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✲꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏✲
After what felt like an hour, I finally forced myself to crawl out from beneath the bed. I rose cautiously to my feet and made my way into the adjoining room.
It was silent.
Empty.
The entire house was.
I dreaded the worst—that the whole family was dead, executed by the Red Army, and that somehow it was all because of me.
Now I would never know.
I reached the dining room, which opened into the kitchen.
There, lying in pools of blood in the middle of the floor, were Darsia and Tobias's father.
Instinctively, I rushed to them and checked for a pulse.
There was none.
The life had already left them both.
But one person was missing.
Where was Merilu?
I sprang to my feet and began racing from room to room, from the bathroom back to the kitchen, then outside into the yard and back into the house again. I shouted her name over and over, but only my own echo answered whenever I cried out beneath the open sky.
Even the fighter planes had vanished.
There was no sign that Soviet soldiers had been here only hours before.
I searched like a madwoman until, running full speed, I crashed into someone.
Looking up, I saw Tobias.
Without thinking, I threw myself into his arms, wrapping them tightly around his neck and drawing in the scent of sweat and sulfur that clung to him.
At that moment, it was the most comforting smell I had ever known.
He did not return the embrace.
When I stepped back, I saw something in his eyes that filled me with unexpected embarrassment.
He was staring at me, utterly bewildered.
His nostrils flared, his lips parted, his upper lip curled ever so slightly.
A heartbeat later, his face became unreadable.
Without a word, he walked straight into the house.
I did not follow.
There was no point.
Going in and out of that house again and again would change nothing.
No miracle would occur.
Tobias's parents would not rise from the dead.
Merilu would not suddenly appear.
Several agonizing minutes later, Tobias emerged carrying several heavy bags.
