Page 35

Nineteen

“Shoot her.” The man sounded almost casual as he gave the order.

One moment Rebecca was upright, then she was in the dirt, too weak to stand. She looked at her hands and saw that the left one was covered in blood. The boy grinned and pointed the machine gun at her skull.

No , she thought wildly, but no words came out. Only a pathetic whimper.

A woman’s voice came from inside the house. “Who is it?”

“We’ve got it under control,” the boy said.

“So it seems.”

Rebecca looked up through the veil that shrouded her vision.

Someone was walking toward her with long strides.

They were backlit by the yellow light from the house, but Rebecca could make out the figure—slim and feminine, dressed in men’s trousers and a button-down shirt, her blond hair forming a halo around her face.

Even through the wall of pain, Rebecca felt a complicated rush of feelings as she took in that familiar silhouette.

“Christ. Rebecca.” She didn’t sound concerned so much as annoyed, and perhaps just a little impressed.

“Good to see you, Claire.”

Claire turned and looked at the men behind her, still pointing their weapons. “Put those things away. Jesus.”

The men did as they were told. Claire crouched in front of her.

“Were you followed?”

Rebecca shook her head.

“How can you be sure?”

Everything was out of focus. She was seeing auras. “I’m sure.”

Claire waited, considering. Rebecca feared she would pass out before Claire made up her mind.

“I had nowhere else to go,” she said softly.

Claire looked at her for a moment longer. Then she turned and addressed the men behind her. “Help her inside. Find her a bed. And get Lucas.”

Two men came and scooped Rebecca up by the shoulders, and she cried out in pain.

“Gently!” Claire shouted. “Look at her. Gently. Idiots. ”

Rebecca locked eyes with Claire just before she lost consciousness. “Thank you.”

Then everything went black.

···

Rebecca woke to a bespectacled man hovering over her with a look of intense concentration on his face. She felt an incredible pressure in her left shoulder and groaned.

“Sorry.” A lock of dark hair fell over his forehead as he dug inside her shoulder with a pair of forceps.

Rebecca gritted her teeth. “Just get it out.”

She was in a bed, one of several she could see from her prone position. The room had an odor that she recognized as the smell of too many young men in too small a space—a thick, sour stink of sweat and beer and cheese.

After a moment of digging, the man held up the bullet and dropped it into a cracked teacup on the bedside table. Rebecca gasped with relief, until he opened a bottle of clear liquid and smiled apologetically.

She braced herself. “Do it.”

He poured the liquid onto the wound. A muffled moan escaped from between her teeth.

“You must be Lucas,” she gasped as she caught her breath.

“I am.” He had a kind face, with large brown eyes and a jaw he owed as much to hunger as he did to luck.

“Are you a doctor, Lucas?”

He set about stitching her wound. “Technically no, although I was heading in that direction before the war. As it stands, I’m the closest thing you’ve got.”

A shadow fell across the door, and both Rebecca and Lucas looked up. Claire watched from a distance, holding a pitcher of water.

“Almost done.” Lucas carried on stitching with practiced movements.

“Don’t rush on her account,” Rebecca said. He chuckled.

When he’d finished his work, Lucas cleaned and gathered his tools and gave Rebecca a reassuring smile. She watched as he and Claire huddled just outside the room, speaking in tones too low for her to hear. They stood close, and Lucas’s fingers brushed Claire’s as he walked away.

Oh .

Rebecca studied Claire’s profile, the golden spirals falling out of her chignon and curling around her ears as she watched Lucas leave, and told herself that the ache she felt was just the pain in her shoulder, nothing more.

Claire sat at Rebecca’s bedside, setting the pitcher on the table.

“So, he’s the one,” Rebecca said.

Claire rolled her eyes. “Don’t start.”

“No, he seems nice. Handsome.”

Claire ignored her. “Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Rebecca…” She noticed that Claire wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. “What the hell happened to you? André is dead. So is the rest of your group. I assumed you were dead too.”

André is dead , Rebecca thought. Good. At least the traitor got what he deserved in the end.

“I was captured.” Rebecca watched Claire’s eyes go small and hard, and realized she’d made a terrible mistake.

Claire had strict rules about maquisards who were captured and then released.

The fear was that a fighter could be turned, either through torture or threat of violence against their family, and be made to betray their countrymen.

“They didn’t let me go,” she said quickly. “I never broke. I escaped.”

“Escaped? How?”

She wasn’t sure what to say. Telling Claire she’d been saved by a witch would be ludicrous.

She settled on a version of the truth. “There was a woman there, a German. I killed her with her own knife, stole her jacket, and walked out.”

Claire looked down and said nothing.

“There was a policeman there who tried to flirt with me. He thought I was her.” Rebecca reached for Claire’s hand. “I bet he was surprised when he found that bitch dead in my cell.” She had hoped to make Claire smile, but her face remained stony, and a moment later, she pulled away.

“And that’s when you were shot, when they captured you?”

All business, then. Fine.

“No, that happened later.” She was getting tired and feared she might say too much. “I can tell you everything tomorrow if you like, but right now, I’m hungry, and thirsty, and I’m in a lot of pain.”

“I thought you said it didn’t hurt.”

Rebecca sighed. Things had always been this way with her and Claire, even when they were lovers. Every word a weapon, every misstep an opportunity for rebuke. She would have liked to blame Claire for the way things had been, but in her heart, Rebecca knew she’d been just as responsible.

She remembered their last fight, the words that had become a constant refrain in their relationship.

You’re so angry, Rebecca! Claire had shouted. Rebecca had lost her temper at dinner again, over something so insignificant, she couldn’t even remember it now. Why are you so angry all the time, with everyone?

You keep saying that! You keep saying I’m angry, like there’s something wrong with me, but aren’t you angry too?

She had felt consumed by it, like she was sitting atop a pyre, burning alive.

She’d seen the look in Claire’s eyes, the way she recoiled from her, but she couldn’t stop.

I’ve lost everything, everyone I ever loved, my whole family, and you want me to not be angry?

That’s not what I’m saying—

Then what are you saying?

Claire had hesitated, like she knew that once she opened this door, there would be no closing it. She sat on the edge of the bed they’d shared, and hung her head.

How can you say you love me, when all you feel is this rage, every second of every day? How can there be room for anything else?

Rebecca had tried to dig inside herself for that messy, beating vessel of her love. She’d wanted to pull it out of her chest, hold it in her hands for Claire to see. Here. Here it is. Here’s my love for you . But she couldn’t seem to reach it.

It was Claire who finally put them both out of their misery.

“You’ve been recruiting.” Rebecca hoped the change of topic would lighten the mood. “There are twice as many here as last time. All new faces.” She didn’t ask what had happened to the old ones.

Claire raked her fingers through her hair.

“They just keep coming. These boys , useless and scared and running for their lives, just desperate not to get carted off to some German work camp. They want to feel like freedom fighters, and carry a gun, but they don’t listen.

They’re undisciplined, and impossible to train. ”

“And Lucas?” She didn’t want to know, but couldn’t seem to help herself. Like picking a scab.

Claire’s face turned hard. “He’s here because he wants to be.”

“Good,” Rebecca said, but she had waded into unfriendly waters, and they both knew it.

Claire stood. “Try to sleep. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

Rebecca didn’t want her to leave. She almost reached out and grabbed her.

She almost said, Please, stay with me. Please don’t leave me alone.

But then, Rebecca always had been a stubborn mule.

She watched Claire go. And a moment later, exhaustion came and draped itself over her, and she fell into a fitful sleep.

···

When she woke again it was midday, and all the beds were empty, save for hers.

She sat up, wincing at the pain in her shoulder.

A pair of trousers and a gray wool jumper lay folded on the table next to the water pitcher.

Rebecca stripped off her ruined clothes and pulled on the trousers and jumper over her bloodstained undergarments.

A group was gathered around the massive kitchen table, sharing a midday meal.

Claire was with them, along with one other woman, a mousy-haired girl with birdlike features and a puckish, turned-up mouth.

The rest were men, about a half dozen in total, all sullen looking with bad skin and teeth. Lucas was nowhere to be seen.

Claire looked up as she entered. “You’re awake. Come, eat something.”

Rebecca’s skin felt grimy as she sat at the table. She could smell the blood that still clung to her skin and her underclothes. She recognized the person next to her as the boy from the night before, the one who had held her at gunpoint. She gave him a nod, but he didn’t nod back.

Claire passed her a mug of beer and a heel of stale bread. “Not much to go around.” She shrugged.

Rebecca ate, all too aware of the many sets of eyes watching her. She looked up and met the gaze of the bird-faced girl, who offered a flat smile and looked away.