The chapter title is a riff on the movie Saving Private Ryan. I haven't seen the full movie but I did watch the D-Day Normandy scene (for research purposes for an earlier chapter), and by golly, it's horridly graphic. Definitely not for the faint of heart.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Saving Sergeant Barnes
Never in her entire life had she been more glad she had listened to her gut than she did now.
When she first saw the barn looming in the distance, she originally thought nothing of it. Once she got closer and watched the Russians kill three of her comrades, her gut shouted at her to search the barn for answers because something lay hidden behind those decaying walls.
It smelled like any old barn, like the one at Uncle Henry's farm in Indiana—rotting wood, musty hay, and the ever-present undertones of animal manure. The barn had no animals now, just a bunch of Russians, more armoured trucks, and even a tank. Stripped of any common barn features, the inside lacked animal pens, stacks of rusty equipment, or anything else one would expect to see in a barn.
Two guards stood in the hay loft, so Suzie shot them first. Manvuering between the parked vehicles, more Russians poured out of nowhere and tried to slow her infiltration.
Then she found a trapdoor leading down a set of stairs. The sudden shift from an old barn to a stark gray, communist concrete hellscape startled her senses enough she hadn't noticed she had run into a shirtless, barefoot, and heavily drugged man on the second floor down.
She had almost shot him—the gun clicked empty when she pulled the trigger—before realizing she had run straight into a ghost.
It couldn't be true. Her brother died months ago, fallen somewhere in the mountains. Steve had seen it; he wouldn't lie.
But, somehow, against all odds, she stood staring at her dead brother. His hair had grown long and wild; it stuck up at odd angles and curled around his ears like a lion's mane of tangles. His beard grew thick enough to make him appear like one of the deranged homeless men Suzie had seen when she worked at the Brooklyn harbor.
From the waist up, he wore nothing other than bloody bandages wrapped around his abdomen. Dried blood ran down his right arm while his left ended in a stump at the elbow. Even from a few feet apart, she could count the ribs poking through his ashen skin. While nowhere near as emaciated as the prisoners at Flossenbürg, his thinness looked far from normal. Aside from the light flush of red on his sweaty face, his skin lacked a healthy shade of color. He looked gray, like a ghost brought back from the dead.
The threadbare pants he wore had seen better days and barely clung onto his hips. Bloody and torn, he had no shoes or socks. Dark bags under his eyes made him appear like they had sunken into his skull. If not for the rapid wheezing and trembling limbs, he could've been a walking corpse.
Shaking off the shock of finding Bucky in the hallways of what appeared to be a secret Russian base in the middle of Czechoslovakia, Suzie holstered her gun and took a step toward him. "Oh, my g—" She clamped a hand over her mouth, fighting back tears. It couldn't be true. It couldn't.
Bucky pressed himself against the wall as if wanting to run away but couldn't. He flinched when Suzie took another step toward him, so Suzie held up her hands, palms flat toward the floor and fingers spread to show she meant no harm.
"Hey, Bucky, it's me," Suzie said. She took another step, all thoughts of the Russians flying away. Getting her brother to safety suddenly became her highest priority. If only he didn't look like a spooked animal, trapped and wary of impending danger.
He tripped over himself when he tried to cringe away from her. He slid down the wall and landed hard on the floor.
"Bucky, please!" Suzie pleaded. Why was he scared of her? He shouldn't be scared of his own sister. "It's me: Suzie! Your sister."
Bucky shook his head and tried to scoot away but it didn't work well with unsteady legs and only one arm. His back hit another wall, and he shook his head, eyes wide and unfocused. The black pupils nearly overtook the steel-blue irises. Drugged. The drugs must've made him too loopy to recognize Suzie. It had to be that, right? Right?
It would take some delicacy to reason with his drug-addled mind. Suzie crouched down into a squat to make herself appear less threatening. She kept her hands up and moved slowly to not startle him.
Oddly, it reminded her of befriending a stray cat—gentle hands, slow movements, a quiet voice, and lots of patience usually worked wonders when dealing with a frightened animal. If she didn't care about scratches or bites, she could easily pick up an injured cat to move it to safety. Though Bucky had lost weight, Suzie doubted she could carry him out of the building while facing armed soldiers.
"You remember me, don't you?" Suzie asked.
He shook his head.
Frustration started to build at his inability to recognize her. She knew it would take time—time they didn't have. Someone would find them soon, so they couldn't stay around to wait much longer. From Bucky's body language and him wandering around the base alone, he probably didn't want to be here any more than she did.
A horrid realization popped into her head. Were the Russians protecting him? Why would they want Bucky? Why didn't they tell anyone about him? How the hell did he survive?
The questions would have to wait for later. Right now, she needed to find a way to get Bucky back to Richard. The 358th's camp, if they ever managed to find it again, would get him much-needed medical treatment.
Deciding not to waste time getting him to recognize her, Suzie switched topics and pointed at the stump of his left arm. "Can you tell me what happened?"
The question seemed to confuse him even further. He looked down as if seeing it for the first time, his mouth agape as he moved it to examine his amputated limb. Eyebrows narrowing in bewilderment, he kept staring at it too long for Suzie's comfort. He should have known he had lost a limb. It had to have been the drugs again.
Impatient, she touched his right shoulder to persuade him to refocus. It had been gentle, barely anything other than the tips of her fingers, but he reacted as if she had punched him. Kicking out his feet to backpedal away, he hit his head and reopened his abdomen wound in the process. While crawling backward, he shook his head rapidly and repeatedly slurred 'no's between rasping breaths.
Suzie gave him some space to let the panic fizzle out before speaking again. Guilt welled in her chest at the sight of her once strong and happy-go-lucky brother cowering from a single touch in the corner of the hallway.
What the hell happened to him?
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm here to help." Suzie raised her hands again, this time palms up. She extended her hand slowly and let it hover in the air halfway between them. It had worked before with stray cats—let him be the one to close the distance, to control who touches him.
Ignoring the warning to be on high alert for enemy soldiers, Suzie waited for Bucky to make the first move. Tentatively, once his breathing slowed to a less panicked rate and he stopped mumbling 'no' over and over, he reached out his hand, his fingers brushing against hers. Suzie rotated her hand to point her fingers toward the ceiling, letting Bucky slide his fingers between hers and give it a gentle squeeze.
"It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm here to rescue you," Suzie assured and gave him a firm nod.
He glanced up at her face from where he had been staring at their interlocked fingers, his eyes still mostly black and shaky. She could feel the trembles coursing through his body where their hands touched.
He quietly licked his chapped lips and opened his mouth to speak the first words Suzie had heard from him in months. "Not...Russian?" he asked, his voice rough and broken from disuse. Each word appeared hard to pronounce as if he needed time to think of what to say and how to form the sounds, almost like a child learning to speak for the first time or someone learning a new language.
"No, I'm not Russian," Suzie replied. She gave him a small smile and gestured at her uniform. "I'm American, same as you."
"A...mer...i...can?" he repeated, testing the syllables slowly. "Help...me?"
"Yes," Suzie said, relief flooding over her as she finally started to get through to him. "I'm here to help you. I'm your sister. Suzie."
"Su...zie..." Bucky's eyes roved over her to find something familiar.
"Yes!" Suzie almost shouted before she caught herself and spoke in a gentler tone. "Yes, it's me: Suzie. Don't you remember?"
He shook his head no.
She wanted to cry. How can someone forget his sister? They had known each other ever since Suzie had been born. It had to have been the drugs making him forget. But then again, he also didn't respond to his name. Anesthesia didn't make people forget their names, did it?
Pushing aside the urge to wrap him into a tight embrace and cry into his shoulder, Suzie bit her bottom lip in thought. They couldn't stay here to let the drugs wear off, and she couldn't carry him either. He might lash out at her—he still held three boxing championship titles, and no amount of drugs could ever erase the muscle memory of knowing how to land a nasty punch. She had seen him knock out opponents, and although he had lost a lot of weight and could barely stand on his own two feet, she didn't want to risk it.
"Can you stand? We're gonna get out of here," Suzie said, hoping he would listen and not react by crawling away again. They still had their fingers intertwined, so maybe she had finally gotten through to him.
Thankfully, he nodded and let her help him to his feet. At first, it didn't work because he didn't let go of her hand right away. He finally allowed her to wrap an arm under his right shoulder and support most of his weight. The first few steps almost sent them sprawling onto the floor until Bucky got his feet under him and let Suzie half-walk, half-drag him down the hallway.
The entire time, he remained tense as if waiting for Suzie to drop the facade and hurt him instead. He still didn't appear to understand she had no intentions of hurting him or causing him any more pain. Suzie doubted she could explain while steadying him, retracing her steps to the surface, and holding her gun one-handed in case of any surprise opposition.
No opposition came until they climbed the stairs and exited the trapdoor into the barn.
Hoisting the trapdoor open, Suzie held her gun and swept the area. A bullet whistled past her ear and pinged into the floor above her head. Ducking down and dropping the trapdoor back on top of them to seal off the stairs, she pushed Bucky behind her, aware someone could come up the stairs and trap them in an ambush.
She wished she had an army. Bucky could hardly walk and looked about ready to pass out. Suzie had only one full clip left of ammo, and she had no idea how many soldiers occupied the base. An army would make their escape a lot easier.
They needed a quick way out. Perhaps, if she took one of the trucks, she could find Richard and drive away from this hellhole. Richard would know what to do.
Praying she could at least get her brother to Richard, Suzie turned to where Bucky stood hunched over on the stairs beneath her. A trickle of sweat rolled down his face and his eyes squeezed shut. Even while the barrage of bullets pounded against the heavy trapdoor, she could hear his breath wheezing in and out like a broken whistle.
"Stay close to me," Suzie said. Retracing her steps might be the best route to take through the barn—take cover behind the tank, run towards the side door, steal one of the trucks parked outside, and get the hell out of there.
Easier said than done.
Enemy fire ceased, so Suzie raised the trapdoor ever so slightly above her head and peeked out. She couldn't see much, only the floor of the barn and the lower half of the tank sitting about a hundred yards to the right.
What had she gotten herself into? She missed her life back in Brooklyn where she didn't have to worry about dying almost every single day. They might not survive this, but she'd at least go down fighting.
"Oh, what the hell," Suzie muttered to herself. Becca already had two dead brothers, why not add a sister, too? She double-checked her ammo clip, slid it back into her gun, and took a deep breath. Lord, please just keep Bucky safe. Whatever happens to me, let him escape.
Shoving open the trapdoor, Suzie stood up, her gun raised. She shot the first soldier she saw, catching him off guard. He dropped to the ground as Suzie hoisted Bucky to his feet and yanked him out of the stairwell.
He stumbled after her, his hand clutching the back of her belt as they ran towards the tank. A bullet sliced through the fabric of her upper left arm, painting a thin line of red on her sleeve. She barely registered the pain, only focusing on getting Bucky out of there.
Halfway to the tank, she realized nobody else fired at them. Strange. Expecting resistance, she ran behind the tank, her gun raised ready to shoot. Nobody stopped them or stood in their way, so Suzie led Bucky out the side door and into the open yard of the base.
The moon sparkled in the night sky, lighting the area in pale white. Shadows danced along the edges of the barn, moving in tune to the gravel singing beneath their feet as they darted toward the nearest parked truck.
A group of soldiers sprung from the shadows and surrounded them, their rifles aimed straight at her. They didn't shoot.
Suzie slid to a halt, and Bucky stumbled into her at the sudden stop. Holding out an arm, she pushed him behind her in some semblance of protection. His breath rustled the hair on her neck as he clung to her.
In front of her, the soldiers parted to make room for a well-dressed man—an officer—to step into the circle. The buttons on his uniform glimmered in the moonlight, and he stepped gracefully with his hands clasped behind his back, uncaring about the stand-off.
He tilted his head and glanced at the duo. No, only at Bucky. When he spoke, he spoke in heavily accented Russian, the words escaping Suzie's also didn't seem to understand, but he trembled and pushed himself further into Suzie when the officer said something sounding like soldat.
"Let us go," Suzie said. She still had a decent amount of ammo left in her gun, but the Russians outnumbered them twenty to two and could take them out faster than Suzie could move.
The officer took no notice of her, only focused on Bucky. Even though the shadow from his hat covered his eyes, Suzie could see something pass across the man's face. He looked...predatorial...as he stared at Bucky.
Then she realized why nobody tried shooting them—they didn't want to accidentally hit Bucky. They let them escape the barn unharmed. They didn't want to hurt or kill Bucky for reasons unknown to Suzie.
Something suddenly clicked in Suzie's head. The bandages wrapped around Bucky's abdomen. Bucky's drugged and unkempt appearance. Bucky wandering alone in the hallways. The soldiers not firing at them. The expression on the officer's face she could only describe as exploitative.
Bucky had wanted out—had tried to escape. The Russians didn't want him to leave, and wouldn't risk hurting him because somehow, someway, he had come back from the dead.
Steve wouldn't lie about Bucky falling from the mountain. He had described it as being high up in frigid temperatures. Nobody could survive the weather, let alone a fall from such a height.
Yet, somehow, Bucky did. Or Steve had lied about the details of Bucky's death, which felt even less likely than her brother evading death. How many lives did he have? Like a damn cat, he kept coming back from the dead. It had been twice now when she had thought he had died and yet, here he stood, looking like he belonged in a hospital but alive nonetheless.
How did the Russians know? And why didn't they inform the Americans if they found Bucky's body?
A horrible idea popped into Suzie's head, and she hated that it might actually work.
Pushing away all questions and the increasing panic of all the unknowns orbiting her brother, Suzie reached behind her to grab Bucky by the arm and pull him in front of her.
The soldiers all reacted at the same time and recentered their rifles at her. She could hear the click of safeties behind flicked off, and even the officer took a step back as Suzie raised her gun and pressed the end of the barrel against Bucky's head.
"Let us go, or I'll shoot," Suzie growled.
The officer finally turned toward her and frowned, his hands no longer clasped casually behind his back. Apparently, he hadn't expected Suzie, after all her troubles of escaping the barn, to turn against Bucky.
"There is no need for violence," the officer spoke, his English heavily accented. He held his hands palms down low in front of him, trying to dissuade Suzie from shooting their prized possession in the head.
"Call your soldiers off and there won't be," Suzie said. For extra emphasis, she ground the gun deeper into Bucky's head, causing him to tilt his head to the left.
Bucky, thank goodness, didn't panic or try to fight her. She didn't know if he understood her plan, but she couldn't exactly ask him for his opinion on the matter. Her whole plan hinged on the hopes that the Russians truly didn't want Bucky to get hurt and believed she would actually shoot her brother.
"What do you want?" the officer asked. He seemed startled at the sudden change.
Suzie nodded toward the trucks. "Give us a truck, let us go peacefully, and he'll live."
The officer paused to contemplate her words. He lowered his head in a small nod, annoyance clear even in the dark. "Very well. You may go."
The officer gestured for the soldiers to lower their weapons and make a path for Suzie and Bucky. When she left the half-circle of soldiers, she walked backward while pressing the gun against Bucky's head to dissuade any sudden attacks.
With one arm draped across Bucky's chest, Suzie picked the best-looking truck—one without any traces of bulletholes in the metal—and clambered into the driver's seat. To ensure they wouldn't shoot her the instant she let Bucky go, Suzie pulled him half onto her lap and slammed the truck door closed.
The tight fit made it a little awkward to reach one-handed around her brother for the ignition key. The truck roared to life and boasted a full tank of gas—thank heavens! She switched her gun to her left hand, shifted it into drive, and burned rubber, sending up a spray of gravel into the soldiers' faces.
When the barn faded from view, she finally slowed down enough to push Bucky into the passenger's seat and reholstered her gun. He immediately collapsed into the seat and leaned his head back, his eyes shut and chest heaving.
Suzie gave him a once-over to make sure he wouldn't just up and die on her after the insane trick she had pulled to get them away from the Russians. After making sure he wouldn't lose yet another of his nine lives, she heaved a sigh of relief and drove.
A few miles out, near the camp the scouting party had made before Graham and the others died, a shadow darted in the headlights. Slamming on the brakes, she served to the side. Poor Bucky flew face-first into the metal dash and Suzie almost fell out of her seat.
Coming down from the shock, Suzie blinked and peered into the headlights. A tall man came into focus, and she let out a yelp of surprise.
Rolling down the window, she stuck her head out and shouted, "What are you doing out here?!"
Richard strode over to the driver's side when he heard her voice. He held his rifle in his hands and had both their backpacks slung over his shoulders.
"Suzie?!" Richard asked. He scrutinized the truck, probably not expecting Suzie to be driving a stolen Russian truck.
Suzie nodded toward the back of the truck. "Get in, we can't afford to wait around."
Richard complied and hopped into the back of the truck. Suzie slammed the pedal to the floor before he could get fully settled, and she heard him land with a loud thump and a groan of pain. She didn't know where to go, so she picked a direction and drove.
Richard clambered to steady himself against the jostling truck. "I said twenty minutes! It's been over forty!" He reached up to move his helmet out of his eyes and tried to find his balance. "How long does it take to clear a barn?"
"It's not just a barn!" Suzie shouted. "It's a whole freaking base! Underground floors and everything. I only got to the second level when I found him." She jerked her thumb at the passenger seat.
Richard craned his neck to see. His eyes widened. "Sergeant Barnes?!" He gave a quick salute and then turned to Suzie for clarification. "What happened?"
Suzie shook her head and glanced in the rearview mirror to see Richard's shocked expression. "I don't know. They're probably following us," because they wouldn't just let her walk away with Bucky in tow. Nothing in life was ever that easy, "so we gotta keep moving."
"The Russians, you mean?" Richard clarified. He swore under his breath when Suzie nodded. "What've we gotten ourselves into?"
"The hell if I know. Imma drive now and ask questions later."
"Good idea. If they were willing to shoot Graham and the others like that when our nations are allies, then they're probably not on our side." He rechecked his rifle just in case. "Find anything else?"
"Other than Bucky and a base under a barn, not much. They did have a tank though." Suzie paused to think. "They looked like they were ready to leave soon. They had everything packed up like they were waiting for something," or someone, "before moving."
Maybe they were waiting for Bucky to recover from his surgery before taking him to a different and more secure location. Suzie shuddered at the thought that she wouldn't have known about Bucky if the Russians had moved on before the scouting team had arrived.
Richard reached over into the front seats and offered his jacket to Bucky. "Here, Sarge. You can have it."
Bucky flinched and shied away from Richard. Suzie noticed the panic flaring up again and she shot Richard a worried glance.
"It's okay, Bucky," Suzie said. She gestured at Richard and offered her brother a gentle smile. "He's a friend. You can trust him."
Bucky's eyes darted between Suzie, Richard, and the jacket. He stared at Suzie for a while, and then finally, slowly reached out to grab the jacket from Richard. Richard smiled at him and held up his empty hands to show Bucky he meant no harm.
Convinced Richard wouldn't attack him, Bucky tucked the jacket around himself and promptly went to sleep. Suzie gave Richard one last concerned glance and then focused on driving while Richard kept watch.
They drove for the rest of the night and into the early morning. Richard offered to switch places with Suzie to give her a break, but she couldn't sleep anyway. Too many thoughts rushed through her head, and she kept glancing at Bucky to prove she didn't imagine the whole thing.
Bucky slept fitfully with his head leaned against the window and Richard's jacket tucked over his bare chest. His lips moved, mumbling something incomprehensible even if Suzie wasn't sleep-deprived and running on fumes.
She had no idea where to go. For all she knew, they could've been driving deeper into Nazi territory. None of the signs they had passed offered English translations and the two small towns they had avoided appeared bombed to oblivion.
They hadn't seen anyone else on the winding, dirt road Suzie had found. Switching between the road and the untamed wilderness, they crossed several open fields, guided by the moonlight and the urge to find something less trackable than a road.
At some point, when the sun finally reached its zenith in the sky, the truck sputtered its last few miles and rolled to a stop at the edge of a forest. Judging by the odometer, they had gone about a hundred miles in the four hours since leaving the barn.
Cursing the empty tank of fuel, Suzie slammed the truck into park and leaned heavily in her seat while she stared at her brother. He had woken up at some point but the haziness of sleep still hung over him like a cloud refusing to dissipate.
"We're gonna have to go on foot," Suzie said to both men.
"Aww, dang," Richard complained half-heartily. "I was just getting comfortable on this hard bench and continuous rocking. I'm probably covered in bruises from your terrible driving."
Suzie ignored Richard's attempt to lighten the mood and hopped out of the truck. She made her way over to Bucky's side, while Richard heaved himself out of the back. He handed her one of the backpacks to strap on before helping her brother out of the truck.
Bucky landed on wobbly feet and looked no better off than when she had first found him. His pupils had shrunk to normal, but he still appeared unstable. Out in the sunlight, he squinted and ducked his head to use his long hair to shade him from the sun.
He looked even paler in the sunlight. His skin had a milky pallor, and she could see the blue veins snaking underneath his skin on his bare chest. The blood on his arm and abdomen had dried, and it flaked off in little pieces when he moved to slouch against Suzie.
"Need a hand?" Richard asked as he finished strapping his own backpack across his shoulders.
Suzie whipped her head around and glared at him, her lips tight and unamused. He stared at her, blinking in confusion.
"What?"
"Richard, that's not funny."
"I..." His voice trailed off as he finally caught sight of Bucky's left arm ending at a stump, the sleeve of Richard's jacket hanging limply off Bucky's shoulder obscured most of the limb. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! I didn't..."
Bucky didn't say anything nor acknowledge Richard. Despite sleeping for most of the ride, he still looked ready to collapse at any given moment.
"We need to find somewhere to camp," Suzie said, waving off Richard's hasty apology for his ignorant joke.
To his credit, Richard only nodded and led the way while Suzie hooked an arm under Bucky's good shoulder and helped her brother walk. He didn't have any shoes to protect his bare feet, but Suzie didn't have an extra pair, even if anything would fit him.
They took anything useful they could find in the truck and used the remaining fuel to burn the truck into a chunk of charred metal to prevent anyone from following them. A few packs of food and some medical supplies were the most they could find. Richard had the brilliant idea to use the truck's burlap canopy as a makeshift tent.
Once they pilfered the truck, they set off towards the forest. They didn't know where to go but the further they left the Russians and the truck behind the better. No doubt the Russians had a plan to get Bucky back, otherwise they never would have let Suzie walk her brother away from the barn in the first place.
The grass swished around their boots and the trees offered shade from the glaring sun. They tried to find the easiest path to walk on since Bucky still couldn't stand without support, but the forest forced them into a winding trek over slippery, moss-covered rocks, around trees growing on uneven ground, and through thick ferns.
Despite Bucky's labored breathing, Suzie's aching muscles from half-carrying her brother for miles, and Richard's utter confusion about their direction, they kept hiking. Moving kept all the questions ringing in Suzie's head at bay, and the urge to get out gave her the energy to go just one more hour to put one more mile between them and the Russians.
When the sun began to sink and the pesky insects started biting, any energy they had left started to evaporate. Bucky slipped twice in an hour, and sweat poured down his face even though the temperature had been cool under the shade of the trees.
"We have to stop," Richard said when the darkness finally blotted out any last bits of light. The trees blocked the moon and they couldn't see anything clearly. "We've gotta be far enough away by now. And we need to rest."
Everything inside Suzie told her to keep going—to keep running away so the soldiers couldn't capture her brother. Still, she couldn't debate the logic of stopping. She hadn't eaten anything in over twenty-four hours, and who knows when the last time Bucky had eaten. Her time in the army often forced them to march for hours at a fast pace, so she and Richard could go longer, but even she felt the effects of marching through treacherous terrain. Now, away from all the action, her stomach growled in protest, and she realized just how exhausted the whole ordeal had made her. She hadn't even had a bathroom break since storming the barn, and her body yelled at her to stop and rest.
Additionally, Bucky didn't have any shoes, still appeared not completely mentally there, and sounded like one step away from collapsing onto the mossy forest floor and passing out.
Suzie agreed to find somewhere to hunker down for the night. They walked a little further to find a small, relatively flat spot along the rocky bank of some murky-looking creek before settling down for the night.
Richard draped the truck's canopy over a few fallen tree trunks and large boulders to make a rough tent while Suzie dug around in her backpack for some food. They couldn't start a fire because any light would risk alerting someone to their location, so they had to eat dry rations and water.
Once sitting down, everything became an aching haze of numbness. As much as she wanted to eat, she couldn't stomach the thought of what might happen if someone found them in the middle of the night. Richard, oblivious to her inner turmoil, joined them and opened his open ration kit to eat.
Suzie sat there in silence, slowly nibbling on her food while Bucky practically wolfed his down. He only stopped eating to drink heavily from the water. Suzie should've told him to slow down and conserve their water, but she didn't have the heart to prevent her ailing brother from eating. He had always loved food, and right now, sitting in the dark and barely seeing his face in the moonlight streaming through the trees months after his supposed death, she couldn't stop him.
Maybe the fact she could have easily counted his ribs earlier prevented her from telling him to slow down to not upset his stomach.
Richard also seemed to notice Bucky's hungry fervor, and he raised a questioning eyebrow. "What have they been feeding you?"
"Shit," Bucky said completely lacking any emotion. He returned to munching on his ration bar, unaware of the grimace on Suzie's face.
She hoped he had replied in the metaphorical sense as in the food tasted bad or hardly enough, instead of the more...literal...meaning of the word. She didn't know which was worse, and she didn't want to know. Instead, she offered him her half-eaten can and he gladly accepted it.
They finished the rest of the meager meal in silence, and then Suzie led Bucky to the creek to wash off the blood on his arm and the mud caked on his bare feet. The time for more proper bathing would come later when they had put more distance between them and the soldiers, and when Suzie could see better.
Once relatively clean, at least on his feet and wounds, Suzie reapplied bandages over the stitches on Bucky's abdomen, procured some socks and a shirt for him to wear, and led him to the makeshift tent.
He lay on the ground, unaffected by the rocks digging into his back or the bedroll slipping a little on the moss whenever he moved. He fell asleep quickly, and Suzie sat there for a while watching his chest rise and fall.
Sitting next to her brother, Suzie finally let exhaustion take over. As she leaned against a tree and closed her eyes, she wondered: what the hell were they going to do?
They're in the Heinersreuther Forest in Upper Franconia, Germany (or Teufelsloch, Germany), which is about 100 miles NW from Kirchaitnach (but they don't know that).
Also, a reminder, this story does not have a happy ending. Please don't get mad at me for the ending of this story. :P I'm still planning for about 45 chapters total, so we're almost at the end. HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who has been along with me on this journey. This had been one of my favorite stories to write, and we're in the chapters that I'm most excited to write and had planned for since the beginning of this story. I hope you enjoy it.