Pine. Pine. More freaking pine.
Then she saw it.
A massive birch, split clean into two trunks from a single base.
Unmistakable. A landmark you’d note on a reconnaissance that wouldn’t change in a decade or a century.
She turned left.
“Thank you, Pav. For being the person who notices things like that.”
The forest thinned. The road improved—still rough but wider, with the suggestion of maintenance. A signpost in Cyrillic she couldn’t read fast enough to translate. Then a fence. A garden. A house.
More houses.
She was driving through a small village and the shock of ordinary civilization hit her like the warmth of the apteka—overwhelming and disorienting. Street lights weary in the dullafternoon. A woman in a heavy coat walking with a shopping bag. A child’s bicycle leaning against a fence, half-buried in snow.
Normal life. People living it.
Her eyes burned, and she blinked it back. Not now.
Past the settlement. The road narrowed again. River on the left—he’d said river road. She followed it. The water was dark and slow, ice crusting the banks.
She almost missed it.
Set back from the road behind a stand of birch trees. A small guesthouse with a yellow wooden door. The paint faded and peeling but unmistakably yellow. Green roof, the color dulled by weather and time. Woodpile stacked against one wall.
His words. His map. His preparation saving them one more time.
She pulled the UAZ off the road and killed the engine. The silence rushed in—vast and ringing after the constant rattle. Her chest vibrated from the drone of the engine, and her shoulders ached. Her eyes were gritty and raw.
But we made it.
She expected relief. Instead, she felt empty. The type of exhaustion that lived below adrenaline.
Pav was still unconscious. Sweat had soaked through his collar. She reached for him, flattening her palm against his chest.
God, he was so warm.
For one stupid, terrifying second—she thought she’d already lost him.
His chest rose under her hand. Her fingers curled into his shirt, gripping hard.
“Not yet,” she whispered. “Don’t you dare.”
He didn’t answer.
She opened the car door and stepped out. The cold nipped her face, and the wind carried the smell of woodsmoke and the faint sound of a radio playing inside the guesthouse.
She walked to the front door. Yellow paint, cracked and flaking. A boot scraper. Muddy wellingtons by the step. A cat watched her from the inside windowsill with flat-eyed suspicion.
A door. A chance.
Or not.
She raised her hand.
Knocked.
