The rain masked their footsteps.
Isa kept her head down, clutching the satchel of medical supplies to her chest as she followed Elias through the abandoned checkpoint. The night pressed in close—thick with fog and the scent of rusted metal.
“Second guard’s shift ends in five minutes,” he whispered. “We move before they know we’re not theirs.”
She nodded. No questions. She had learned that with Elias—he gave only what was necessary, trusted her to understand the rest.
The mission was simple on paper: retrieve wounded operatives from a safe house beyond the ridge and bring them back across contested territory. But maps didn’t show shattered bridges, mines that clicked under the wrong foot, or the fact that the uniforms they wore didn’t quite match the region.
Two steps off and they’d be shot as spies.
Elias halted and lifted his fist. She crouched instinctively behind the crumbling brick wall.
Voices.
Two soldiers. Speaking Czech. Laughing about a girl in Prague, completely unaware they were thirty feet from the enemy.
Isa’s pulse raced. She gripped the satchel tighter.
Elias turned his head slightly, not to speak, just to check if she was still there. She met his eyes and gave the faintest nod. He didn’t smile—but something shifted. A flicker of respect, or maybe recognition.
She’s not afraid.
When the soldiers passed, Elias moved again, silent as smoke. They crossed the last stretch to the safe house, where the air reeked of disinfectant, blood, and desperation.
Two men waited inside. One was already dead.
Isa didn’t flinch. She knelt beside the second man, opening her kit. “Shrapnel in the leg. Fever. Delirium.”
Elias stayed by the door, rifle ready. “We have nine minutes. Can he walk?”
“If I stabilize the leg, maybe.”
She worked fast, hands steady. No panic. No words. Just movement, breath, blood.
Elias watched her like she was made of glass, but also like she was something dangerous.
As they carried the soldier between them back into the wet dark, Isa finally spoke.
“You don’t blink when bullets fly,” she said.
Elias glanced sideways. “You don’t scream when men die.”
A pause. Then:
“Maybe we’re both ghosts already.”
The fire crackled low, casting golden light across the stone walls of the safehouse. The wounded soldier slept in the next room, leg bandaged, fever broken for now. Rain tapped the roof like soft footsteps.
Isa sat on the floor, sleeves rolled, arms streaked with dried blood. She didn’t speak. Neither did Elias. They hadn’t since they carried the soldier back. Silence had become their language.
Elias sat opposite her, legs stretched out, back resting against the crumbling fireplace. His rifle leaned against the wall, but his eyes weren’t watching the door. They were watching her.
“You stitched his leg like you’ve done it a hundred times,” he said.
“I have,” Isa replied, rubbing her hands together. “I lost count after eighty-three.”
“Eighty-three.” He said it like he didn’t quite believe her. Not because it wasn’t true—but because it was.
She looked up at him. “How many have you watched die?”
He didn’t answer. Not right away. Then:
“Too many. Not enough.”
The fire popped. Isa leaned her head back against the stone. “You ever think about leaving?”
“All the time.”
“And yet you stay.”
Elias’s jaw flexed. “There’s a difference between running and surviving. I don’t get to do either. I have a job.”
She turned to look at him more directly now. “Is that all you are, Elias Dvorák? A job?”
For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer.
But then he said, softly, “No one’s ever asked me that before.”
Something hung between them then—not silence, but a stillness. A shared knowing. The kind that can only come after you’ve crossed into danger and come back breathing, side by side.
Isa stood, walked to the fire, and sat closer. Not touching him. Just near enough that their shoulders shared warmth.
“You smell like smoke,” she said.
“So do you,” he replied.
She smiled faintly, and for the first time, so did he—small, lopsided, tired.
“I can’t promise much,” he said after a long pause. “But if I die, it won’t be with your name forgotten.”
She met his eyes. “You’d better not die at all.”
He didn’t answer, but the way his gaze lingered said he would try—for her.
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