by Ryan Graudin
Yael could not let her guard down.
To her right—a shadow. It crept forward until Yael didn’t even have to turn her head to see Luka. He was close. Too close. Crouched on his bike like a lion about to spring. His tires drew level with hers, flaying mist.
“Let’s… ha… fun, Fräulein!” Yael only heard snatches of Luka’s words through the rush and storm, but his meaning was clear. His arms jerked and his Zündapp careered toward hers. Tires chewing away the scarce space between them.
Yael’s heart sat at the top of her throat. She almost thought she could taste blood, weeping iron and salt between her teeth. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Luka smiling: a hook-cheeked expression. He was playing with her. Just playing.
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of her fear. She kept her eyes on the road.
He pulled away in the last of final moments. It was a stupid stunt, oozing pride. Fueled by the Iron Cross still hanging from his neck. If Yael wanted to, she could’ve dragged him off the seat by the sleeve of his jacket, skinned him alive on the autobahn’s asphalt.
And to her left—another shadow. Katsuo closing in. This boy wasn’t smiling. The edge of his mouth was hard. The veer of his bike—aggressive.
He did not seem too concerned with the rules.
Luka moved toward her again, in time to Katsuo’s descent. A pincer movement, trapping her between the tip of their metallic claw. They held her tight in a gridlock of gears, caught up in the smell of peeling rubber.
Dangerous, stupid, reckless. There weren’t enough words in any of Yael’s languages to describe this maneuver. Any turn, any jerk, would end in a tangle of engines and flesh on the road. Their race would be over before it had really begun.
Yael kept her eyes on the road’s white dash lines. If she kept going straight, they’d lose interest. Pull away.
But then Katsuo’s gloved hand crept into Yael’s vision. Reaching for her wrist, the handlebar. He was going to wreck her, send her bike spinning into Luka’s, and edge off his biggest competition before they were even beyond the borders of Germania.
She couldn’t fend off his hand. Not without veering, causing a tangle of her own. And Luka still hung close, riding high on his game of dare. Oblivious to the wreck only seconds away.
Yael did the only thing she could.
Both brakes squealed with wet as she pumped them. The wheels wavered beneath her and Katsuo’s fingers tore ahead—just centimeters from the chrome gleam of her handlebars—pointing toward Luka instead.
Yael’s boots flurried as she downshifted, eased up on the brakes. Her bike crawled, so the raindrops against her cheeks were more lull than sting. She was shaking, her motorcycle was sputtering, and Luka and Katsuo were gone. Two fading plumes of rear-wheel mist. The others were at Yael’s heels now, ripping past in twos and ones, giving her bike a wide berth. Lightning jagged the sky—fury white—spotlighting all the racers. Most were ahead of her now, darting off into the distance like minnow shadows.
Yael gritted her teeth. She had to pull herself together, shove the stun, scare, shake of her almost-wreck away. Dive back into the fray.
Another Zündapp slowed. Drew even with her.
Felix wasn’t even trying to race. His eyes were on her, all concern through his rain-flecked goggles. “You all right?”
“Fine.” She was. She should be. It was just a scare. A brush with death. She’d had so many crammed into her short years. It shouldn’t bother her, stick to the roof of her mouth the way it did. Because she was the predator this time. Not the prey.
Never again.
The tremble had not quite left Yael’s fingers when she revved her engine and shot forward. Away from Adele’s brother, back into the race.
PRAGUE CHECKPOINT KILOMETER 347
In the evening the sky peeled back, layers of storm dissolving under a dying sun. Color seized the western horizon with clouds like claws. Flaring red, pulling true night over the ragged steeples of Prague.
Yael watched the day end through the checkpoint’s many-paned windows. She hadn’t spent much time at all on the bike (two hours and forty minutes according to the official scoreboard). Germania to Prague was by far the shortest leg of the race, but the road had worn her.
Chill settled under Yael’s skin, to a depth even the roaring hearth fire could not reach. Adele’s hair hung translucent in front of her eyes, as limp as the rest of her felt, after plowing through 347 kilometers in the mid-March storm, fighting to earn back the seconds Luka’s and Katsuo’s stunts had cost her.
The race was tight. It always was the first few days—burning fuel on Europe’s smooth autobahns, through quaint villages lined with shiny-eyed Hitler Youth, past rolling pastures of cows munching contentedly on their own cud.
Katsuo had reached the Prague checkpoint first. Mere meters and seconds before Luka’s wheels skidded over the white line. Their names and times clustered at the top of the board, written in an official’s runelike script. Yael had fought her way back to the middle of the pack. Adele Wolfe was chalked ninth on the list, seconds between Yamato’s eighth and Hans’s tenth. Felix had hung back behind her, finishing in twelfth place. The next leg of the tour—Prague to Rome—would be just as tight. Barring any engine troubles, the standings wouldn’t change much.
“Did you name your bike yet?”
Yael’s limp muscles went stiff. Her eyes broke away from the slipping sky to see Felix standing by the fire. Sparklight glinted off his pale hair. A bowl of soup was cupped in his hands.
Name her bike? What was he talking about?
Yael’s thoughts riffled through pages of file facts. But this tidbit of information wasn’t in Adele’s novel. Or Felix’s footnote. It was a living, breathing memory, something only the twins shared.
A cobweb gap.
“Remember that BMW R35 you had that always fishtailed? Whiplash?” The corner of Felix’s lip twitched with nostalgia. “Grim was my favorite, though. Had the best rpm, smoothest gearshift. Nothing quite like it.”
Whiplash? Grim? What the Scheisse was she supposed to say?
Felix, it seemed, didn’t need her to say anything. He was still talking. “These Zündapps are solid. A lot of engine power. I was thinking of naming mine something like Thor. Or Loki?”
“Whatever you want.” Yael’s words hung on that spider’s thread, tense, angry. Not unlike the tone Adele used the night before in her flat.
Adele’s brother sighed. “Look, I know you don’t want me here. But if you’re going to be bullheaded enough to go through with this, the least I can do is make sure you don’t starve.”
At this, Felix stretched out his soup bowl offering. Its steam spun into her face, prickling her nostrils with rich scents of oxtail soup. Cloves, bay leaves, and pepper. Thyme, parsley, and juniper. Tender hunks of meat. Yael’s mouth went heavy with hunger, but she made no move to take the meal. “It’s a rookie mistake, you know, accepting food from other racers.”
“I’m not some other racer. I’m your brother.”
Brother. The term was supposed to hold some weight between them. Some code of honor Yael could not navigate. Not when her own family was long ash—spread to the wind.
“Now, stop being stupid.” Felix pushed the bowl of soup into Yael’s hands. “Eat up. I’m going to get us some water.”
She wanted to. The time on the road had been too short for the refueling pit stops where riders usually crammed their mouths with jerky and protein bars, and it had been long hours since the plate of eggs she’d helped herself to in Adele’s flat that morning. Hollow, hollow hunger edged Yael like a shadow. Reminding her she wasn’t full.
But something was off. His tone was too cozy, too light, compared with the pleas he’d made last night. This afternoon. Yael knew he hadn’t given up that easily. (She wouldn’t.)
She watched Adele’s twin brother weave through the gaping dining hall. He moved with explosive elegance past the eighteen other riders huddled over their own meals. The
y’d clustered off into groups around oak tables. It was as if the Seventieth Meridian had been ripped off Henryka’s map and pasted over the room. German faces on one side of the room. Japanese on the other. Restless, uneasy neighbors. Just like the empires they rode for.
Most wore this tension on their faces. The only soft expression in the room was Ryoko’s. The girl sat elbow-to-elbow with Nagao Yamato, who was reading a book of poetry. Ryoko had tried speaking to him a few times, but the boy kept shrugging his shoulders, never tearing his eyes from the pages. Ryoko’s fingers fiddled with her napkin; her stare wandered, met Yael’s. The girl’s expression—lonely eyes, borderline smile—was so honest that Yael (despite knowing that Adele’s grins were usually reserved for cameras) smiled back.
“Still don’t scare easy, I see.”
Yael turned toward the fire to find Luka Löwe mere steps from her. He was still wearing his trademark jacket. It hadn’t been treated like the others, and it was soaked. She wondered why he didn’t just take it off.
“Is that what you call your little stunt today? A scare?” Yael didn’t take her eyes off the boy. According to one of his many Das Reich profiles, the victor’s face was handsome enough to snare the hearts of ten thousand German maidens at first sight. Even Yael had to admit that the boy was attractive. The lines of his face were strong, not harsh, highlighting sea-storm eyes. Stubble, darker than the rest of his golden hair, swathed his jaw like dusk.
(Ten thousand maidens, though? That seemed like a bit much.)
“Just some fun to spice things up. The first day is always so dull.” Luka sighed. “So… tame. You always did appreciate getting a bit wild.”
The comment was bait, meant to rile her (Adele). Yael could see that much in the boy’s crooked lip and proud-set shoulders.
Anger wasn’t an act she had to dig for. All Yael had to do was stare at the Iron Cross hanging from Luka’s throat. At the swastika around his arm. At the blue irises and blond hair that kept him alive when so many others were not. It didn’t matter that she also wore these heavy, heavy things. This boy meant them all.
It was so easy to hate him.
So easy to take the furnace in her bones and let the molten marrow leak into her words: burn, burn, sear. “Your dummkopf driving almost got us both killed!”
Luka just shrugged. “I had everything under control, but it seems Katsuo’s not in the mood for games this time around.”
Yael glanced back to Katsuo’s table. It was crowded with his training camp clan: Takeo was using his sharp-as-song folding blade to make notches in the tabletop. Iwao and Hiraku nodded with religious fervor at everything Katsuo said. The victor was reenacting the morning’s almost-wreck, diagramming the pincer movement and mimicking Yael’s shrieking brakes in a way that made his listeners laugh.
Katsuo fell silent when he caught her staring. His gaze speared through Yael, into Luka. Speaking histories, calling for war.
“At least he’s quick,” Yael said. “Easy to read.”
“You mean boring.” Luka snorted and leaned back on his heels, as if he were shifting the gears of an imaginary bike. “I quite enjoy our dance, Fräulein. Always have.”
Our dance. What was he talking about? What was Yael supposed to say next? And how was she supposed to say it? Would Adele stay angry? Would she ignore the boy altogether?
There was too much about Luka (and Felix, for that matter) that Yael didn’t know. For a while on the road, when it was just herself and asphalt and hissing mist, she’d hoped that she could avoid them. But that tactic clearly wasn’t working—Yael’s fingers itched for the list of Reiniger’s coded addresses tucked inside her undershirt. Soon, very soon, she was going to have to pay one of them a visit.
“Get away from my sister.” Felix had returned. The too-light of his tone had vanished. The glasses of water in his hands trembled.
Luka’s eyebrows rose. They were the same dark shade as his stubble, Yael noted. A color most would try to bleach. “No need to get snippy, Herr Wolfe.”
“Snippy?” Felix’s knuckles tightened around the glasses. Yael kept waiting for cracks to appear, glass to shatter, and Felix’s hands to dissolve into blood. “You almost killed her on the road today!”
“Not to worry, Herr Wolfe. I plan on keeping your sister around for a while. It’s a long race yet. God knows, I could use the entertainment.”
The shatter came, but not in the way Yael expected. Felix dropped the glasses, his hands closing into fists. Just in time to throw his first punch.
It was a solid hit, cracking against Luka Löwe’s cheekbone. Bending into the cartilage of his aquiline nose. The blood flowed fast—a crooked ruby trail spilling over Luka’s mouth, down his chin. As the boy bowed in pain, something silver slipped out of his shirt, tangling with his Iron Cross. His hands fished for it quickly, tucking it back where Yael could not see.
“Good punch for a grease monkey.” Luka was still smirking when he straightened. “I’ll give you that one, Herr Wolfe. But hit me again and I will wreck you.”
Yael’s ankle throbbed against the blade sheathed inside her boot. She watched the two boys face off in front of the fire: Felix in his boxing stance, Luka glowering through the red smear on his face.
The air between them was charged: tingling with heat and the sudden silence that had washed over the room. Everyone watched, breaths held, food forgotten. Waiting for the second hit.
It was coming. Yael could see it in the throb of Felix’s temple vein, the cording of his jaw muscles. The next punch was about to jag through the air between them. Start a bloodbath.
They were going to tear each other to pieces.
The boys were an even match—made of the same strength and speed. Neither of them would be walking away from a serious fight. Not well enough to ride. Yael wanted to sit back and let it happen. But Adele… she would spare her brother. She’d stop this.
Yael set the bowl of soup on the floor and walked over to Adele’s brother. She locked her hand around his trembling arm. “Felix.”
He looked over at her; a white mop of hair bristled over his face. His eyes were piercing, tinged with feral. She could feel Felix’s heart thrumming through his jacket. His muscles danced to the rhythm, eager, angry.
“Let it be,” she said. “He’s not worth it.”
Luka flinched, a twitch of the cheek that spoke of pain. He brought an arm up to his face, daubing the blood across his cheek and jacket. Red dripped to the floor.
“I know you want to protect me.” Yael’s grip tightened as she said this. “But this isn’t the way.”
Slowly, slowly, Adele’s brother began to unwind. The something to prove faded from his pulse.
Blood was still leaking from Luka’s nose. It burbled and gleamed as he spoke. “Don’t trust your guard dog too much. I saw him slip a little something into your soup.”
“He’s lying.” Felix’s voice was flat, but Yael felt the extra leap of his brachioradialis under her fingers. Saw his pupils flare, pinholes to fear. Signs Vlad had trained Yael to look for in others and hide in herself.
“Maybe I am. Or maybe I just don’t want to see our dance cut short.” Luka winked—actually winked—at her, and Yael entertained a fleeting fantasy of throwing a punch of her own. “Your call, Fräulein.”
With that, Luka spun on his heels and swaggered out of the dining hall.
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t report that cocky son of a…” The last of Felix’s insults mumbled away as he tore out of Yael’s grip. Broken glass snapped under his boots. “I’ll go get us some more water. You should eat.”
Yael eyed the soup. Still on the floor where she’d set it. All simmer, steam, and sabotage. So many good ingredients gone to waste.
“Only if you take a bite first,” she said.
Felix scowled. “C’mon, Ad, you can’t seriously believe him. After everything that happened between you two… Luka’s trying to get in your head.”
Everything that happened
. Adele’s brother said these words with such heat. The vein on his temple was rising again, snaking into his hairline. Yael sensed there was something more to his temper—not just the words Luka Löwe had spit across the room, but some deeper story. The same one she’d glimpsed in Luka’s face in the stadium.
What was everything? What didn’t Adele report? The secrets of Adele and Luka, coming around again. Wrapping another noose-coil around her neck.
She should have let them fight.
“One bite.” Yael held up a finger. “That’s all I ask.”
Felix didn’t speak. Didn’t move. The red crept down his cheeks, around his neck. His black-hole pupils swallowed the firelight: big and round and full of lies.
It was all the answer Yael needed. She turned around and started walking.
“Where are you going?” he called after Yael—desperate—as she stomped on, her boot clipping the edge of the soup bowl. Chunks of oxtail spun out, mixed with traces of Luka’s nosebleed. It looked… wrong. All that meat and blood. Together.
“I’m getting my own soup,” she said, and walked away.
CHAPTER 8
NOW
MARCH 10, 1956
PRAGUE CHECKPOINT
There would be no visiting the Prague address. Not with Felix watching her the way he was—all glower and guilt from the spilled soup fireside. There was only one way out of the checkpoint, and Yael had no doubt that if she tried to use it, he’d ask her where she was going and try to stop her. Or worse, follow her.
She had to shake him, but it wouldn’t be here. She’d only really escaped his stare by locking herself in the washroom. After she’d changed the gauze on Vlad’s still raw wolf, Yael sat on the covered toilet, fished the wad of addresses out of her undershirt, and set about decoding and memorizing the numbers for Rome. Tomorrow she’d pull ahead. Jump from ninth place to first and ride, ride, ride until she reached Rome. She would go to the resistance address, request the files on Felix and Luka, and cross the second Axis Tour checkpoint before Adele’s brother (or any of the other racers) appeared.
