Timeless

Chapter 16

She couldn't find it within herself to cry as she sat down on the wooden floor of the room, just staring out the window. No, Kathryn Egan wouldn't cry. She needed, after all, to grow up. This was war, after all. People died all of the time. Every single day. Why should today be any different? Why should she cry when others had lost so much more than she had?

Although she had finally made her way down to the kitchen and she had helped with the meal, Kathryn deliberately avoided dinner. She had too many thoughts to be eating. And she had found that some solace had come from having a drink or two. It was a bad habit to get into, and perhaps if she were in a better frame of mind, she would have been more careful about how much she was drinking.

But she didn't.

Sleep didn't come to her at all that first night. She lay wide awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering if they were dead in a ditch somewhere. Wondering if they were warm enough, if they had any food, if they were scared or not—and it was this very spiral of thoughts that kept her wide awake and unable to find solace.

Maybe she never would.

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The first thing that John Egan was aware of was the fact that he could hear horses neighing and that it was frigid out here. The second thing that he was acutely aware of, besides the thick globs of blood that were on his face, was the fact that he was probably going to die somewhere in the middle of Germany and no one would ever know.

And Kathryn was going to absolutely kill him for that.

The jostling of the cart he was on was bad enough—coupled with the fact that he was securely stuck under a body and the fact that someone was mumbling under their breath. It took every ounce of concentration in his body to be able to even open his eyes and force them to look up.

He could see trees passing overhead—and though the sun was out, this was a bitter sort of cold. Turning his head ever so slightly, Bucky fixed his gaze on the two people driving the cart of seemingly dead bodies. One wore a hat and both wore wool coats, but neither spoke. Not yet, at least.

Another moment of jostling before the cart came screeching to a stop and the sound of German filled his ears. Bucky shushed at the man mumbling—he thought it was the Lord's Prayer, but he couldn't be sure. But it was too late. As one of the men got off of the cart, shovel in hand, the other called back to him.

Bucky held still—horror striking through his chest as the shovel impacted with a wet splash into the soldier's chest. Blood splattered against his own face but he did not move. He willed himself to stay there, to stay silent, to stay alive . He had to get out of this. He wasn't about to die here in nowhere, Germany.

When he was certain that they were more than a considerable distance away, he lifted his head. Through the dried blood and blinking against the fresh blood, Bucky's eyes landed on the two men digging graves with shovels. They were focused right now and talking—he could make it. He could do this.

Trying to move presented a painful problem, but he pushed as hard as he dared against the bodies until he could roll onto the ground. He spilled out onto the ground, breathing heavily for just a moment from the exertion. His head was spinning and it felt like he had just downed a shot of whiskey, if he was really being honest.

Every movement was agony—but he pushed himself to his feet, nearly stumbling as he went. And then it was just one foot in front of the other. And he ran and he ran. Anyone could run 10 feet, is what he told himself as he just kept going. And he didn't stop going until his feet had given out from underneath him and his head lay on the dirt.