Carter was a redhead from Valdosta, Georgia, with a constellation of freckles so dense it looked like he'd been dusted with cocoa powder. He called everyone sir, even when he was half-drunk, and had a way of making trouble without ever seeming to getintotrouble. I liked him in the way you like a stray cat that won't stop following you around. You know it's not good for you, but there's a kind of comfort in the persistence.
"We're heading to a bar," Carter said. "You in?"
I glanced back at the barracks, at the dim glow behind the blackout curtains, and pictured the darkness waiting inside, sweat and metal, the hiss of nightmares sliding through the cracks in my skull. I imagined lying on the cot, trying to remember what sleep was supposed to feel like. I knew exactly what waited for me. It was always the same: burning houses, screaming engines, wings sheared off in midair. The ghosts were punctual as hell.
"I don't drink much," I said, even though the thought of a cold beer was already making my mouth water.
Carter just laughed. "That's what you always say, and then you're the last one out the door." He flicked his cigarette butt into the rain. "Come on, man. You can't just sit around here all night. Besides, theseKrautsmight be starving, but they know how to make a damn good pilsner."
He saidKrautsthe way you'd sayHuskersorTarheels, like it was a sports team and not a city full of people picking through rubble for a place to sleep. I didn't hold it against him. Everything in this place was a joke if you wanted to survive, especially for the ones who'd never had to see the inside of a German city before the bombs stopped falling.
He jerked his thumb toward a knot of pilots forming by the gate. "Come on, Griffin. Die Ecke. You know, the corner bar? Heard the waitresses are easy on the eyes."
I did know. Word spread fast in the American sector. Most of those so-called waitresses were girls who'd learned a little English before the war and were now learning a lot more after. If you had a ration bar and a pack of Camels, you could forget about the rest of the world for a few hours. The other guys loved to talk about it, about how easy everything was here, how different it was from home. In the States, girls still needed chaperones. Here, all you needed was a smile and the right uniform.
I'd never joined in, but not for the reasons people assumed. I hated the idea of trading favors for flesh, of taking something from someone who had nothing left to give. The Germans didn't mean much to me, not after what I'd seen, but that didn't mean I should treat them like souvenirs. Maybe it was guilt, or maybe it was something worse, but I tried to stay out of the games. Still, a bar was a bar, and I wasn't about to spend another night alone with my nightmares.
"Fine," I said, and pulled my jacket over my shoulders. "But I'm not carrying anyone home this time."
Carter's smile widened. "That's the spirit!" He clapped me on the back, and for a second, I wondered if he felt the twitch under my skin, the way the dragon in me was starting to stretch out, restless and hot.
We met up with the others at the gate, five pilots, all with the same look in their eyes: the search for something to fill the emptiness. Some had been here since the start of the war, others were fresh from the States and still trying to figure out why the girls in Berlin didn't look like the girls in New Jersey. I nodded at a couple of men I recognized, and we started the walk into town.
The city was different at night. In the daytime, the ruins looked like mountains, a horizon of broken teeth shrouded in dust and exhaust. At night, the shadows covered the worst of it, and you could almost pretend it was a real city again. People came out after sunset, kids in torn sweaters, women in patched-up Kittelschürzen, old men with faces like paper, all moving quietly, lips zipped up tight against the cold and the memories. Sometimes I thought about what it would be like to live here, and the thought made me sick.
We walked in a loose formation, boots making puddles splash, the only sound Carter's relentless commentary about local women, imported booze, and the insanity of American brass. The others joined in, laughing too loudly, shoving each other with the nervous energy of men who knew tomorrow could be their last flight. Ihung back, letting the conversation wash over me like a second language.
About halfway down the Hauptstrasse—Main Street—Carter fell back to match my stride. He looked at me sideways, like he was trying to figure out a magic trick.
"You ever think about going home?" he asked quietly, keeping his voice low enough that it wouldn't carry.
I shrugged. "I try not to. My contract isn't up for a while."
Carter grinned. I said it as a joke, but there was an edge to it, and he heard it. He always did. "You're not as weird as you think you are," he said. "We all got something following us around these days."
I let it go. The truth was, Carter had no idea. No one did. If he knew what I really was, he'd have been the first to run, or worse, the first to try to use it. That was the risk you ran, every day, with every face you met: sooner or later, someone was going to find out. In the close quarters of the barracks, secrets never stayed buried, especially one as dangerous as mine. There were always eyes, always questions, always someone listening a little too closely.
It was one of the reasons I missed Montana so fiercely. Back home, in our small mountain town, I didn't have to pretend. I could be what I was born to be without fear, without judgment, without wondering if tomorrow would bring a noose or a firing squad.
Before we reached the bar, I watched a tired-looking woman pushing a stroller down the street. One wooden wheel squeaked with every step, making me wonder how she managed to get the kid to sleep with that sound.
The bar was tucked into the side of a half-collapsed building, a neon sign in the window barely holding on. The inside smelled like beer and boiled cabbage, and the tables were crowded with airlift crews and a few French soldiers in civilian clothes. Behind the bar, a girl poured drinks with one hand and took cigarettes with the other. She couldn't have been more than twenty, with hair cut short and a face that looked like it had forgotten how to smile.
We pushed through the crowd, staking out a table near the back. Carter ordered a round of beers, and I sat with my back to the wall, scanning the room out of habit. The dragon didn't like closed spaces; it wanted to be out, above, always moving. He curled tighter inside me, his scales whispering across my bones.
He missed home, the mountains, the quiet community where being what we were wasn't a secret to hide, where I could shift under the moon and not have to come back covered in blood.
Once, I'd thought joining the military would make me a hero. I was seventeen and full of fire, my mother's shaky signature was still wet on the enlistment papers.Go make them proud, Gideon,she'd said.Go protect the world.
By nineteen, I was flying escort over France, shooting down men who looked just like me except for the flag on their wing. By twenty, my best friend Mark—another dragon—was gone, shot down somewhere over Saxony.
By twenty-one, the war was over.
And I was still here, fighting something that wouldn't die.
The noise level climbed as more crews staggered in. English mixed with a smattering of Russian, and both blended with the sharp, clipped German of the locals. People smoked, drank, fought, and made up in the span of a few sentences. It was chaos, but it was a familiar kind. You could pretend the world was normal here, if only for a little while.
Carter returned with a pitcher and six pints, distributing them like a priest giving out communion. "To the Berlin Express," he announced, raising his glass. The others echoed him, and for a minute, I almost felt like a person and not a machine. I raised my own glass, said nothing, and let the beer do the talking.
