape.
She stood and held perfectly still. Any moment, one of the bandits sleeping on the long wooden benches would wake and see her. He’d grab her again and—no, she wasn’t going to think about that. The men were brutal and uncivilized and far stronger than she, but they were drunk and would probably sleep until sunrise.
They’d never given her a blanket, so she couldn’t take one with her. It would have been covered in soot and fleas anyway. It might take days to reach the nearest train station, and winter still gripped the steppe, but she wouldn’t stay. Death in the snow was preferable to captivity with beasts like these men.
She wished she’d paid better attention to directions that day they’d taken her, but she’d been dizzy and terrified. She thought they’d gone south, so she would flee north. If she found the train tracks, she could follow them to a depot. Czechoslovaks manned most of the stations, and they’d send word to Filip.