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FORTY-SIX

ELLA

My body is frozen.

I can’t move. I can’t cry.

I’m about to fall to my knees, as the horror continues to unfold before me.

Luka’s mother is dead, just a few steps away from me, but with a fence between us.

She’s dead. There’s blood everywhere.

I gasp for air that won’t fill my lungs.

“Are you sending the singer into the showers?” a guard shouts from the chamber door to the officer pointing his rifle at Luka’s head.

He’s alive. Let him stay alive.

A cough spills out of my lungs, and I slap my hands over my mouth as the officer drops his rifle and grabs Luka by his collar.

“What do you think I should do, you filthy Jew?” he growls.

“What are you doing out here?” someone shouts from directly behind me and grabs me by the collar, dragging me backward.

“There are no breaks. This isn’t a theater for your entertainment purposes. Get back to work!”

I fall to the ground inside the warehouse after being tossed in through the door.

A boot clobbers me in the back, forcing all the air out of my lungs.

A wave of black dots floats in front of my eyes as I take a breath.

I gasp against nothing.

Again, I try to take a breath, and this time air flows but pain radiates through my back.

Someone shoves their arms beneath mine and drags me through the warehouse, dropping me in front of the pile of handbags.

“You all right, Ella?” Galina’s face is in front of mine, her hands pressing on my cheeks.

“Breathe.”

I stare her in the eyes, but all I can see is Luka’s mother, dead in the snow.

The rifle pointing at Luka’s head.

The shower door, open and waiting for him.

“It was him,” I say, my voice raspy and barely producing sound.

“Who?” Galina asks, keeping to a whisper.

“The voice—the one I keep telling you I hear. It’s him. My Luka. They’re about to kill him. They just killed his mother. I watched it happen,” I blurt out.

“Are—are you sure?” Galina asks.

Tears form in the corners of my eyes, and a tickle fizzles through my nose as I clench the muscles in my face to stop myself from reacting.

“Yes,” I utter. “He isn’t dead, but he’s about to be.”