Our Papa had been gone before Klaus could have formed any lasting memories of him. The party hadn't wanted to give him a job, but he was good enough to be cannon fodder. There weren't many men around, at least not under seventy. It hurt me to think that not only had Klaus been lacking male influence, but that he would never know his father. With everything I had been worrying about, this had never crossed my mind until now. At least I had some memories of our parents; Klaus had none. Not even a picture. The day they took my mom, our apartment had been bombed too. There had been nothing left but ash and smoke.
The ruins swallowed us as we walked, once-apartments now reduced to jagged silhouettes, rooms with no walls, walls with no roofs, doors that opened into nothing. The air smelled of damp stone and old smoke, and every few steps my boots crunched over broken glass.
"This way," I murmured, stepping carefully over a collapsed beam.
Gideon was behind me, his strides sure, his presence too large for the narrow path we walked. I felt him even when I didn't look back; his heat was a strange comfort I didn't want but couldn't shake.
We slipped into what had once been our building's courtyard. Nothing was recognizable anymore. Just heaps of rubble where flowerbeds had been, a staircase still standing on one side, its steps choked with bricks and ash, leading nowhere. An old bathtub lay overturned in the dirt, its white enamel cracked and blistered from the heat of explosions, like the skeleton of a domestic life no one remembered how to use anymore.
My throat tightened. "This… is where we live."
Gideon stopped short. His breath left him in a sharp, wounded sound. "You sleep here?"
I nodded. "Inside that."
I pointed toward what had once been the laundry room. Three walls remained, stubborn as teeth. The roof was a patchwork of scavenged boards, cardboard, and a torn tarp someone had discarded. It leaked when it rained, but not as badly as you'd think. I hadn't been ashamed of it before. It was shelter. It kept Klaus dry. It kept us alive. But now I saw it through Gideon's eyes, and for the first time, the shame crept in, quiet and poisonous.
"This place," I said quickly, before he could speak, before he could ask why, "it's hidden. People don't come here."
That was the truth of it. The intact buildings were dangerous. Everyone wanted them. Squatters fought over rooms with locks on the doors. Men noticed girls. Russian patrols noticed movement. Anything that lookedlivabledrew attention, and attention got people hurt, or worse.
The ruins were different. The well-meaning stayed away. The predators didn't bother. No one wanted a place that might collapse in the night.
"I tried other places," I added, softer now. "Basements. Shared rooms. But they were crowded. Loud. And Klaus…" My voice caught. "He was so little. He cried at night. People don't like crying children." I swallowed. "Here, no one listens. No one looks." I turned to Gideon then, forcing myself to meet his gaze. "I can leave him alone here when I work nights. No one ever comes, only the Trümmerkinder. Not once. That's why we stayed."
Because in a city of broken walls, sometimes the most ruined place was the safest.
For a moment, he didn't say anything. He just stood there, staring at the remains of my careful, fragile world, at the place where I'd taught my brother to sleep without fear.
He didn't speak. But he went very, very still.
Suddenly, I knew. He wasn't judging me. He was grieving.
And that somehow hurt more.
Klaus tugged my sleeve. "They came from there," he whispered in German, pointing toward a narrow gap between two collapsed floors, a slanted, jagged passage that once might've been a hallway. Now it was a hidingplace, the kind only kids small enough to slip through would think to use.
I felt Gideon move closer behind me, the heat of him brushing my shoulder. "They hide there?" he asked quietly.
"Yes." My voice shook despite me. "The Trümmerkinder. They slip through the ruins like rats. They know every tunnel, every crawlspace, every cellar. They can get in places I can't."
"And they came through here?" he asked Klaus.
Klaus nodded. "Bastian said… said we were lucky to have walls. He said they deserved it more. He took my chocolate. And… and he spit on our bed."
Gideon cursed under his breath, an American word I didn't want to translate, one that made me blush. A word I shouldn't have even known, but when you work in a bar… you learn quickly.
Axel flinched at the sound.
Gideon noticed. "I'm not angry at you," he said gently, kneeling to the boy's level. "I'm angry at them."
Axel blinked, confused. Nobody ever talked to him like that. He stood a little straighter. I wasn't sure he understood what Gideon said, but he understood the tone. I watched the exchange, and something warm curled low in my chest. Too warm. Too dangerous.
Gideon rose again. "Where are they now?"
Klaus shrugged. "They run. Fast."
"Show me where they hide," Gideon ordered.
