screamed.
It felt like a caged animal trying to get out of her chest as she stared down. “A dummy.” What…? A laugh of disbelief snaked up in her warmed breath that floated on the air before her. “Who would—”
She keyed her mic. “I—”
Pain exploded through her shoulders. Slammed her forward.
Red—her blood.
White—the snow.
Black—icy death embraced her.
Téya
Bleak Pond, Pennsylvania
28 April – 1100 Hours
Wind blew in a different direction here. It came softer, warmer. More inviting.
Katherine Gerig wrapped her arms around herself, savoring the breeze that carried across the plain, rifling through the stalks of corn that separated the Augsburger property. The strings of her prayer kapp surfed the breeze. Things were so different here. So much quieter. Better. More peaceful.
Way more peaceful than the life she’d lived as Téya Reiker, a Special Operations combat veteran. Though that life and what she’d done must cease to exist, even in her memory. She pushed it as far back as she could, embracing the new person she’d become.
“Katie?”
She turned on her heels, the simple dress flapping against her legs, compliments of the wind, as she did. “
Ya, Grossmammi?
” She stepped through the screen door and entered the small kitchen where her maternal grandmother shuffled in from the sitting room.
“Is that pie ready,
liewi
?”
Katie bent before the oven and tilted back the door. “A few more minutes,” she said, closing it.
White-haired and wrinkled, her grandmother was sturdy and firm. “It will be nice to go with the chicken and fixings, while they go through this hard time,
ya
?”
“
Ya
.” Katie gave a sad smile. “Zech and Hannah have been through so much already.” It hurt to think of the older couple facing yet another trial after losing their youngest to drowning. “It is good, though, that David has the car, so the family doesn’t have to hire a driver going back and forth to the hospital.”
At the mention of the Augsburger’s second eldest, Katie felt her heart scamper into her stomach. At thirty, David should have been married long ago. To a sweet, compliant Amish girl who’d taken the faith.
“I’ll get the rig ready and be right back when that pie is done.” Katie stepped back onto the porch and made her way down the steps, searching the field for the horse. She gave a call, and the mare lifted her head from the field. Katie groaned. In the corn again! Rein in hand, she hurried across the yard to the fence. David’s older brother, Isaac, was irate the last time the mare chewed a couple of ears.
Really, it wasn’t the horse. Katie knew that. It was
her
. He, like others in the Amish community, had rejected her, an
Englischer
. She bore her mother’s shame, though she’d had no control over her mother’s departure.
She slipped the rein around the horse and led her back to the yard, where she hooked up the rig. Her grandmother was there with the chicken potpie and fresh-baked bread. As she set them in the rig, Katie retrieved the pie. They made their way down the road. Though the two properties shared boundaries, the creek and distance made it too difficult for
Grossmammi
, especially with food.
Katie guided the rig down the lane and onto Augsburger Road. Even as the horse drew up to the white clapboard house, Katie felt her stomach squirm. Which was insane!
Miriam Augsburger hurried out to them and wrapped her arms around Katie. “Thank you for coming to my rescue.”
Laughing, Katie appreciated the friendship David’s sister had provided since she’d moved to the community. “Is it that bad?” She handed the potpie to Miriam.
“Worse! They act as if Lydia is dead!” Miriam muttered.
Pie tucked in the crook of her arm, Katie made sure to offer a hand of support to her grandmother as they climbed the steps. When Katie glanced up, her stomach once again flopped. Light brown eyes fastened onto hers like a homing beacon. Black hair curled