A blanket lay on the back seat of the automobile, and he used it as a towel. Anton brought clothes stripped from one of the bodies still on the ice, and Filip grabbed a shirt to use as a bandage on her arm, then rubbed her back and shoulders. Her body shook in violent waves.
“We can’t leave any evidence that we were here,” Filip said. Anton would know what to do. All the bodies had to go through the ice. Then they’d drive the automobile to the train and hope no one recognized it. The sun hadn’t yet peeked over the horizon, and the lack of light would be their ally.
“Nadia?” She didn’t respond, but her lungs still pulled air into her body. She was so thin, almost skeletal. As his hands moved over her skin, trying to keep the blood moving, he felt the difference from all his memories. Wherever she’d been the last year, she hadn’t been eating enough.
Anton slipped behind the wheel, and the automobile lurched forward. “All the men were dead. I couldn’t get her coat because it’s frozen onto the ice, but everything else is gone.” Everything but their rifles and the rest of Nadia’s frozen clothes, which Anton had put on the seat beside him. Not so long ago, Filip wouldn’t have relinquished his rifle for anything. Here, he’d almost forgotten about it.
Nadia’s face seemed to turn white instead of blue. “She needs a fire.”
“Here.” Anton handed him a vacuum flask. “See if there’s anything inside.”
It must have belonged to one of the guards. Something swirled within. He opened it, felt steam, and forced small sips into his wife’s mouth. She sputtered, but the movement had to help, didn’t it?
“Nadia?” He tried her name again. She still didn’t reply, but she looked at him for a moment before her eyes closed again. Confusion was normal with cold or with injury, but it was also a sign of danger. Filip held her icy hands under his shirt, trying to warm them. They swayed and jerked in the back of the automobile as Anton sped over the uneven river.
“Can you feel your feet?” Filip grabbed them. They were blue, so he wrapped them and slipped them into a pair of men’s boots.
Her breathing was normal now, and the shakes had turned to shivers. He gathered her up and held her so he could keep her warm, and because he had wanted to pull her close to him since the moment he’d seen her again.
“Filip? How . . . how did you find me?”
Words. Maybe that meant she was out of danger. Filip kept his hands moving, hoping the friction would warm her further, and handed her the flask. She was able to hold it on her own now. “Dalek ran into Orlov. He said you’d been arrested and were to be executed. But we didn’t know where or when. We were in the wrong spot when the headlights turned on. I’m sorry.”
“The other prisoners?”
“Dead. We tried to save them, but we were too late.”
“Orlov? He didn’t come back out of the ice?”
“No.”
“And Nikolai?”
“Who’s Nikolai?”
“My brother. We found each other again. He tried to shield me when they fired. He saved my life, you know. And so did you.”
“You’re the only one we rescued.” They’d barely managed that.
Nadia shivered again, and her teeth chattered. She wasn’t out of danger yet. “What happened to his body?”
“We had to put all the bodies through the ice. Yesterday, the legion made a deal with the Bolsheviks. A truce that lets us leave. If anyone finds out we had a firefight with a Cheka officer and rescued one of his prisoners, we could put the whole legion at risk.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Had Filip known the man who’d shielded her was her brother, he would have buried him properly. Or at least he would have tried, had there been time. But between worry about Nadia freezing and concern that someone would find out what they’d done, time was something they’d had very little of that morning.
She leaned her head on his shoulder. He tightened his embrace, needing to convince himself that she was really there. He closed his eyes for a moment as relief cascaded over him. After all the hurt when he’d thought she’d betrayed him, all the worry when he’d been unsure where to find her, and all the terror as he’d fought to save her from the executioner and the river, she was alive and in his arms.
Chapter Forty-Six
Nadia sat by the hospital car’s stove for a long time, trying to warm herself. Her husband stood beside her. The plunge into the river had numbed her body but not her feelings. She had Filip again, but she’d lost Nikolai. Sokolov and Fedorov too. Relief and joy clashed with grief and horror until she wasn’t sure how to feel, wasn’t sure what to think.
A Czech doctor removed the bullet in her arm and stitched her wound. The pain lingered, but eventually, the cold went away. Her own boots and coat were gone. She wore Filip’s ushanka, one of the Cheka guards’ leather greatcoats, and trousers and gymnastyorka scrounged from somewhere. A pair of boots several sizes too big warmed her feet and stayed on thanks to multiple layers of torn blanket wrapped around her skin in place of socks.