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Or design?
    It didn’t matter. She was prepared.
     
    Sofia had been watching the evening sun slide away from her along the curving line of the trees, transforming the greens to amber and then to a fierce painful red. A komar landed on her bare arm. She didn’t move, but watched the insect’s tiny body turn into a ruby tear as it drank its fill of her blood. It made her think of the way the labour camp had tried to suck the lifeblood out of her. She struck hard and the mosquito was transformed into no more than a pink smear on her skin.
    She was standing in the doorway of a cabin. She’d found it in a small clearing that was hidden way up on the northern slope of the forest, deep in the Ural Mountains. It wasn’t really a clearing, but more a ragged scar where lightning had decapitated a tall birch which, as it had fallen, had brought down a handful of young pine trees. The cabin was skilfully built to withstand the merciless Ural winters, but now it was old and patched with moss, tilting to the right like an old man with cramp.
    It looked as if its bones ached just the way hers did. It had taken four never-ending, hard, grinding months as a fugitive to reach this point. She’d scuttled and scrambled and fought her way halfway across Russia, travelling always south-west by the stars. The odd thing was that it had taken her a long time – far too long – to get used to being on her own. That had startled her.
    The nights were the worst. So big and empty. Five years of sleeping packed five to a bed board and you’d think she’d relish the sudden relief of solitary living, but no. She could hardly bear to be on her own at first because the space around her was too huge. She found sleep hard, but gradually her mind and her body adapted. Then she travelled faster.
     
    The actual escape from Davinsky had proved even more dangerous than she’d expected. It was a dull damp day in March with a lingering mist that swirled among the trees like the dead drifting from trunk to trunk. Visibility was poor. A perfect day to join the ghosts.
     
    She and Anna had planned it carefully.
    They waited until the perekur , the smoke-break, which gave her five minutes. Five minutes was all. Sofia stood in a huddle with the other women from her brigade and saw Anna watching her, taking in every last detail, saying nothing. The idea of leaving Anna behind felt absurdly like treachery, but she had no choice. Even alone her own chances of survival were… She stopped her thoughts right there. Minute by minute, that’s how she would survive. Adrenalin was pumping through her veins and her throat felt dry.
    She stepped closer to Anna and said quietly, ‘I promise I’ll come back for you. Anna, wait for me.’
    Anna nodded to her. That’s all. Just a nod and the look that passed between them. A moment frozen in time with no beginning and no end. A nod. A look. Then Anna left the huddle of women and hurried over to where four guards were standing around a brazier and smoking, stamping their feet and laughing at each other’s crude jokes. One guard was holding a dog on a chain, a German Shepherd that lay like a black shadow on a patch of icy grass, its eyes narrow slits.
    Anna skirted the dog warily. She was to create the distraction, so with a shriek of alarm she started to make a fuss, waving her arms about to draw attention.
    ‘Look!’ she shouted. Heads turned towards her. ‘Look there!’ she shouted again, this time pointing urgently at the line of pine trees behind the guards.
    A ribbon of space had been hacked out of the forest for the new road they were building, but beyond that lay a dense and gloomy world where little light penetrated. There, power was wielded by claws and teeth instead of guns.
    ‘What?’ All three guards jumped and swung round, raising their rifles.
    ‘Wolves!’ she warned.
    ‘Fuck!’ exclaimed one of the men. ‘How many?’
    ‘ Tri. Three. I saw three,’ Anna lied. ‘It could have been