Page 85 of The Secrets We Left Behind
“Are you alone?”
Elise held her breath and Cate stiffened beside her.
“I am alone. I’ve been on the run for weeks, I survived the fight at Le Paradis.”
“You’re sure there’s no one else with you?” The flashlight the officer held passed nearby, covering the grass and moving over the window Elise had been looking out of only moments earlier.
“All my unit was killed, it’s only me. I’m the only one left.”
Perhaps they didn’t believe him, or there was a tell in the way he spoke, because the light cast nearby again. It flashed through the door, passing so close that it made the two horses in the barn restless. She wanted to leap to her feet and run straight out the door to get as far away from the Nazis as she could, and if the soldiers hadn’t had a dog with them, she would have. But the thought of trying to outrun a big German shepherd, or having the beast rip poor little Oscar to shreds if she dropped her bag, kept her flat to the ground.
“It wasn’t your pretty little girlfriend back in Le Paradis, was it? The fancy blonde?”
Elise’s blood ran cold then, and Cate was suddenly half on top of her, her fingers curled across Elise’s mouth, pinning her down and keeping her quiet.
“Shhh,” Cate murmured, barely audible, in her ear.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry said, followed by a loud grunt. She almost felt his pain, knew they’d likely punched or hit him with something in the stomach for simply looking at them.
“Commander Schmidt put a bullet through that pretty little head of hers for betraying him.” Both officers laughed. “Ruined her golden hair, otherwise we might have all had a turn with her.”
Vomit rose in Elise’s throat and she pushed Cate’s hand away, fighting against the desire to be sick. She stayed low, on her knees, shaking as she dug her nails into the hay. Violent spasms wracked her body, her head pounding so hard she thought it was going to explode as she fought to stay silent, to not react violently and furiously to what she’d just heard.
Adelaide is dead. Her beautiful, loving, innocent sister hadn’t betrayed them; she’d been killed trying to do what she thought was best. She’d been murdered for trying to help.
The laughter from the officers filled the night air, obviously thinking they’d captured Adelaide’s true lover, and not knowing that the person who would suffer the most from their news was lying hidden in the dark.
She felt for Oscar in her bag, taking comfort from the softness of his fur, knowing that she’d been right. Adelaide would never have let him go, she would have searched to the end of the earth for the little dog, and she cried silently against him, her tears leaving his fur wet and matted.
“She never betrayed us,” Cate whispered, folding her arms around her. “She was loyal right to the end.”
If only I hadn’t let her go. If only I’d found a way to get her on the boat.
Elise was numb, her nails digging into the dirt now, and when they couldn’t hear the officers any longer, Cate hauled her up, holding her until she was steady on her feet.
“I’m so sorry,” Cate whispered, her embrace warm and so full of love that Elise just wanted to collapse into her.
She held her for only a few seconds before letting go.
“Elise, we have to go as soon as they move on.”
Cate didn’t need to tell her twice. They might not make it to the beach, but they certainly couldn’t turn around and go back home, either. And she wasn’t letting those bastards drag her back to Wolfgang, not until she had a way of getting revenge, of doing something to wipe that self-assured smile off his perfectly Aryan face.
But another sob erupted from deep within her then, as reality hit her hard, the truth of what had happened like a weight crushing her to the ground.
Adelaide is dead.
She shook her head as if it might help shift the thoughts, but the words just kept repeating over and over in her mind.
Harry is gone. Adelaide is dead.
They only had one chance at this now, and they had to make it count.
She stifled her sobs, each one bigger and harder to swallow than the last, and forced herself to her feet. This was it, and she wasn’t going to let Adelaide’s death be for nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CATE
