chapter 30 _Into the Wilderness

POV:Magnus

The burning estate disappeared behind us as we drove deeper into the dark Polish pine forest.

The engine rumbled as the armored vehicle moved forward. Its heavy tires rolled through the mud, gravel, and broken branches as we went farther into the thick mist and forest.

Tree branches and small trunks hit the strong front of the vehicle with loud cracks, but the driver kept going. He couldn't stop.

Behind us, the estate was burning, bodies were left behind, and everything that had gone wrong in our lives was now part of the past. In front of us was nothing but cold mist, darkness, and a huge forest that seemed to go on forever.

​Inside the rear cabin, the world shrunk to a cramped, shadowed space smelling of diesel fumes, gunsmoke, and damp wool.

​Jarosława sat pressed against my right side.

The vehicle suddenly jumped over a large tree root, making her shoulder hit mine hard. Neither of us moved away.

We couldn't if we wanted the back bench to be narrow,Made for soldiers wearing military equipment. ​

Not two people struggling to breathe while slowly losing their strength and sanity,

I could feel her chest moving up and down as she breathed through the heavy coat she was wearing. Her body felt warm against the cold air inside the vehicle. The steel floor was freezing beneath us.

My right arm rested on the back of the seat behind her head. My fingers were wrapped tightly around the cold handle of my pistol, but I couldn't ignore how close she was to me.

You're bleeding again," she said softly. Her voice was too quiet to hear over the loud engine, but I could still feel her words as her chest moved against mine.​It stopped," I lied, my gaze locked on the fog swirling beyond the tinted, bulletproof glass.

​"It hasn't.

She reached down and ran her fingers across my side. Her touch was gentle and unsure as the truck shook hard around us.

When her fingers touched the wet part of my jacket where the shrapnel had cut me, a sharp pain shot up my neck. But I didn't move or react. I didn't want her to know how much I was hurting.

​"Jarosława," I grunted, my voice low and thick with warning. "Don't."

​"Don't what?" She turned toward me, her face only inches away in the soft light from the dashboard.

​Her eyes were dark, rimmed with red, and filled with a wild, turbulent mixture of grief, anger, and something so raw it turned my stomach into knots. The hair clinging to her damp temples smelled of rain and burnt cedar.

​"Don't look at me like that, I muttered, looking straight ahead at the driver in his helmet. “Like I’m someone you can fix.

​"I don't think you can be fixed, Magnus," she whispered, her voice cutting through the heavy hum of the transmission. "I think you're a wrecking ball. You tear down everything you touch. You pulled me out of that house, but you didn't save me. You just brought me into your personal hell."

​The words hit harder than any bullet ever could. The conflict inside me burned hotter than the estate we’d left in ashes. Part of me wanted to yell at her, to remind her that without my blood on those floorboards she’d be lying in a mass grave behind the compound. But another part of me, the hollow, rotting core I kept buried beneath layers of scarred muscle and silence, knew she was right.

​I had dragged her into the dark because I couldn't bear to let her die without me. It wasn't heroism. It was selfishness.

​"You're alive," I said, the words forced past a throat clenched tight. "That's all that matters."

​"Is it?" Her breath caught a sharp, fragile sound. "Look at where we are! We're running through the dark in a stolen tank, hunted by men who won't stop until we're put in the dirt! And you won't even look at me!"

​She grabbed the lapel of my heavy coat, her knuckles turning white as she yanked me toward her. The sudden movement pulled her body fully against mine. The physical contact was an electric shock, a suffocating wave of heat and intensity that knocked the air straight out of my chest.

​For a long, agonizing second, neither of us moved. The truck rattled as it struck a dip in the rutted dirt road, throwing us closer still. My good hand left the gun stock and found her jaw, my thumb catching the tremble of her lip. I felt her breath stagger, felt the quiet, helpless surrender in the way her forehead leaned into mine.

​The air between us was charged, thick with unspoken words, suffocating regret, and a dangerous, slow-burning desire born from surviving another night of slaughter. We were two broken pieces of glass grinding together in the dark.

​"I will get you out of Poland," I rasped, my hand trembling against her face despite every effort to hold it still. "I will kill every single one of them before I let them touch you again."

​"I don't want your body count, Magnus," she murmured, her dark eyes searching mine with a terrifying, heart-wrenching depth. "I wanted you to be honest with me. Just once."

​The tension strung between us was so tight it felt like a piano wire pulled to its snapping point. The slow burn of three years of secrets, hidden glances, and blood-soaked debts was coming down to this dark, enclosed space in the middle of a fog-bound wilderness.

​I opened my mouth to speak, to finally give her the truth she was begging for.

​BAM.

​A heavy, metallic thud echoed from the roof of the armored vehicle, followed instantly by the screech of tearing metal.

​The truck violently swerved. The driver slammed on the brakes, sending both of us flying forward against the front seats. The tires locked up, skidding sideways across wet needles and deep mud before grinding to a halt in a dense patch of pines.

​The engine died instantly, plunging the interior into total darkness, save for the flickering red emergency lights on the console.

​"What happened?" Jarosława gasped, her hand clutching my arm as the violent sway settled.

​"Stay down," I growled, drawing my sidearm in one fluid motion and pushing her behind my back.

​From directly above us, on the heavy steel roof of the cabin, came the slow, deliberate crunch of combat boots walking across the metal.

Then we heard a soft hiss above us. Something had been attached to the roof hatch, and it was already burning through the metal. The steel began to melt as the heat spread across it.