The Price {Completed}

Chapter Forty-Four

I wandered down the street, where an alleyway cut across to another block of buildings. I pondered finding Ferdinand, but before I stepped away from the street something stopped me in my tracks.

It was nothing physical. No sound or sight. Merely a feeling that I should stay on this road and not turn away. It was if my soul had found a path that my body was too tired to resist.

I turned away from the alley and continued toward the end of the street. Just a few feet more and I could see that, over a small rise, someone had built some sort of raised structure in the middle of the road. People were lined up to one side of it, and at first I thought it must be some sort of distribution center. I wandered closer, until I could smell the freshly cut boards and see the swinging rope hanging from a girder and tied in a loop.

A man in a grubby uniform jacket ushered a young man up the steps and to the looped rope, positioning him exactly in the middle and then slipping the rope over his neck. The boy began to sob, sending the rope shivering. The man ignored him, and walked to one end of the structure. He placed his hand on a lever, and while the boy tried to beg, he yanked down. A trap door in the structure opened up beneath the boy, and with a jolt he rushed downward. The rope went tight, snapping to a stop, and there was one less life in the world.

I stumbled back a step, smothering a scream. My eyes went immediately to the men lined up to the side. They were shackled together, two men in uniforms and holding guns standing guard over them. This was a mass execution, and the man on the structure their executioner. He called the men up one after the other, to place the rope on their necks and pull that lever. It was machine-perfect. The efficiency was well practiced. The executioner made sure his victim was truly dead, and then two more soldiers pulled the body from the rope and tossed it into a growing pile for later disposal. No wasted bullets here.

I stood rooted to the spot, staring at the gruesome sight as if it were a punishment for the sins in my life. I watched boys younger than me be dropped and then kicked to one side.

And then I saw the next man shuffle forward.

Ferdinand.

His blonde hair had been hastily cut off until only a thin layer was left, exposing the bite marks of fleas and lice. He looked so gaunt and starved, and new wounds oozed on his face. He cradled one arm, and his right knee didn't quite bend right. He paused at the bottom of the steps until one of the guards nudged him with the tip of his rifle. "Get up there, coward."

The executioner shoved Ferdinand into place. I burst into a run, slamming into the side of the raised platform. "Stop!" I shouted, looking wildly from the executioner to Ferdinand.

I grabbed Ferdinand's ankle, as he was too far away for me to reach anything else. He looked down, confused at first and then terrified.

"Nadia, what are you doing here?" he asked. The executioner bullied him into position, ignoring me, but I didn't let go.

"Ferdinand." All the night's emotions flooded out at once and I began to cry so heavily that my sides hurt and the executioner looked down at me in annoyance.

"Please, leave," Ferdinand said, trying to bend down. The executioner pressed a gun to his back, making him straighten out. "Nadia, you shouldn't see this. Just go. Do what we were going to do, and you'll be fine. I left the things I went to get in a safe spot by the Wellington."

"I can't," I choked, tightening my hold on his ankle as if it would somehow save him. "I can't do it on my own. I'm just me. I'm not a girl who can run away on her own. I need you."

"You don't. You're strong. You danced whole ballets that even grown men couldn't finish," he said. "Go on and be free. You can dance like you dreamed. You're enough, Nadia."

"My dream is with you," I said.

Tears came to his eyes and he looked at the sky and licked his lips. "Nadia, please. I can't- I can't stand..." His face twisted as if he was in pain.

I turned my eyes to the executioner. "You have to let him go. Please. He's all I have."

The man shook his head, fondling his gun. "Can't. He's a deserter of our Cause, and thus an enemy to the people. He's a coward, and he doesn't deserve a life that he wasn't willing to fight for."

I tried to think of things to sway him, to bring him to see that I couldn't live without the man that stood in front of him. Ferdinand suddenly knelt down, grabbing me and pulling me into a rushed hug that had my nose smashed into his chest and my hands tangled between us. I stood on my tiptoes to try and hold as much of him as I could. His kiss was sloppy, more on my cheek than my lips, but I cherished it more than any of the others. I gripped his neck, but the executioner already hauled him back up, pushing him backward and aiming the gun at him.

"All right, enough of that. Get lost, girly, before I decide to add you to the list." He chucked his thumb over his shoulder at the three men left waiting for their lives to end, staring at me with sad and hungry eyes, perhaps wishing their own loved ones were in my place.

My heart felt near to breaking as the noose was looped around Ferdinand's neck. He cried as I did. I pressed my hands to my mouth, wondering if, when the moment he dropped, I would fall dead at the same time.

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A/N

I just found the motherload of perfect songs for The Price via watching War & Peace. :P So, um, don't mind me just using them left and right.