For once… sleep came easy.
And when it did, I dreamed of her.
Berlin — July 20, 1948, Tuesday
I hadn't seenGideon in three days. Not at the bar. Not passing through the street. Not hovering awkwardly outside the alley pretending he wasn't waiting for me.
Nothing.
But the boys had.
Every evening while I worked, Gideon brought them food. A pot of stew one night. Two hamburgers wrapped in paper the next. A whole tin of peaches the night after that. They never came hungry to meet me after my shift, not anymore.
Axel giggled whenever he said Gideon's name, as if he carried a secret too big for his small body. "He says," Axel whispered one evening, eyes bright, "that when he's got a day off, he's going to take you on arealdate."
My heart tightened in a way that should've worried me.
A date.
Me.
The idea sent heat curling low in my stomach whenever I thought about it, made the corners of my mouth lift even when I tried to force them down. I wanted that more than I'd let myself want anything in a long time.
But before I could wonder more about it, Klaus shouted from across the rubble.
"Inga!"
I turned, then froze. Axel was leading a little girl through the broken doorway of what we generously called our home. She couldn't have been older than Klaus. Six. Maybe seven. A tangle of dirt-blond hair hung over her face, her eyes huge and startled like a wild animal brought into a cage. Her arm hung at a strange angle.
I knew immediately it was broken.
"Oh God." I crouched in front of her. "Hello," I whispered gently. "I'm Inga, what's your name?"
She blinked. Her lips parted. "Hilde," she breathed, in a voice thinner than paper.
That was all she knew. That was allanyoneknew. Axel swallowed hard and explained in his small, solemn voice. "Bastian and the others… they chased her. She fell through a hole. I got her out."
I stared at the crooked limb and swallowed the rising bile down.
Trümmerkinder were everywhere now, orphans, half-orphans, feral children raised by the ruins themselves. They stole to eat, slept in cellars or burnt-out cars, followed older boys who ruled the rubble like kings. The war had ended, but for them it had never stopped.
Hilde trembled, watching me with the wide, blind trust of someone with nothing left to lose. My throat closed. "Oh, sweetheart…" I whispered, brushing a leaf out of her hair. "You poor thing."
But then panic slammed into me. What was I going to do? I couldn't afford a doctor. I couldn't leave her alone. And I had to be atDie Eckein less than an hour.
"Klaus," I said, trying to keep the fear from my voice, "go find Elke. Ask if she can take my shift tonight. Tell her it's important. Very important."
Klaus nodded instantly and sprinted out through the rubble. I watched him dodge a rusted pipe and the jagged cement blocks he knew by heart. When he was out of sight, I lifted Hilde carefully—as carefully as I could—but she still whimpered, burying her face in my shoulder. She was tiny. Too tiny. Lighter than she should've been, like half her bones were missing.
Axel hovered at my elbow, uncertain. "She followed us," he said. "Maybe she thought… maybe she thought we would help her."
I kissed Hilde's temple. "You did the right thing bringing her here."
"But what do we do now?" Axel whispered.
I had no answer.
Not one.
