He blinked, and it was gone.
Before I could process it, a faint scuffling came from the dark. A shuffle of shoes on stone. A muttered curse.
"They're coming," Axel hissed.
Gideon lifted a hand toward me without turning. It wasn't a command. It was a barrier. A shield. He didn't have to say a word; I knew he meantstay back.
My pulse thundered in my ears.
Klaus squeezed my fingers. "Inga," he whispered, "warum?—"
"Shh," I breathed in German. "Stay close."
Gideon shifted his weight, his muscles coiling tight beneath his jacket. He looked like he belonged in this darkness more than the boys did. Like the shadows recognized him.
A lanky figure squeezed through the gap first, thirteen, maybe fourteen, face smeared with grime, eyes sharpwith suspicion and hunger. Then another. And behind them—barely visible—a smaller boy, hiding, watching.
I locked eyes with the one in front.
Bastian.
I knew it immediately.
The posture.
The coldness.
The way the other boys hovered behind him like he was their general.
His gaze flicked to Axel. Then to Klaus. Then to me.
Then, finally, to Gideon.
His jaw tightened.
"What do you want?" he spat in rough German.
Gideon didn't speak the language, but he understood the tone. He stepped forward, calm but impossibly imposing, nearly blocking the entire entryway with his body.
I swallowed and quickly translated. Bastian's eyes narrowed. He stood taller, shoulders lifting, trying to seem bigger than he was. Trying to seem like someone fearsome and important.
"You stole my brother's chocolate," I said quietly. "You broke our things. You frightened him."
Bastian shrugged, careless. "Weneed it more."
"You took it from a six-year-old," I snapped before I could stop myself.
Gideon's hand twitched, as if he were holding something inside with sheer force.
"Then he shouldn't have had it," Bastian said. "Kids like him don't get sweets unless they're willing to?—"
He didn't finish. Because Gideon moved. Not fast. Not violent. Just… forward. One. A single step.
And every boy froze.
It wasn't strength that stopped them. Or size. It was something else, something in the air, heavy and electric. Like the space around him had changed, thickened, become charged with a pressure I could feel in my teeth.
Bastian swallowed.
