“I’m all right,” she said softly. “Make sure he doesn’t come back around. I can barely keep this thing in the air.”
“You’ll make it. Leave him to me.” I weaved back and forth to keep a watch on our six. Rademacher hung back, shadowing, waiting. My mind raced through the possibilities of what he was thinking. Surely he knew he could finish Alexandra off before she crossed the Volga. I wasn’t that much of a threat either, given I’d be outnumbered in no time. Was he that confident in his kill or was he simply not interested in another victory tally on his tail?
I never came up with an answer to that as we limped home, but I was more than prepared to jump into his line of fire and shield Alexandra from another pass. I prayed he wouldn’t reengage. When the Rakhinka airfield was in sight, I thanked God profusely for answering that prayer.
“Still okay?” I asked, eager to set foot on the ground.
“Little shaken, but fine.”
Alexandra got emergency clearance to land so she didn’t have to circle around. She’d said she was okay. And I believed her. Then her plane hit the runway. Her landing gear shattered, and the fighter tore its wings off as it slid.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Wave off, Little Boar,” the control tower said over the radio. “There’s a crash on the field. Circle around to runway zero-two-zero.”
“The hell I will,” I muttered, flipping off the radio.
I eased off the throttle and pulled the nose up. Off to the side I saw a fire truck and one of the squad cars racing down the airstrip toward the crash site. My plane flared and the wheels touched the ground. The moment they did, I hit the brakes, hard. The tail picked up, and I had to let off them a touch as well as pull on the stick to keep the fighter from tipping over forward and giving the base a second wrecked plane to pick up.
I didn’t speak a single word to God, terrified of His constant silence. Instead, I decided I would be the one to determine what would and would not happen. I opened the cockpit and leaned out the window to steer better. I managed to dodge the larger chunks of debris on the runway, though I did feel a distinct jolt in the seat when I hit some that couldn’t be avoided. Thankfully, the wheels took the abuse.
I killed the engine and let the plane roll. With a little rudder, I steered it next to Alexandra’s wreck, unbuckling my belt in the process. My fighter had yet to come to a stop before I was out of the cockpit, sliding off the wing, and rolling on the ground with a thump.
I bolted to Alexandra’s mangled plane. Each and every bullet hole in the fuselage bored into my mind. At least the plane hadn’t exploded, I told myself. At least there was no fire.
“Alexandra!” I yelled once I reached the side of the cockpit, banging hard against the glass. “Wake up!”
She lifted her head. Her gaze, full of bliss and confusion, held mine, and she smiled. She fumbled for the canopy latches. Together we opened the cockpit.
“You’re alive,” I said, tears rolling, breath leaving. “I feared the worst.”
“I can be stubborn like that,” she replied.
I reached in to help her out, but my hands retracted when I saw her blood-soaked jacket and the splatter covering the gauges. “Don’t move,” I said. “They’ll be here in a moment.”
I tore off my jacket and pressed it against the wound in her right side. It was a little lower than her ribcage. She whimpered when I touched her, and I kept the pressure up when she tried to bat my hand away.
Emergency crews were on us within a few breaths. They pushed by and had to pry me away from the cockpit, shouting as they did. Two of the men pulled her from the plane while a third waited nearby to help put her in the back of the car. I jumped in with her, despite more shouts and yells for me to do otherwise.
The car took off. I stroked Alexandra’s head as she laid it in my lap. I wanted to say something, anything, but words failed me. Two things raced through my mind. First, all of this was my fault. Second, she wasn’t going to see tomorrow.
Alexandra opened her eyes. “Nadya? You’re here?”
“Where you go, I go,” I whispered.
We came to a stop at a two-story building. Men came and took her from me, men with a stretcher, men who kept me from following her into the operating room. Despite both verbal and physical protests, all I was allowed to do was sit in a large hall, filled with beds and the wounded, and wait for the news that she’d earned the highest glory: dying in defense of the Motherland against the fascist horde.
An hour later, I looked up from my seat with weary, blood-shot eyes as Alexandra was brought into the room on a stretcher and placed in the empty bed next to me. The men who came said nothing and moved with a purpose that said they had far too much to do to entertain any sort of pleasantries. Still, my spirits were so low, I would have lapped up any kindness like a stray dog dying of thirst at a newly found puddle.
Another hour passed, maybe two or three, before she came to. The entire time I sat there, holding her hand, my eyes watched her chest rise and fall and stared at the fresh, bloodied bandage on her side.
“Hi,” she said, giving a feeble squeeze of my hand. “You’re still here.”
“Where you go, I go,” I said with a sniffle.
She laughed stiffly. “I feel… different.”
“You should. There’s a new hole in your side. Or was, at least. They said they stitched it.”
Alexandra shook her head. “No, not like that. You know how normally you walk around this world and in the back of your mind, it’s how everything should be, like this is your home? I don’t feel that anymore.”
“It’s because you’re tired,” I said, knowing full well it was a lie. “Besides, you’re not allowed to go. Who will massage my arms and keep me out of trouble?”
“Maybe. But you’re strong enough on your own Nadya. Always have been.” She sighed, and right then I knew I’d done her a great disservice. As much as I feared everything she might say, in the end, I’m glad she didn’t retreat from the conversation as I had. “When tomorrow rolls in, promise me something Nadya.”
“Anything.”
“Promise me you won’t hate yourself.”
I turned my head, reliving every moment from the last few hours in vivid detail. How could I ever meet such a request after failing to look out for her? “I don’t think I can.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
I leaned over and rested my head on her shoulder. “I’m a terrible wing leader. I never should have gotten us separated.”
“No, you’re a human one.”
Her kind words kept me from entering an awful spiral of self-hate. Though she didn’t say it, her forgiveness couldn’t have been any clearer. I started to wonder when I’d cross paths with Rademacher again and who would win the encounter. History said I wouldn’t. Even if I did become the victor, what would that change? Avenging Alexandra, Tania, and Martyona wouldn’t bring them back, and it wouldn’t make me a good pilot. Skilled, yes, but not good. There was nothing good about war. It simply was.
“When I was three, I got lost once when I wandered out in the woods. I’d never been more frightened in my life, and it turned out I was only a few hundred meters from the house when they found me at night.” She paused to pat my head. “And now, you’d think this is my darkest hour, but I’m not scared at all, especially with you here. It’s like you’re taking me home, and isn’t that what a wing leader is always supposed to do? Funny how that works, isn’t it?”
I felt her breathing weaken and slow. “I’m so sick of all of this,” I said. “Every day it’s another bullet, another friend—family. We kill one of theirs. They kill one of ours. And for what?”