Chapter 27 Chapter 27
The climb felt endless.
By the time they reached the ridge, dawn was only a bruise on the horizon, a thin line of colour over the mist. Nina’s lungs burned; her legs trembled. Adrian’s pace had slowed, the wound in his leg opening again, dark through the torn fabric.
“Another hundred metres,” he said. His voice was rough but sure. “There’s shelter up there.”
The path wound through pines until a shape emerged from the fog—an old stone hut half collapsed on one side. The roof sagged, but the walls still held. Adrian pushed the door open with his shoulder, and the smell of damp wood and moss rolled out.
“It’ll do,” he murmured.
Inside, she found a hearth blackened with soot and a pile of old straw. Adrian eased himself down, jaw clenched. Nina dropped her pack, tore open the first-aid kit, and knelt beside him.
“Hold still.”
He did, watching her hands work. The bleeding had slowed, but the cut was deep; every time she cleaned it, he hissed between his teeth. She wanted to scold him for running, for never stopping long enough to heal, but the words caught in her throat.
When she tied the new bandage, his hand closed briefly around her wrist.
“Thank you,” he said. Simple. Unfamiliar.
“You don’t get to thank me for fixing what you broke,” she replied, trying to sound sharp.
“Then I’ll thank you for staying.”
That silenced her. Outside, the wind pressed against the shutters. The world felt very small inside those four walls.
They built a fire from what wood remained dry. The flames licked up weakly at first, then steadied, painting the cabin gold. For a while, they sat without speaking. Nina could feel the tension leaving her body in waves, replaced by exhaustion so deep it almost hurt.
He broke the silence first. “When you ran by the river, you didn’t look back.”
“I thought looking back might stop me.”
He nodded slowly. “It was the right call.”
“Would you have done the same?”
“I did once,” he said. “It cost me everything.”
The fire popped, sparks spiralling upward. She studied him—the cut on his cheek, the lines of fatigue that made him look more human than dangerous.
“You don’t have to keep proving you’re unbreakable,” she said.
He smiled faintly. “And what would I be if I stopped?”
“Someone I could trust,” she said before she could stop herself.
He looked at her then, really looked, as if measuring how much she meant it. Whatever he saw there softened something in him. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
“Then maybe I’ll try.”
Hours passed. The wind outside turned from howl to whisper. The fire had burned down to embers when she noticed him shiver. She reached for the blanket and draped it over his shoulders.
“You’re freezing,” she said.
“So are you.”
He opened one eye, half amused, half resigned. “Come here before we both turn to ice.”
She hesitated only a heartbeat before sitting beside him. The blanket wasn’t wide enough, so they pulled it around both of them. Heat seeped slowly between them—warmth from skin, from breath, from the fire’s faint glow. His heartbeat was steady under her palm.
“I keep expecting this to end,” she whispered.
“It will,” he said. “Everything does.”
“But maybe not tonight?”
He turned his head toward her, eyes darker than the room. “Not tonight.”
They didn’t speak after that. The silence was its own language—the way she leaned into him, the way he didn’t pull away, the way his hand found hers beneath the blanket and stayed there. The storm outside drifted east, leaving only the sound of the wind moving through trees.
Nina watched the firelight trace the lines of his face, and for the first time since Ljubljana, she felt the panic fade. What replaced it wasn’t peace exactly, but something close enough to hold on to.
“Sleep,” he murmured, voice low, half dream. “We’ll move when the sun’s higher.”
She nodded, resting her head against his shoulder. The smell of smoke and pine filled the room. She felt his breathing even out, his body finally relaxing against hers.
Before sleep took her, she whispered, “Don’t disappear again.”
“I’ll try,” he said, almost inaudible.
Outside, the sky lightened from grey to pale blue. On the opposite ridge, a thin glint of glass caught the sunrise—a lens, or binoculars, or something watching. Then it vanished as the wind shifted.
Inside the cabin, they slept.
When Nina woke, the light through the cracked shutters was gold and thin.
The fire had burned itself to ash, leaving only a curl of smoke that caught the sunlight. For a few seconds, she didn’t know where she was. The quiet was too complete — no engines, no shouting, no rush of water. Only wind in the trees and Adrian’s breathing beside her.
He was still asleep, head tipped back against the wall, the line of his jaw softened by exhaustion. The hard edges were gone. For the first time, he looked like someone ordinary — not a fugitive, not the man who’d dragged her through darkness. Just a man who’d run too long.
She sat up carefully, pulling the blanket tighter around them, and watched the light shift across the floorboards. Outside, the forest steamed in the new warmth. It felt fragile, like a world they weren’t supposed to touch.
Adrian stirred as she moved. His eyes opened slowly, then focused on her with that sharp clarity that never quite left him. “You didn’t wake me,” he said.
“You needed it.”
He blinked once, then nodded. “How long?”
“A couple of hours. The storm’s gone.”
She poured water from the flask into a pan and set it over the embers. The smell of heat and metal filled the air. “You can relax,” she said. “We’re still alive.”
He gave a faint, lopsided smile. “That’s starting to sound like a habit.”
“Better than the alternative.”
He reached for his pack, pulled out the folded map, and spread it across his knees. The paper was creased, stained, edges burned. “We’re here,” he said, tapping the line of hills. “If we follow the ridge east, we can reach the border forest before nightfall.”
“And then?”
“Then we disappear again.”
She leaned closer, tracing the lines with her eyes. “You always talk like the only direction is away.”
He looked at her, the question hanging between them. “You’d rather go back?”
“Not back,” she said quietly. “Just… somewhere.”