The Baba Yaga by Una McCormack

pause as the person at the other end of the line presumably replied.
    “From Braun’s World. I think we must have been tracked leaving... What? No, no, of course I didn’t! I wouldn’t do something that stupid! How? Because they’re bloody serious about nobody getting away!”
    Maria sighed softly and wrapped her arms around herself. So it was exactly as she had feared and suspected: someone was following them, and had been following them long before they reached Shuloma Station, and they were getting close. They had been followed, and they had been found.
    “Listen,” said Kit. His voice had gone low and Maria had to strain to hear. “You’ve got to help. You can’t abandon us! Not after everything I... No, you listen! My wife, my little girl—for God’s sake, she’s only four! No, I know that you said I shouldn’t... For God’s sake, what kind of a man do you think I am...? Yes, yes, it probably was because I went back. But I wasn’t going to leave them, was I? They’d have been murdered—”
    Maria clutched herself more tightly. So he’d had the chance to get away without them, and he hadn’t. But that delay was the reason they were in trouble now. It’d given whoever was chasing them the chance to pick up their trail...
    “You’ve got to help us!” Kit’s voice was getting hysterical. “No, I don’t want to put you in danger. But you’re already in danger. What you know puts you in danger... No, you listen to me! I’m not playing around now. If they catch up with me, I’ll tell them! I’ll tell them it was you!”
    “Mummy?” Maria looked down. Jenny was tugging at her arm. “Why is Daddy upset? Is he sick?”
    “No, sweetheart, but he’s very tired. Like you are.” And me too, she thought, tired and very afraid. She forced a smile onto her face, then reached into her pocket and drew out her little gold handheld. A gift from Kit for her last birthday: fashionable, and more extravagant than they could really afford. He could be silly like that, sometimes. “Hey, sweetheart,” she said brightly, passing the device over, “why don’t you draw me a picture of Monkey? Show me what you think he’s doing now. I bet he’s got into some kind of trouble!”
    Jenny, thrilled, seized the thing and jumped onto the bed, hunkering down happily. Maria pressed herself back against the door.
    “You can’t threaten me with anything worse than the trouble we’re in now, you understand that, don’t you...? You’ve got to find them somewhere safe. Really safe... No. No. I know. But that’s the way it is... Okay. Okay, I’m listening. Go ahead.”
    There was a pause—while the other person spoke, presumably—and then Maria heard Kit sigh and move. The call must have ended. Quick and light as a feather, she hopped onto the bed beside Jenny and began to admire the child’s picture.
    The bathroom door opened, but Kit didn’t speak straight away. Maria looked up and saw him standing in the doorway, one hand pressed against the door frame, the other tugging at his upper lip. She smiled at him. “Everything all right, love?”
    “Yes,” he said. “I think things are going to be all right now.” He gestured to her. “Quick word?” he said. “In private?”
    She joined him in the bathroom and he closed the door behind them. She thought: What would he say if I told him I’d been listening? Would he be angry? Relieved? But she wouldn’t tell him. His pride... She would leave him his pride.
    “This place,” he said. “It’s not safe. But I’ve found somewhere else.”
    “That’s good,” she said. “Not back to the Expansion, I guess.”
    “No,” he said. “No chance of that. Still here, on the station.” He took a deep breath. “Maria, there’s something else...”
    She put her fingers gently against his lips. “I know,” she said. “You don’t have to say it. I know what you’re going to say.” She took hold of his hand. “I love you, Kit Emerson. I loved you the first