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“What’s wrong with you?” Rebecca asked.

“I…can’t stay.”

“What?”

“I can only leave my body for a short time, and I was already spent long before I came here. I’ll stay as long as I can, but in a moment, I’ll be gone.”

“ You can’t leave me here! ” Rebecca hissed.

“I wouldn’t if I had a choice.” Lydia’s image was becoming less stable by the moment, flickering and trembling. “Listen to me. You can do this. Meet me in Dordogne. Stay—”

Her image snuffed out like a candle flame.

“No. Non! Putain de sorcière!” Rebecca looked around in her growing panic.

The dead woman lay on the floor, growing colder by the second.

Any moment now the Gestapo would return, and she was in no condition to defend herself from an armed man twice her size.

She tried the door, but found it locked, just as she knew she would.

Blood dripped from her mangled arm onto the concrete floor. She was beginning to feel woozy.

“I don’t want to die in this place,” she whispered.

Rebecca crouched next to the dead woman and removed one of her shoes and the stocking underneath, then wrapped the stocking tightly around her bloodied right arm.

The witch’s red jacket lay where she had left it, draped across the back of the chair.

Rebecca put it on. She considered taking the woman’s skirt, as well, but it was soaked through with blood, and would only draw unwanted attention.

She looked down at her shaking hands. She couldn’t possibly wield a knife in her condition.

It would be taken from her in a second, and then she would be as dead as the witch on the floor.

No, she needed a more forgiving weapon. She picked up the brick from its place by the door, tucked herself into the corner, and waited.

It wasn’t long before she heard a man’s footsteps echoing in the hallway. Rebecca stood next to the door with her body pushed flat against the wall, her heart hammering in her ears. She heard the lock disengage. The door swung open. Rebecca stood behind it and waited.

“Schei?e!” The Gestapo burst into the room and knelt by the dead witch, spewing expletives in German.

Rebecca stepped out from her hiding place and lifted the brick high.

The man turned, but before he could make a sound, she brought the brick down, hard and fast. He flinched, and the blow glanced, leaving a red gash behind his ear as he cried out in pain.

She reared back and struck again, and this time the blow hit him in the temple, and he collapsed to the floor.

She raised the brick one more time, ready to strike again, but the Gestapo lay motionless.

She could feel her pulse racing. Her vision swam.

She nudged the man with her toe. He made a horrible sound, a low moan followed by a hiss of air.

A pool of blood spread around his cratered skull.

Rebecca knelt, searching his limp body until her fingers landed on the ring of keys stashed inside his right pocket.

She gave them a quick glance, then kept searching, rifling through the man’s jacket until she found it—the key to her own beloved Citroen.

She breathed a sigh of relief. They had confiscated her car, which meant it must be somewhere close by.

She stood and walked quickly out the door, shutting it behind her.

She was in a long, unguarded hallway, just like Lydia had described.

The air was cold and damp, and smelled of urine.

Doors lined the empty hallway. Some were identical to the one she’d just come out of, while others looked more like washrooms or storage closets.

A great metal door loomed at the end of the corridor.

She wanted to run screaming from this place. She wanted to throw open every door until she found the sunlight, then flee as fast and as far as she could and not look back. Male voices floated through the air, coming from the door at the far end of the hallway. She was not free yet by any measure.

Rebecca tried the handle of the first door she came to, but the knob wouldn’t turn.

She considered the mess of keys in her hand, but there were too many to try them all, and she abandoned the thought almost immediately.

The second door swung open easily. It was a washroom with a cracked mirror hanging over a dirty sink.

Two stinking urinals stood against the wall, along with a single stall.

Rebecca opened the stall door to make certain she was alone, then stood in front of the dingy mirror.

Dark brown blood had crusted on her bottom lip and under her nose, and there was a fat purple bruise forming on the left side of her face.

She ran the water and dabbed away the blood as best she could, but there was nothing to be done about the bruising, or the cigarette burn on her neck.

She hastily pulled the pins from her hair and rearranged it into a style similar to the one worn by the chestnut-haired woman, taking extra care to arrange her curls so they obscured the worst of the damage.

Rebecca took one last, shaking breath, then walked out of the washroom, striding toward the door at the end of the hallway. She could hear the men’s voices growing louder as she approached the door.

Don’t run , she told herself. If you run, you die. The door was unlocked.

She straightened her spine and walked through.