nickngreg | Soul Journeys 2: Auf Wiedersehen, Mon Amour, Chapter 15

sorry this has taken me so damn long. promise to do better next time.

Nik awoke with a start. He had been dreaming about St. Petersburg: the elegant buildings, the canal, his father's house, their summer home in the Crimea. He missed the ocean more than he could ever express; but he had been a mere child when the revolution had swept his life away, and all that remained were emptiness and memories.

"Nikolai. You alright?" G's soft voice filtered through the fog in his mind. Nik shook himself and yawned. It was the middle of the night.

"Da, spaseba," Nik mumbled, still thinking in Russian, the threads of his dream slipping away.

"Wake up. Once the train enters the gatehouse, we have to move quickly." Mika's clipped voice jarred on Nik's ears, and her face was unreadable: a pale mask of indifference.

Nik fumbled for his pistol and stuck it in the back of his belt. A surge of adrenaline hit his brain as the train rumbled over a set of points. Nik glanced at G, who was pulling his hat down over his face and checking the chamber of his gun. At the last moment their eyes met, and everything was understood. So much to say; so little time. G gingerly slid back the boxcar door a crack, and Nik stared as they approached the huge gates, looming out of the oppressive dark. A spotlight picked out the foot-high motto, wrought in iron: Arbeit Macht Frei. Work shall make you free. But free from what? Nik felt chilled, as though he'd fallen through ice into a frigid lake.

"Now! Quickly!" Mika snapped, jabbing Nik in the ribs with her rifle. Nik followed G, who was already out of the door, rolling over and ducking under the line of poplar trees that grew like tall sentries along the canal abutting the camp. The three of them hunkered there, as the train rattled past. As the cars trundled by, Nik realized that this was not a freight train at all: it was full of people. He could see hands sticking out of the boxcar slats; here a part of a face, there an elbow, a shoulder. They were crammed in like tinned capers. This was not a hospital; it was not even a work camp. This was a prison.

"Come on!" hissed G. He crawled on his belly, stopped to let the searchlight pass, then deftly slid into the canal. "Down here, let's go!"

Nik followed G into the dark water, his heart pounding in his ears. As his body adjusted to the cold, he felt Mika slip down after him. With G in the lead, they swam under the small stone bridge. Nik watched G as he ducked underwater and swam like a sleek otter through the blackness. Nik fought the panic that threatened to overwhelm his mind. Claustrophobia was one thing, but this ... it was only G's comforting presence that kept Nik from losing control. After what seemed like an eternity of freezing darkness, they came up parallel to the rows of long, low buildings that constituted the camp living quarters. G slithered out onto the muddy ground and deftly snipped a hole in the wire fence. Mika headed in one direction and Nik went to follow her, but G grabbed his hand and held onto it.

"Stay with me," G whispered. Their eyes met in the darkness, and Nik saw the fear in G's face - mitigated by a grim determination.

"I won't leave you, cheri," Nik whispered. "Not for anything." He clenched his jaw, and followed G as he dodged the wide sweep of the searchlight atop the guard tower. There wasn't time for him to register much of anything except the biting cold, even though it was the middle of summer. He could hear the commotion at the gatehouse as the train disgorged its passengers, and somewhere in the darkness he knew the place was swarming with SS officers. But Nik focused on G as he scuttled under the first of the long huts, and lay there for a moment, catching his breath. Once again, their eyes met.

"Nik ..." G whispered.

"I know, baby. It's alright," Nik whispered back. "Whatever happens, just know that I love you." G's dark eyes glittered in the stifling blackness.

"Always, Nik. Whatever happens. I'll always love you." Even through the dark, Nik could see the tears in G's eyes.

"Nikolai?"

"Yeah, liebschen?"

"Promise me?"

"Anything."

"Don't let me die alone."

"Never. Never, ever. I promise." Nik tried to keep his voice steady, for G's sake. They had to focus. Nik took G's hand in his own, and held it tight. "G, listen to me. We're going to find her. Alright? And then, we're going to get out of here, alive, all of us. Alright?"

"Alright."

"Love you, G."

"Love you, Nik."

"Come on. Let's do this."

G tapped twice on the underside of the wooden floor, waited for three beats, then tapped again, this time three times, waited for two beats, then tapped again once. An answering tap mirrored his code, but in reverse: 1, two, 3, three, 2. Then, he took out a small knife from inside his belt and began to pry open the trapdoor.

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