I touched his arm, my fingers barely brushing the worn fabric of his jacket, but he froze as if it shocked him. "Gideon… don't hurt them."
"Why not?" His voice came out low, rough.
"Because they're children," I whispered.
He looked down at me, the shadows caught in his blue eyes until they turned almost black. "Children don't do this, Inga."
"They're hungry," I whispered. "Lost. Angry. They don't have any parents, no adults. They're homeless, and they know no rules but theirs. They're soldiers too, in their own way. Soldiers without anyone to tell them the war is over or who the enemy is."
He stared at me for a long moment, breathing hard, chest rising and falling like he was wrestling with something inside him. Something big. Something with claws.
Finally, he nodded once, jerkily. "Fine. I won't hurt them." But he added under his breath, so quiet I almost missed it, "Not unless they make me."
I didn't know why that sent a shiver down my spine.
"Come on then," I said softly, leading the way toward the broken hallway where the boys had slipped in earlier. "They stash food and blankets in the cellar beneath this section."
Gideon stepped right beside me, close enough that our arms brushed as we squeezed between two leaning walls. He didn't pull away, and neither did I.
The deeper we went, the darker it grew. Klaus clung to my fingers. Axel walked ahead like he knew every crack in the floor. Gideon's voice came from just behind me, low and steady. "If they hurt you… or Klaus…"
"I'm fine," I whispered.
"You're not," he said. "I've seen fine. This isn't it."
I didn't answer.
I couldn't.
Then Axel stopped suddenly. "Hier," he whispered, pointing at a narrow gap leading into a pitch-black cellar where the air smelled of damp earth and old fear. Gideon's hand brushed my back as he leaned forward.
I had no idea how he could possibly know it, but he snarled, "They're close."
The sound that came out of him didn't belong in a human throat. It wasn't loud—nothing that would echo or give us away—but it vibrated through the air between us, low and warning, like the growl of a cornered animal. My breath hitched. I didn't know what to think, only that something inside me reacted to it in a way that was equal parts fear and… something else. Something warm. Something that made my knees go weak.
How did heknowthey were close? How could hesenseit? Before I could ask, he stepped in front of me, blocking the narrow gap with his body.
"Stay behind me," he murmured.
His voice was different, rough gravel instead of words. I found myself obeying without thinking. Axel nodded anxiously, his thin shoulders trembling. Klaus clutched my hand, squeezing tight. I felt him shaking too.
Gideon crouched, studying the dark opening the way a wolf studies a den, calculating, listening, waiting. The cellar was nothing but a jagged slit between fallen beams and cracked concrete, barely wide enough for a small child. Definitely not big enough for a grown man.
"Do they come out through here?" Gideon asked, eyes fixed on the dark.
I translated for Axel, who nodded vigorously. "They fit. You don't."
"It's how they disappear," Klaus whispered to me in German.
I translated for Gideon, and he swore under his breath. The air inside the cellar was damp and cold, carrying the faintest whisper of breath, small, uneven, like someone holding very still. My skin crawled. I hated cellars. Too many bad memories. Too many things the Soviets had dragged into darkness, never to walk out again.
Gideon leaned closer, one hand braced against the wall. "There are at least three," he said softly. "One breathing hard. One whispering. One trying not to make noise."
I stared.
"H-how can you hear that?" I whispered.
He didn't answer. His jaw flexed. His nostrils flared slightly. And for one impossible second—a heartbeat so fast I nearly doubted it—I thought I saw something flare in his eyes. A glint of gold. Hot. Alive.
