A grenade fell through the sky.
“Lena!” Dal’s howl could probably be heard all the way back in Rossi.
Grenades rained down. The Soviets circled the area where they hid, dropping them out of the sky.
Amanda did the only thing she could think to do.
She ran. She didn’t know where Dal and Lena were in the confusion, but she couldn’t help if she stuck around and waited for a grenade to fall on her head.
The loose earth slipped under her feet as she darted away from the attack. She nearly face planted into a tree. Catching herself on lichen-covered trunk, she pushed free and burst forward in a headlong sprint.
She dodged under low-hanging branches, around thick clusters of manzanita, and plunged straight through thickets of ferns. When a shallow creek yawned before her, she didn’t hesitate. Her feet hit the water as she splashed through.
The explosions chased her. The air vibrated with every strike, sending a spear of fear through her each time.
A fallen tree loomed before her, the top half of the crown lodged in a neighboring tree. It was too tall for her to jump over. Going around would take too long.
Amanda dropped to the ground and rolled, crunching on rocks and leaves and sticks as she popped out on the other side. A twig became lodged in her hair and scratched at her cheek. She barely noticed.
She kept running. The shockwave of each grenade was like a the bay of a hellhound.
After some time, she realized the only sound was that of her own ragged breathing. The bombing had stopped. The helicopter was still out there, but it was moving away from them. The whomp-whomp of the blades grew distant.
She halted in a small clearing. Her chest heaved. Sweat dripped down her temples, chest, and back. Every nerve stood on end as she listened to the retreating chopper.
Except, it wasn’t retreating. Not entirely. Peering up through the branches, she caught sight of the chopper lowering itself to the ground. It was at least two miles away, but that was a hell of a lot closer than she would have liked. Honestly, Italy would be too close as far as she was concerned.
The Soviets were coming for them. They wanted to find their bodies and make sure they were all dead.
Through the pounding of the blood in her ears, she heard a voice. Fear spiked through her, but she forced herself to stay where she was.
The voice shouted a second time. It wasn’t Russians like she’d feared. No, she knew that voice.
“Amanda! Where are you?”
It was Dal. He was somewhere behind her, calling her name.
“Dal! Dal, where you are guys? Is Lena with you?” She hurried through the forest, following the sound of Dal’s voice. Apprehension prickled her scalp as she strained to follow the sound of the descending helicopter. All she wanted to do was cover her head and hide under a bush.
Suck it up, she scolded herself. Your friends need you.
The forest was a wasteland. The Soviets had bombed the shit out of it. Debris from Mr. Cecchino’s brown pick-up was everywhere. Entire trees had been blown up. Huge cavities yawned open in the earth, big pits of scorched dirt and singed forest debris.
A war zone. She was moving through a literal war zone.
She knew they were in the middle of war, of course. She’d heard stories from Jennifer and the others of just how bad it was. But this was Amanda’s first time in a combat zone. In just a few short minutes, this beautiful patch of forest had been reduced to smoldering trunks and scorched earth.
She didn’t like the idea of making noise, but there was no other way to find her friends. Besides, the helicopter had just landed; the Soviets were at least two miles away.
She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Dal? Where are you guys?”
“Amanda! Over here, quick!”
There. Just off to her left.
She pushed through a tangle of fallen branches, squeezing herself between logs. Using her hands to shield her face as she pushed through the debris, she finally found her friends.
Dal stood over a tree trunk. Dirt and blood smeared his face. Tear tracks cut through grime. His face was set, something dangerous and frenetic lurking behind his eyes.
“The Russians are coming,” Amanda said breathlessly. “We have to get out of here—”
She froze. Beneath a fallen tree trunk was Lena. A tree almost a foot in diameter had been felled during the attack, trapping Lena beneath it.
Amanda’s lungs stopped working. Lena wasn’t moving. Her eyes were closed, her body slack. Blood ran down her face from a gash in her forehead. She’d been hit pretty hard in the head.
She stared at the other girl, searching . . . searching . . . there. Amanda’s shoulders sagged with relief as Lena’s chest rose in a shallow inhale. She was still alive.
“I can’t get this fucking thing off her!” Dal shocked the hell out of Amanda by delivering a brutal punch to the side of the fallen tree. He hit it so hard the skin across his knuckles cracked open and began to bleed. He followed this up with a kick that shook the smaller branches of the tree.
The easygoing, sweet Dal she was used to had transformed before her eyes. She’d never seen this side of him before. To be honest, it freaked her out. A lot.
Then again, his girlfriend was unconscious and pinned beneath a tree. Amanda was close to losing her shit, and she wasn’t even remotely as close to Lena as Dal was.
For both their sakes, she tried to remain calm. “We have to get the trunk off her.”
He rounded on her and screamed, “What the fuck do you think I’ve been trying to do? We have to get her out of here before the Russians find us!”
Amanda froze, not daring to move as Dal seethed in front of her. His chest heaved. She swallowed,
