The far bank had the same tired weeds and rusting signposts as where they just were, but the air felt different.
The moment the wheels kissed clean asphalt beyond the barricade, Alexei breathed a fraction deeper and let his shoulders drop to their proper level.
He wasn't relaxed—never that—but he was definitely aligned.
He parked the second truck at an angle so the bed faced the road and the cab faced the fields.
Better to load quick, shoot quicker, and not give anyone an easy lane into their teeth. Elias did the mirror of it with the lead truck—habit turning into choreography.
The checkpoint on this side had been a living thing thirty minutes before.
Plastic chairs were kicked over. A folding table was now on its face. A fifty-gallon drum blackened by old fires stood under the bridge's support beams, and a clutch of skewers leaned inside it like the last men had intended a lunch that never arrived.
