Free Iron to Iron (Wolf by Wolf) by Ryan Graudin Page A

not most racers.”
    “You’re not most men,” she countered. “If any other racer had come across me in that washroom, they would’ve turned me in to the officials. But
you
chose to form an alliance with me. You see me as your equal.”
    Adele reached out, placed her hand on his. Her fingers looked as they had the first time he’d noticed them: delicate, built of bones slender enough to reach into Luka, rearrange the laws of his existence. “I don’t want this to end. I know it has to, after the river. But…”
    She didn’t finish her thought. Perhaps because they both knew there was no
but
. The Iron Cross called to them both, and it was a strong siren.
    “We can be together after Tokyo,” Luka heard himself saying. “I’ll come visit you in Frankfurt, or you can come to Hamburg. I’ll try my best to hide all the fish.”
    Adele’s laugh trembled all the way through her fingertips. “I’d like that. But…”
    Another
but
. The word felt as sharp as fear in Luka’s gut.
    “If you win, I’ll want to race in next year’s Axis Tour. Everyone knows who you are, Luka. If the Reichssender sees us together, that will put me in the spotlight. I wouldn’t be able to compete as Felix without somebody noticing.”
    She wouldn’t, would she?
    “Let’s…” There was sadness in Adele’s smile. “Let’s enjoy this night while we have it.”
    Luka’s exhaustion—the same one that had leadened limbs and lids alike while they set up camp—melted away. Kissing was an art, but with Adele it also felt like a bit of a battle. He didn’t mind letting her win. They kissed and kissed and kissed, until the bulb of the electric lantern began to dim and darkness crept out of the jungle leaves, stretching across them both. They fell asleep in each other’s arms, jackets still half-zipped, breaths tangling into each other’s hair as they gathered strength for the dawn.

    The jungle had taken its toll on the Axis Tour roster. Once all the times had been entered on the chalkboard at the Hanoi checkpoint nine names were struck through. There were only eleven racers left in the lineup. Only three times that mattered:
    1st: Tsuda Katsuo, 12 days, 8 hours, 47 minutes, 39 seconds.
    2nd: Luka Löwe, 12 days, 8 hours, 47 minutes, 59 seconds.
    3rd: Felix Wolfe, 12 days, 8 hours, 47 minutes, 15 seconds.
    Darkness bunched outside the checkpoint’s open windows, pulsing with cricket song. Luka sat by his empty dinner bowl—eyes on first place, Katsuo and company lingering in the corner of his vision. Luka kept his back to Adele because he wasn’t sure he could bear to look at her without… aching.
    She pushed into his sights anyway, seating herself only two chairs away, hands wrapped around a bowl of pho. White blazes of hair stabbed into Luka’s periphery. He kept staring at the chalked 1ST until the board around it bloomed: cones and rods gone stale. A blue as vibrant as her eyes…
    Don’t!
    Adele blew at the steam curling from her bowl. “Tomorrow?”
    “The plan hasn’t changed.” Luka kept his voice low. “I’ll push ahead, get on the ferry first. Try to let Katsuo stay in second while you pull in third. When we’re crossing the river, I’ll distract him; you cut his fuel lines.”
    “And then our interests diverge,” she murmured back.
    Interests change.
Luka’s lips buzzed with the memory of hers. All of him wanted to turn, push aside the empty chairs between them, taste the movement, the warmth, the whole of her.
    You and I aren’t so different.
    The Iron Cross called to them both. Iron calls to iron, and Adele called to him.
    There was only one way Luka could answer.…
    You already have a future. Why do you need the Double Cross so badly?
    There was always something more, but what if a second Cross wasn’t it? What if the answer was just a glance away, slurping spoonfuls of lime-tinged broth? What if… Luka let her win?
    The thought alone was close to heresy. How many worlds’ worth of kilometers