The Way Back

- 12 -

The forest was quiet. No sounds of gunfire. Not even the sound of birds chirping in the morning hours. The grounds reeked as they always did; of death. Maybe it was just Lia, but she believed she waltzed side by side with Death on the very soil beneath her feet. He followed her inbetween the trees and sticks; staying too close to be comfortable. 

She had been walking for over an hour, canvassing the forest for Shifty. He couldn't have been too far, but she had the sinking feeling she was just walking in circles. Lia would not leave this forest without him; dead or alive. She knew Lipton and the others would have left already with every intention that she had been killed out in these woods. 

That intention nearly came true.

 Two German soldiers came walking through the thick foliage, directly on Lia's path. She knew she could've easily hid, or swung her rifle up quickly to kill them. But her head was out of it. The events before combined with the lack of sleep put her in a daze. 

It was no good for a soldier alone in foreign woods.

The Germans eyes grew wide at the sight of her. Lia couldn't tell if it was because she was an American, a woman, or the fact that she looked like a walking corpse. 

It took them a moment to open fire on her. She dove quickly behind a larger tree as bullets riddled the bark around her, but not before a single bullet found its way across her thigh. It ripped through, causing her to cry out at the impact. 

Lia pushed herself up against the tree as they continued to fire at her. The bark of the tree exploded around her. When a pause in fire came for a reload, she flew out and swung her fire around. She gunned down the first German with ease.

The second was more difficult. At the same time, the two ran out of ammo with no extra magazines on hand. Most of Lia's had been lost in the mortar barrage, scattered somewhere in this forest. 

They stared at each other for a moment. The German soldier was the first to pull out his knife. Lia quickly followed in suit. 

He attacked first, flying across the dirt and sticks at her. Lia barely registered the attack, jumping to the side at the last second. Her late reaction earned her a small slice across her left arm. 

The German attacked again, but Lia couldn't move in time. He tackled her to the ground, her knife scattering off to the side from the force. He straddled her, smiling when noticing the girl below him was now defenseless. 

"A pity." He spoke in his own German language, dragging the knife gently across her cheek. 

Lia's mind raced. She would never find Shifty. She would never get back to make sure the men were okay. She would never see Piper again. Speirs.

The German brought down his knife, plunging it through her thigh in the exact place the bullet had gone through. Her scream disturbed the quiet forest. 

The soldier smiled above her. "A girl should not be fighting in a man's war." He went to bring his knife down, intent on killing the girl. 

Lia finally caught a grasp on her senses, reacting quicker with the adrenaline coursing through her body. Her fingers caught onto the hilt of another knife strapped on her thigh. 

One moment, the German was above her with a sinister grin on his face. The next, he sat choking on his own blood. 

Lia drew the knife across is throat in one quick motion, pouring his blood down onto her own face just below her eyes. She couldn't move. That horrible color of red rained down, and slid across her skin. Darkness began to over take her again. Her body was loosing too much blood at an alarming rate. The man fell off to the side of her, and the sounds of his death rung in her ears.