The Darkest Hour(67)

Hand over hand we climb the fence, and once our feet are planted on the other side I finally look back at the laboratory. The lone building above ground is shrouded in fire and smoke, and the soldiers who were stationed up here are running and shouting in disarray. But what can they do? There’s no fire hose big enough or close enough to douse those flames. There should be no survivors, but that doesn’t stop me from looking for her anyway. If anyone could’ve made it, it would’ve been Sabine.

“Lucie?” Tilly comes up behind me, her voice as fragile as a child’s. “Where are we?”

I clutch her hand and lead her away from the fire and the serum and these last nightmarish weeks. We flee into the darkness until I hear nothing but the whir of the wind and the hoot of a bird—and the echo of Sabine’s last cry before she sacrificed her life to save us.

For Jean-Luc.

December 23, 1942

Dear Luce,

I’m beat tired, but I wanted to write you before I hit the sack.

I’ve got bad news. Gordo is gone. One second he was asking me if I had an extra chocolate ration while we were out on patrol, but in the next second he wasn’t saying anything at all. Palmetto, our medic, said that Gordo didn’t suffer. Funny thing is, I don’t have a scratch on me. It doesn’t seem fair.

There is a little bit of good news. I got promoted yesterday to Private First Class. Merry Christmas to me, though I don’t feel much like celebrating. I’d be happy to trade in my new mosquito wings if it meant having Gordo back, but I’m going to keep fighting and showing Hitler what we’re made of. Gordo’s death won’t be for nothing.

There has been talk around camp that we’ll push up into ███ once we’ve taken care of the Germans here. Wonder if the █████ ices there are as good as Mr. Benedetti’s. After that, maybe we’ll head into █████. Remember those bottles we used to throw into the harbor when we were kids? I always hoped that one of them would make it to █████, and now there’s a real chance that I might see ███ and even ████████. I think that would make Maman proud if I made it to her hometown. I think of you both every day.

I hope you’ve forgiven me about getting married. I haven’t heard from you, so I’m betting you’re still mad at me. I get it, but I miss reading your letters, Luce. Maybe that could be your belated Christmas present to me—one letter to tell me that we’re square again.

I wish I could come home to spend the holidays with you all, but give Maman a kiss for me and look in on Ruth if you don’t mind. I’ve asked her to watch your back for me. She’s your sister now. I figure if I can’t be there to scare away Phil Frakes, then she can do it for me.

Say a Hail Mary for me before bed tonight. You promised, remember?

Take care of yourself.

Theo





I flee from the laboratory as fast as my tired legs will go, all the while hauling Tilly along behind me. As we stumble over leaves and stones, I try to remember Laurent’s parting words, reaching for them like a life raft. We have to find our way to his cousin’s home in Stenay. There’s no other place for us to go. It’s too much of a risk to hide at Laurent’s, not to mention the fact that he lives hours away by car, and there’s nothing left of headquarters to return to.

We won’t be safe anywhere in France, I realize. Even if we reach Stenay without getting arrested, we can’t stay there for long. Not without papers. Not with Tilly so broken. Somehow we need to find our way to London. There’s an OSS office in the city where we can stay and recover. How exactly we’ll get there … well, I’ll figure that out. One step at a time, I tell myself.

It takes us three full days to reach the tiny village of Stenay, even though it’s only a dozen miles from the laboratory. To avoid the Nazis and their search dogs, we travel solely at night. We hide whenever a truck rolls past. We scrape by on stolen food and sips of rainwater. We don’t sleep. At least I don’t sleep. Tilly manages to sneak in a few naps, but I can’t risk letting her out of my sight, so I have to do without. With her mind still muddled by the serum, she has already tried twice to run back to the laboratory. I had to pull her into a ditch and put her in a chokehold until she fell unconscious, which I hated myself for doing, but I didn’t have another choice. Dr. Nacht was so close in turning her into his “masterpiece.” If Sabine hadn’t broken us out in time …

Sabine’s last words ring in my ears, but I need to silence them for now. I have to get Tilly and myself to safety first—everything else can come later.

Tired and hungry, we reach Stenay as a summer storm swoops in over our heads. The rain falls in great pellets, so heavy that we might as well be walking through water, leaving us soaked and clammy. Tilly clutches on to me like a child, muttering how we’d be dry if we were back at the lab, and for a second I almost agree with her and turn us around. A question floats up into my mind: Why did we leave the laboratory in the first place? We were well taken care of by Dr. Nacht and Nurse Keser. They only wanted to help us.

No. I blink and shove those thoughts away. Despite the antidote Sabine gave me, there are times when I can feel the remnants of the serum whispering to me. I wonder if Dr. Nacht’s voice will always haunt me, and that makes me shiver all over. I remind myself that he’s dead and Sabine blew up his laboratory. Even if Tilly and I wanted to turn around, there’d be nothing left for us there.