Page 28 of The Secrets We Left Behind
“Are you a child in a woman’s body?” Harry interrupted. “Of all the ridiculous, reckless,stupidgoddamn things—”
“Enough!” Elise shouted. “You don’t talk to my sister like that.”
“Are you saying she’s not a child?” Harry asked, shaking his head. “Because what she’s done ...”
“I’m sorry,” Addy cried. “I’m so sorry but he begged me and I just couldn’t keep saying no.”
“I thought I could trust you,” Elise said, shaking her head. “Adelaide, this has compromised us.”
Addy shook her head, defiant, not ready to accept her sister’s scolding. “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. If you’d seen him, if you’d listened to him, truly listened to him—”
“Adelaide,” Elise said, rising and reaching for her gun, putting it back on the table. “I did listen to him, and he wasn’t capable of making that decision.”
“And I can tell you right now,” Harry said, tears shining in his eyes, “that you’ve just sent Peter to his death.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
CATE
It had been harder than she’d thought to stay hidden. German soldiers were everywhere, and every voice whispering to her on the wind or sound of footfalls or vehicles had Cate’s heart pounding and her teeth chattering. Darkness was their friend, though, and as the German army continued to force the British soldiers toward the beach at Dunkirk, the closer they got to Le Paradis, the easier it became—although Cate knew that the area was probably crawling with the enemy, which meant she could never relax, not even for a second. Every noise forced her to swallow away a tide of anxiety, and every time she felt a vibration through the ground, she thought of the buildings they’d seen reduced to rubble, some of them half-blown apart and exposed like the insides of doll houses. It was horrific.
“Do you think there’s much further to go?” Cate whispered to Jack as they leaned against a tree to catch their breath. What she wanted to ask was how long he thought they could continue, because she was within an inch of collapse, which made her wonder how on earth he kept putting one foot in front of the other.
Her stomach growled; she hadn’t eaten since Dunkirk, and she was beyond hungry.
“Not far,” he said with a grunt.
Cate could hear the strain in his voice, and she inched closer to him. “How’s your pain?”
“I’m fine.”
Liar.She doubted very much that he was fine, but she chose to ignore it. For now, they had to keep moving; it was the only way they had a chance of survival. Cate had no idea how they’d managed to stay alive for so long. Under the cover of darkness, they’d managed to silently amble along, but now, as the sun was starting to lighten the sky again, she knew they had to find somewhere to keep themselves hidden.
“Jack, don’t you think we should find somewhere to rest?” she asked. “I have no idea how far Le Paradis is, but we’re moving so slowly and ...” Fear laced her voice, and so she shut her mouth, not even sure what she was trying to say.
“Yes,” he said, surprising her. “We need to find somewhere we can survive until nightfall again.”
Cate’s heart sank. Agreeing was one thing, but where would they go? They hadn’t passed anywhere safe for hours, although it had been dark and they hadn’t exactly been able to scan their surroundings, and with the exception of climbing a tree, she was out of ideas. Even if Jack managed to climb high enough with her, come daylight they’d easily be seen if anyone looked up, like ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. She shuddered at the thought. Where was another barn when they needed one?
“Where will we hide this time?” she asked, trying to disguise the shake in her voice.
Jack reached for her hand, his palm warm to hers as they shivered beneath the blanket together, still draped across theirshoulders. “We keep moving until we find somewhere,” he said. “Trust me.”
She did trust him, but it wasn’t helping her deep-seated fear. They started to walk again, and Cate found that her eyes were able to adjust more readily as the sky began to turn pink and give them the smallest amount of light to move by. But as welcome as that was, it also signaled how little time they had left to hide.
She looked around at the trees and bushes, seeing nothing that looked suitable, but then she heard a sound that put the fear of God himself inside her. Jack’s hand shot out to stop her from moving.
“Get down,” he ordered, and they both dropped low, crawling on their hands and knees. As she looked down, she caught sight of the criss-crosses of blood welded across her skin, and for a fleeting moment she wondered if there were tiny bits of glass stuck there from when they’d jumped out the window. She was so tired, and suddenly she became fixated on the glass she couldn’t see, wanting to pick at her skin to remove it, to give her something else to focus on other than staying alive and surviving the gut-deep pain of starvation.
The familiar sound of gunfire made her ears prick, pulling her from her sleep-deprived thoughts, but it was the sound of a vehicle that jarred her the most.
“Could it be friendly?” she whispered to Jack, worried that she could see him too clearly now. It was far too light for them to be out in the open; they needed to be well-hidden already.
“It could be a dispatch driver, but more likely it’s the Nazis,” he said.
They kept crawling in the grass, heads down, although Cate secretly wondered if they were equally as obvious as they would have been walking, but she didn’t say so. A voice in her head told her that crawling was as naïve as a baby covering its eyes with its chubby hands and expecting to be hidden from sight. When theycame to a fence, Jack indicated for her to climb through, which she did, thankful for the long grass to obscure them at least slightly from view.
But there was no barn or farmhouse for them to seek sanctuary in, and her heart sank as she surveyed the land around them.
