Page 52 of White Wolf
He sent her a little wave. “Hi.”
The barest hint of a smile touched her lips. She reminded him of Nikita in that moment, that same reluctant amusement. “Hello.”
“You’re in the army?” he asked, stupidly, because her uniform greens and boots clearly marked her as enlisted. He’d never been any good with small talk.
Behind him, Pyotr hissed, “What are you doing?”
A shadow crossed the woman’s face, a brief flicker. Her smile turned hard, not really a smile at all. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“She’s a sniper,” Pyotr whispered behind him. And added, “Stupid,” for good measure. Sasha could imagine his face was flushed with secondhand embarrassment.
“Oh, well, I…” he stammered, a blush warming his cheeks. “I’m sorry. Yes. I just…don’t like to assume. I…I’m sorry.”
Her gaze softened a fraction. “I don’t think you are, though. In the army that is.”
“No. Um.” He was too far away to make conversation easy, so he took a few careful steps closer. Pyotr asked what he was doing, another low hiss, but the woman didn’t seem alarmed or put-off, so Sasha went a little closer, and then a little more. Close enough to see that her eyes were a warm brown, and her gaze direct. “I’m not.”
Her body language remained open, one gloved hand on the rail, the other in her jacket pocket. She didn’t pull back and shrink from him; she wasn’t afraid. “What is a man who’snotin the army doing on a ship full of army cargo?”
Sasha winced. “I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you.”
Her small smile returned. “Ah. Very secret and special, then.”
Sasha shrugged, embarrassed again. He wished suddenly that he’d been brave enough to at least speak to Natalia the prostitute, so that he might be less nervous now. What an uncultured idiot he was.
She was very pretty, and he wanted to offer her something. “I’m Sasha,” he said, because his name was all he truly owned at the moment.
“Nice to meet you, Sasha. I’m Katya.” She pulled her hand out of her pocket and held it out for him to shake, like a man would.
It was just a meeting of two cool leather gloves, but the gesture made him smile, disarmed him. It was okay, maybe, that he wasn’t quite his own man yet, because she didn’t seem to be behaving much like a woman who expected that of him.
“Are you a sniper?” he asked, and Pyotr made a disparaging sound somewhere behind him.
Her smile widened, amusement clear in her eyes. “I am. And are you a…” Her gaze swept down to his boots and back up. “A trapper, I’m guessing?”
“I was.” Pain flared to life in his chest, like it always did when he thought of home, and his family, and the life he would probably never see again. But it was a dull ache now rather than a sharp stab. He’d reconciled himself to the fact that he saw Nikita and the others as friends now, and not captors. He was still terrified – it still woke him up in the middle of the night – but he was trying to be hopeful.
“Why are you going to Stalingrad, Sasha the Former Trapper?”
“I–”
“Sasha,” Nikita said, just behind him, and he’d walked up out of nowhere, materializing at his side.
Katyadidshrink back this time, and Sasha didn’t guess he could blame her.
~*~
Katya considered herself a patriot. Without allowing herself a proper mourning period, she’d gathered her things, marched through the snow, and joined the Red Army – and then Madame Vishnyak’s school – without a backward glance. She’d been training for months now, with the rifle, and with her knife and sidearm too, preparing for the awful possibility of being discovered in her perch and having to defend herself hand-to-hand. She’d seen the gutted bodies of Russian schoolteachers and housewives once the Nazis were done with them; she knew that she could die – quite easily – in this war, and she’d made her peace with that. There wasn’t much left to live for, so she might as well die for her country.
But even red-bloodied patriots quailed at sight of the Cheka, and on the deck of a cargo ship bound for Stalingrad, she learned that she was no exception.
The Cheka didn’t care what was in your heart – only what they could find by prying up your floorboards. A bit of raw alcohol, some grain, God forbid an unfortunate pamphlet. Death or a one-way trip to Siberia were guaranteed to follow. But that wasafterthe Cheka officers had their fun with you.
She’d let her guard slip, disarmed by Sasha’s charming awkwardness, and now suddenly there were two black-clad Chekists crowding in behind him. Their badges gleamed in the silvery light, almost as bright as the taller one’s eyes. Jesus, his eyes were volatile, pale and sparking, a cold contrast to Sasha’s washed-out blue.
Her heart jumped up her throat and she turned her face away, looking out across the water. Like maybe that would prevent something terrible from happening.
“Oh hi,” Sasha said, sweet, but not surprised. Just as guileless as before. “Nikita, this is Katya. She’s anarmy sniper.”
