At night, Sveta found herself drawn to the silence of the dark. Before her mother's death, the shadows of her room in her parents' estate always soothed her. In the corners of her bedroom, she could hide. In those few years between her baptism by fire in Rostov-on-Don and the arrival of Lavrentiy Beria, she'd cloaked herself in the shadows that would dance from candlelight.

On the Island, the men stayed in the CP as often as they could. If they weren't on the line, why put themselves in danger? Sveta understood it. She knew she should probably do the same. It would be much safer in bed in the Battalion CP than wandering halfway to the river. But at the CP, Harry would try to rope her into a poker game, Nixon would crack a few jokes, and Winters would play the mediator when they got into a scuffle. It always went that way.

Harry would let them go at it. Sometimes he watched it like a game of tennis. Nixon would get under her skin, she would make a snide remark back and ruffle his feathers, and he would do the same right back. Winters never looked pleased, but he often stayed silent until reminding them to take a breath. Usually starting with her, no matter what had instigated the scuffle.

So she preferred the dark. Night added a second blanket of security against any potential NKVD spies. The odds that he had one on the front lines was already small; having a spy that would be willing to walk around close to the front at night dropped the likelihood even lower. So here she could relax.

Sveta stopped by a set of trees that had yet to fall. Above her, a three-quarter moon shined down surrounded by a crown of stars. She smiled. What a funny thing, that peace and security and relaxation came from a place of such destruction and danger. But it did. She could breathe, here. She could breathe in the slightly wet grass from the recent drizzle of rain, the way the earth had been churned up by troops that day.

No Lewis Nixon to crack her recovering mask.

No Harry Welsh to stay silent as she squirmed.

No Richard Winters to play favorites for his friend.

Just her. Just Svetlana Alexandrovna Samsonova, the girl with a shattered soul and frightened mind. Just Sveta, alone.

She opened her eyes to look at the moon through the branches. The dark wood cut cracks along the pure moon, like the skin of a shattered porcelain doll. Her smile fell. Alone. Zhanna had decided Nixon and Winters were better to trust with secrets than her. Nixon and Winters knew better how to help her cope with the death of her parents. Sveta frowned. In fact, Zhanna rarely spoke to her these days; Skip Muck, Don Malarkey, Dick Winters, all better company for her than her fellow Russian.

Well, not fellow Russian. Zhanna wasn't really Russian. Not by blood.

A twig snapped. Sveta reacted on instinct. She pointed the sidearm that sometimes reminded her too much of an NKVD pistol straight at the looming shadow two meters away. She found herself staring down the barrel of another gun. Her whole body shook.

"Svetlana?"

"Ron! What the hell!"

"Christ, what are you doing out here?" he demanded at the same time.

She rolled her eyes, forcing the trembling in her bones to stop. No spy, no Nazi. Just Ron. It took a moment to convince her arms to work, but eventually, she lowered her pistol and put it back in her holster. "I came out for a walk."

"Because that makes sense, Svetlana," he growled. But he lowered his gun too, and moved over to join her at the trees. "You trying to get yourself shot?"

"No. Are you?" She looked at him. The faintest slivers of moonlight filtered through the bare branches and highlighted his face. He seemed still, more than even usual, jaw set. "What are you doing out here?"

He bit his lip and glanced around. Then he turned back. "Got a mission. Strayer and Sink want me to scout the other side."

"You're serious?" Her eyes widened as he nodded. "By yourself?"

He tried to look unfazed. But the way he kept looking into the darkness, she figured he knew how dangerous it was even when he tried to explain the anxiety away. "It's quieter than a whole patrol."

"This is fucking insane."

"They're orders."

She huffed, looking away from him. Her Mosin-Nagant lay against the tree, perched precariously muzzle up. The beating of her heart increased as she looked at it. Closing her fists Sveta made up her mind. "You're not going by yourself."

He huffed. "Svetlana, the orders were I go across alone. It'll minimize the likelihood of detection. Safer for all parties."

"Then I won't go across," she argued back. "I'm better from a distance, anyways."

Ron turned to look at her. She felt heat flush to her face again, remembering not too many nights ago. The knuckles on her hand still stung when she flexed her fingers, the scabs a painful reminder of the rejection of her people. But the warmth beneath the skin, the healing, reminded her of sharing cigarettes.

"Right." He nodded. "Let's go."

Sveta let him take point. The shadows that had offered comfort and memories of better days now seemed to grow. Every shift of the darkness closed in. Instead of her mother, Sveta thought of the blue-capped NKVD. She thought of her father's dark eyes.

Each footfall reminded her of their flight from Europe. Sneaking, hiding in shadows. At least years of playing dumb and obedient had trained her for deception in cities. That had helped more than she'd expected for stealth in combat.

With each step, Sveta found it harder to breathe. Closer and closer to the river, they slunk along like wolves on the hunt. Her hands molded to the rifle. Muscle memory. The small rumble of the river began to fill the air around them. While the noise helped obscure any stray sounds, they'd come to a portion of the river least guarded. The sandbags had fallen in some places. It allowed for easier access to the river, but also an easy target.

Sveta crouched with Ron behind a bit that was still intact. A staff sergeant from Fox joined them. As they hid behind the sandbags and sheet metal, they caught their breath.

"Sirs?" the man asked.

"Go about your regular duties, Sergeant," Ron ordered.

His brow furrowed. But the sergeant nodded, leaving them be and moving a bit further down the line, though still within easy earshot. Sveta watched him.

"I'll be back in 25 minutes," Ron said. He held up his watch to catch what little light he could. After looking at it a bit longer, he nodded. "Don't do anything stupid. I can see it now—"

"Me? Like what? Save your ass? I already did that once in Normandy." She smirked as he went to protest. Waving him off, she just chuckled. "Go, Ron."

As he stood up, shed his coat, and crept to the fallen bit of the wall, he muttered back to her. "If I die, make sure Casmirovna doesn't get my cigarettes."

It took all her years of practice not to burst out laughing. But he wasted no time and offered her no chance at a response. Instead, Ron snuck away. Sveta grinned.

Rifle in hand, she settled down on her stomach in the V-shaped hole in the crumbled defenses. One of the few remaining sandbags provided a place for her to rest the rifle. Squaring herself to the gun, she looked out across the river.

The irony of how at ease a warzone put her never left Sveta's mind. Even as she watched Ron ease himself into the water, tensing at the cold no doubt, and then start across, she thought about it. Even when Ron disappeared into a small section of trees on the other side. She lost track of him, but her thoughts drifted to the nature of war.

Chaotic, dangerous, ugly. Those were the words she used to think described war. And they were true, to an extent. Watching soldiers bleed out, watching as their eyes turned the same glassy nothingness she'd seen in her mother's, watching as men became scared boys, it was chaotic and dangerous and ugly. But there was a sort of rhythm to war.

The pulsing of artillery, the purr of machine guns, the crack of rifle bullets. Chaos to some, but Sveta found that weapons made more sense than people. In Russia, every man and woman wore a mask. Stalin would smile for the pictures, hold his daughter's hand, and then turn around and employ a man like Beria who he knew raped women as a pastime. Alexander, her father, would preach on the importance of security through eradication, and then he'd give her a kiss and proclaim his love. Even her mother. Veronika would kiss her husband, call him Sasha, bed him at night, and then spend her days undermining his causes in silence.

Bullets did not lie. The battlefield made sense. She didn't have to wear a mask here, laying in inch thick mud, her neck straining a bit as she looked past her rifle into the darkness across the river. She just had to do a job, here. Pull a trigger.

The minutes ticked by. No movement caught her eye. At the twenty-minute mark, her hand started to fidget with the trigger. Sveta closed her fists, trying to relax. But she couldn't. She couldn't. Not with Ron in the shadows somewhere.

Just as she felt like screaming from the tense silence, movement and the crack of a sniper bullet jolted her upright. She looked down the scope. Her heart leapt into her throat as she saw Ron on the other side stumble into the water.

Shit.

Sveta began to scan any opening she could see. Any discoloration of a black muzzle against a lighter background. Any glint of light off metal. Anything.

She found nothing.

Sveta dropped her rifle and scrambled up. Instead, she pulled out her American pistol and skidded down the riverbank. A rock jabbed into her side as she fell into it. The pain barely registered as she glanced between Ron's struggle across the river and the other side for enemy movement.

Still nothing.

Ron hauled himself onto the bank. Making a split-second choice, Sveta stuck the pistol back in the holster and moved over to him. She grabbed his arm, water cascading through her fingers even as her scabbed knuckles stung. Hissing out a curse in Russian, she heaved him up.

"Fuck, you're heavy!" she snapped. Sveta didn't give herself time to figure out where he'd been shot, who had shot him, or with what weapon. Using her body as best she could to support him, Sveta hurried back towards the line.

Ron half growled half cried out as she stumbled and nearly dropped him. "Jesus Christ!"

Close enough to the barriers, Sveta didn't respond to his complaining. Instead, she called out for a medic. Multiple pairs of footsteps pounded down the line from the left. Just as they reached the wall, she shoved him to a waiting staff sergeant. He barked orders.

She felt the punch first. A small hiss of air accompanied it. Then the crack, the sound Sveta knew too well. The sound she'd heard many times.

Her knees hit the ground first. Sveta couldn't tell if she had cried out, or if someone else had. But a burning sensation started to radiate from her abdomen. All the voices, all American gibberish, droned in her ears. Sveta couldn't make sense of it.

She could see stars, though.

"Sveta! Shit."

Gritting her teeth, Sveta tried to reorient herself to the man who'd said her name. Focus on the name. She tasted blood. But it did the trick, as a medic landed by her side and began to push up her clothes—

No. No.

Sveta dug her fingers into the mud, trying to get away. She had to get away from the shadow men. They were touching her—

"Captain, relax."

"She needs to stay still! Fuck, I can't see it!"

"Sveta!"

Ron. Mud got in her mouth, mixing with the tang of blood. She choked. The sudden movement shot pain through her chest. Sveta couldn't move. She couldn't breathe.

"Sveta, calm down."

"I'm gonna give her some morphine. Damn it, Lieutenant, we need you to give us room so we can look at you too."

She felt a prick like a mosquito bite. Her vision clouded, darkness threatening to consume her as the men kept touching her. The pain faded. The voices faded. Black covered all, and then she felt nothing.