"I don't want trouble," he muttered.
I knew Gideon didn't understand, yet he answered, low, each word steady as stone. "Then don't make any."
I translated, voice shaking.
Bastian's glare flicked between us, calculating. Then he spat to the side and jerked his head.
"Come on," he snapped at the others.
They slipped past us, vanishing into another tunnel of rubble like ghosts in the night. When they were gone, the tension snapped like a rope. I let out a breath I'd been holding.
Gideon straightened slowly, rolling his shoulders, breathing deeper than normal, forcing himself to calm down. Almost as if he were dragging a fierce beast back into its cage. I stared at him, unable to look away.
"What… what was that?" I whispered.
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he looked at Axel, then at Klaus, his gaze moving over them with a strange intensity, checking every scratch, every tremble, as if cataloging the harm done and the harm he would never allow again.
Then he straightened slowly, like he'd been holding his breath too long.
His hand rose halfway, as if to rake through his hair, but stopped, clenching instead.
A muscle jumped in his jaw. For a heartbeat, he didn't look like a pilot. Or a soldier. Or the man who'd walked me home.
There was somethingferalin the edges of him—a heat, a tension, a coiled readiness that made the space around us hum.
His eyes weren't just blue now. They were burning. Focused.
Like he was seeing more than any normal man could.
It stole my breath.
I didn't know what scared me more, the boys hiding in the rubble
or the way Gideon seemed built to face a much darker enemy.
"Inga…" he said, his voice was rough, barely steady.
He wasn't angry now.
He wasn't even furious.
He was shaken.
And somehow, that terrified me more.
He dragged in a breath and finally met my eyes fully. "It's not okay," he said quietly. "Any of this."
His voice cracked something inside me. And I nodded, because it was all I could do.
"Let's get you all out of here," he murmured. "Before it gets more dangerous."
I didn't ask how he knew it was about to get more dangerous.
I just followed him—and walked through the ruins without fear for the first time in years.
Berlin — July 11 thru 16, 1948
The memoryof herapartmentwouldn't leave me alone. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it: three half-walls, a roof patched with scraps, cardboard where glass should've been. A mattress that had no business being called a bed. Bare beams that would lose an argument with the next strong wind.
