The Darkest Hour(21)

I duck from one soldier’s outstretched hands and drive the heel of my palm into his nose. Blood pours out of his nostrils and I hear him curse, but a broken nose won’t be enough to stop him. I ram an elbow into his gut, and when he stumbles back I clip him on the head with one fierce kick, knocking him unconscious. Next to me, Sabine punches Schuster in the throat—I see a little satisfied smirk on her face—and she brings a knee into his groin. He crumbles onto the floor, but before she can finish him off with the single-shot pistol pen from her blouse lapel another soldier charges toward her, and he receives a bullet in the forehead instead. The Nazis open fire.

“The case!” Sabine hisses at me.

I leap for the guitar case and throw it open, but Captain Oster yanks me by the arm before I can reach for the secret compartment. I’m ready to punch him when he says, “Who are you?”

Before I can respond, a gurgle comes out of his mouth, followed by a splatter of blood. The drops spray onto my blouse, and then his whole body careens forward, tumbling next to my feet. There’s a bullet hole in the back of his head, round and gaping. I look up to find Sabine tossing one pen aside and pulling out another.

“Move!” she says.

There’s no time to gape at what’s left of Captain Oster. While we dodge gunfire, I fire off both of my single-shot pens before grabbing the two loaded pistols from the case. I toss one to Sabine. We take aim and hit a soldier in the chest, but their shots keep coming, whistling closer and closer to our ears.

“We have to get off!” I shout over the gunfire. The train is picking up speed. If we don’t escape soon, we’ll break our legs trying to make the jump and the Nazis will happily arrest us—and I’m sure they won’t reset our broken bones.

“Get the tear gas ready!” Sabine says. “I’ll cover you.”

There’s no time to discuss other options. I dart for the back of the car, but a soldier’s fingers claw at my ankle, trying to trip me. I yank out the sheathed dagger at my thigh and slash open his knuckles. He cries out and lets me go, and I sprint down the walkway, leaving behind my guitar case and the valise full of Fleurette’s silks. Bolting through the door, I scurry into the narrow vestibule between the train cars. I use one hand to fumble for my tear gas pen while the other hand fires my remaining rounds to cover for Sabine. A heartbeat later, she hurls herself through the door, landing hard next to me with her purse bundled under her arm.

“Now!” she says.

I yank off the pen cap, which sets off the canister of gas inside of it, and I toss it back into the first-class car. A white gas spews forth, and I hear the soldiers screaming and coughing before I slam the door behind us. The tear gas should buy us some time, but how much of it I don’t know. A few minutes at most.

“This way!” Sabine says.

For once, I listen to her without protesting. I hike up my skirt to free my legs, and we speed into the next car, leaping over the surprised passengers and their luggage that idles in the aisle. When we reach the end of the train, I hear a faint shout far behind us.

“They’re coming!” I yell to Sabine. Two soldiers are stumbling toward us, still coughing from the gas but pursuing us nonetheless. I throw my dagger at the first, and the blade hits home, plunging below his collarbone. He falls to his knees with a scream, but the other soldier merely leaps over him and keeps coming for us.

“To the back!” Sabine tells me.

We hurtle through the door that leads outside. The wind snatches at our hair and tosses strands of our wigs into our faces. I tear the whole thing off and let it fly out of my hands. The ground beneath us is a dizzying blur, and I remember the L pill in my pocket, but we can still make it off this train. Sabine pushes me forward until my stomach hits the metal railing, the last barrier between me and the tracks.

“Don’t lock your knees,” she tells me.

“Wait—”

“There’s no time!” She turns back to fire a round, and I quash the alarm lodged in my throat.

Calm and collected.

Calm and collected.

Oh, never mind.

I clamber over the rail. The wind blasts against my body, stealing tears from my eyes, and even though I haven’t done it in months, I make the sign of the cross.

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” I whisper.

With that prayer on my lips, I jump.





It’s a matter of seconds between jumping and landing, but I have to make each one of them count. During training in Washington, DC, we spent an entire week leaping out of moving cars to prepare for a moment like this. I racked up plenty of cuts to show for it, too, but this is no training exercise with a soft pallet to catch my fall. The ground rushes up, full of weeds and rock and hard earth, and I scramble to remember what I was taught.

Bend my knees.

Protect my head.

Twist my body around, preparing to roll when I land. If I don’t, I could snap an arm or ankle. Or even my neck.

I hold my breath and wait for the impact. When it comes, the air gets knocked out of my lungs. I tumble over the grass, bruises forming with each collision. My head spins, and it keeps on spinning long after I come to a stop at the bottom of the muddy hill.

Seconds pass before I can breathe again. I’m lying on my stomach with my face smashed against a slick of mud. I clench my fingers and toes. Nothing appears broken, but when I try to sit up my vision goes sideways and I throw up the meager breakfast I had at headquarters. My forehead sinks back into the mud, and I tell myself to get up. The train might be gone, but it won’t take long before the Nazis double back to find us. And that’s when I hear a scream.