Midnight Hunter

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I wake up to a papery mouth and pounding headache. Lifting my head sends shards of glass through my skull and I moan, my eyes closed against the bright light in the room. I rub my forehead until a sound freezes my blood. A low laugh.

“Ah, the elusive Evony Daumler. Not looking much like the pretty Stasi secretary now, are you?”

I crack my eyes open and see him standing over me, smiling, gloating. Hauptmann Heydrich. I’m still in the checkpoint office. All three of the Bulgarian guards are standing behind him, watching us, and there’s a dark pool of blood on the floor. So much blood, and none of the guards nor Hauptmann Heydrich are bleeding. Where is he?

I wet my lips. Reinhardt said that if Heydrich caught me the most logical thing would be to put a bullet in my head and bury me in a shallow grave. If I’m still alive he must need something.

“Looking for Volker? I’m afraid he won’t be doing much of anything anymore.” Heydrich nods at the bloodstain.

No. I start out of the chair but Heydrich pushes me back. He’s not dead. If he was Heydrich would be showing me his body.

Guessing my thoughts, Heydrich smiles. “I don’t actually have his body, not just yet. He put up quite a fight despite the bullet in his neck and he managed to get away. He’s bleeding out in the woods and I’ll have his corpse collected shortly.” He crouches down before me and assumes an expression of cloying concern. “How does it feel to know he left you in the end? That that’s what your love was worth to him. Saving his own sk

in.”

I watch him stonily. If Reinhardt ran it was so he could get help, not to leave me behind.

“Don’t you want revenge, Fräulein Daumler, for all that he’s done to you? He captured you. Used you. Left you. You don’t have to go to prison. We could help each other.”

Does he really think I’m so gullible? “If Reinhardt’s dying then you don’t need my help. You’ve got what you want.”

He smiles wider. “There’s a position that’s just come up at the Ministry. Oberstleutnant. Newly vacated. I want Herr Oberst to know it was me who captured Volker, and you have all sorts of riveting details to tell.”

Panic slams into me. Maybe he’s telling the truth and Reinhardt really is dying in the woods. Maybe he’s already dead. My voice shakes. “Go to hell.”

“As you wish. But I hope you know that there’s nothing to be gained in protecting your lover any longer. If you speak I can see to it that you don’t spend the rest of your life in prison.”

I look around the room, desperate, for answers. The guards are watching me though they aren’t following the German conversation. We should have talked about what to do if one of us was captured. What we’d say. Reinhardt’s left me behind when he swore we were in this together to the end. It’s the end, and I’m all alone.

I lift my head and look into Heydrich’s face. “All right. I’ll tell you everything.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Volker

I’m going to kill Heydrich. I’m going to make it hurt and he’ll rue the day he ever crossed me by the time I’ve finished with him.

This is my first thought upon regaining consciousness, and despite the fact that I’m tied to a chair god knows where with a boy I vaguely recognize from Stasi HQ pointing a gun at my head I swear by heaven and earth that Heydrich will be dead before the sun rises in the morning. How much he suffers will depend on whether Evony is still alive.

There’s a buzzing at the front of my skull and I feel like I’ve lost a lost of blood. I don’t know how long I passed out for and I don’t remember how I got to this strange barn. I peer at the boy, who’s got auburn hair and a lot of freckles, and try to place him. He’s got his finger on the trigger, rightly afraid of me. But none of that matters right now. Where the fuck is Evony?

It’s a waking nightmare. I’m unable to go to her when she needs me most. Anything could be happening to her. Heydrich’s got her and he must have guessed what I feel for her by now.

Think. Focus. I take a deep, steadying breath and try to remember the last time I saw her. Passed out on the ground at Heydrich’s feet. Scheisse. I need to get out of these ropes and I need to stop the bleeding. The bullet didn’t hit an artery in my neck, otherwise I’d be dead already, but it’s still a dangerous wound. I peer at the boy, finally placing him. “You’re from the mail room, aren’t you? Let me have my left hand to compress this wound.”

“Do you think I’m a complete idiot?”

I stop twisting the ropes behind my back and go completely still. Then I look up at the boy again, rage mounting by increments in my chest. “You’re Evony’s contact,” I say quietly. I don’t know how I know. Perhaps it’s his sneering tone, so like the way I’m certain that Heydrich would like to speak to me.

The boy smiles. He’s younger than I thought he would be and possesses all the arrogance of youth. Anger and loathing churn through me. This person lied to Evony, gave false hope to Evony, right under my nose. He’s here pointing a gun at my head while his master is doing God knows what to the woman I swore to protect. I made a mistake taking us to that checkpoint. Evony wanted us to go back, to find another way. She was scared, but in my arrogance I thought my uniform, my authority, my cleverness would get us through. If he hurts her—if he kills her—

I struggle to control my temper, for her sake. I don’t deserve her or her love but somehow I’ve earned both and I will not have her snatched from me at the last moment. I will get her back, and I will make everyone who has hurt her pay dearly.

The one good thing about this situation is that this boy is here and Heydrich isn’t. Heydrich must need something from her. Testimony, information. He’s not confident that he can get me convicted even though I’m his prisoner. If he needs something there’s still time.

I fix the boy with a hard stare. “Either you let me compress this wound or you do it for me, or I bleed out now all over the floor. I doubt your captain would be pleased if I died, do you? Not before he’s managed to gloat over finally getting the better of me.”