I felt her glance at me, quick, sharp, assessing. A look that made something hot and instinctive coil tight under my ribs.
"We'll take one more round, Inga," I said, because I had to say something, keeping my voice level by force of habit alone.
She turned without a word.
Schmidt watched her move away and murmured, "That one… she is not like the others."
The dragon agreed.
"None of them are," I mumbled, but no one heard me.
By midnight, most of the crowd had thinned out. Carter and Schmidt were drunk enough to start singing, arms locked around each other's shoulders, God only knew what language it was supposed to be. I heeled my chair back against the wall and watched Inga wipe down the bar.
Her movements were spare. Mechanical. Efficient. She never smiled. Never flirted. She poured another drink only when someone asked and counted the cigarettes before she took them, every single time.
The dragon watched her, too.
It recognized something in the way she held herself, not weakness, but discipline. A refusal to break. Like if you looked close enough, you'd see the cracks, but she kept fitting the pieces together and daring the world to try her again.
When the bar finally emptied, I stood to leave. Carter was passed out cold, his cheek mashed into a puddle of spilled beer. Schmidt was arguing with the jukebox in slurred German. I left more money on the table than I needed to and thought about saying goodnight to Inga.
But she was gone, vanished through a door behind the bar. I'd noticed the Russians all night. Noticed them noticing her too. And now I didn't like the way they followed her out the back. I told myself it wasn't myconcern. That this would only bring trouble. That I didn't care about Germans. Or Russians.
The dragon huffed at the lie. Because I knew exactly what those men were about to do.
And I knew—just as surely—that I couldn't let it happen. Not to her. Not to any woman. Not on my watch.
Berlin — July 1, 1948, Thursday morning
I didn't so much noticethe American staring as I felt it, a slow burn on the side of my face as I wiped down the sticky bar and kept my eyes on the always-filthy glassware. He was one of those men who never seemed to tire; even this late at night, he still had a clean-shaven jaw, a cap set like a challenge, and a bomber jacket creased in all the right places. In some other life, maybe, I would have found that interesting. But after a day like mine, standing in line all morning for minimal rations, a cold pot of barley soup re-boiled for the third day and portioned between my brother and me, followed by a slog through algebra by candle-end, I had no energy left for noticing and even less for caring.
Americans stared, but so did the British, the French, the Polish, and every other uniform in this city's kaleidoscope of armies. Every pair of eyes landed with the same hunger, the same calculation. Sometimes they'd try to soften it with a compliment or a joke, but it always boileddown to who would offer what, and at what price. I'd learned to tune it out, to act as if my body was already a ghost, transparent and untouchable. I'd learned to keep my face flat and my steps quick, to fill the orders, collect the coins and cigarettes, and slide out the back before anyone could get clever. On a night like this, with rain sluicing down the windows and the stink of wet wool and mold thick enough to choke you, I just wanted the shift to end.
By midnight, the tips of my toes were numb, and my heels ached as if ground into the floorboards by a giant thumb. Every muscle in my legs was trembling with exhaustion. I was running out of patience and warmth, and the only thing keeping me upright was the thought of home: kicking off my worn shoes, peeling down my last clean pair of stockings, and wrapping Klaus in the threadbare blanket until the shivering stopped, if only for a few hours. There was nothing to look forward to but sleep, and the hope that maybe, maybe, tomorrow's ration line would be just a little shorter.
I shucked off my apron—still wet where beer had sloshed over my wrist—and counted the cigarettes I'd managed to squirrel away. Two Lucky Strikes, one half-smoked Chesterfield, and a local brand that tasted like burnt rope. Not bad, really. I tied them into a corner of my kerchief and ducked out the back, the bar's low yellow glow dying behind me as the heavy door swung shut.
The alley was a tunnel of cold, with walls that sweated rain and reeked of a thousand spilled secrets. The airslapped me awake, all raw, wet brick and the chemical sting of cabbage, rain drawing smoke from the ancient cracks. Even the rubble here was alive, piled shapes that looked like sleeping dogs, or maybe piles of discarded coats hugging themselves against the cold. I hunched my head, tugged my coat collar up, and quick-marched toward the mouth of the alley, my heels skidding on the slick cobbles.
I was barely out when a voice like velvet and vodka sang out behind me. "Fräulein," it called. Therwas buried in the tongue. Russian. I didn't slow. I didn't turn. Russians were never alone. I'd learned to tell the difference between the regulars and thespecials,the ones who wore their uniforms with a kind of practiced menace, whose eyes never stopped looking for an opening, a soft place, a weak spot. These were the kind that came in pairs, or worse.
A second voice joined the first, laughing, throwing out half-understood German with the rhythm of a joke gone sour. "Jemand hat es eilig," it said.Someone's in a hurry. The footsteps behind me quickened, one, then two, then three, a shuffling syncopation as the men closed in, boots scraping grit and puddles.
My heart went sideways. The city's ruins were full of warnings, and I'd grown up hearing all of them: how to vanish when you need to, how to make yourself invisible, how to recognize the footfall of a friend or a predator. But sometimes, even the best warnings can't save you. I tried to widen my stride, but the alley narrowed upahead, funneling me toward the street. The only light was a spill from a window above, barely enough to see the shapes that moved ahead of me. Two figures slipped out of a doorway, blocking the exit as neatly as a lock snapping shut. The one in front wore a cap low on his brow, the red star almost invisible in the wet. The other toyed with a packet of cigarettes, flipping it in his palm like he was practicing a trick.
"Trade," offered the one in the cap. His German was better than his friend's, but not by much. "Cigarettes. Good ones. Lucky Strikes." He shook the pack at me, and for a second, I thought maybe it was just a shakedown. But then his chin flicked toward a dented metal trash bin tucked into a recess. "You lie there. Two minutes. Fair, fair."
The taste of old soup came back up my throat. For a moment, I thought about screaming, but I'd tried once before, years ago, and learned that the world could swallow a scream whole and never spit it out. I tried to push past him, but a hand darted out—fast, practiced—and hooked my elbow. The grip was iron. I yanked back, and my purse slipped and hit the stones, scattering the cigarettes and what little money I'd earned. The other men went for my coat hem, not rough but deliberate, tugging it just enough to remind me of who held the cards.
The alley closed in, and the walls loomed higher, the wet bricks sucking away every sound but their laughter. I tried to swing with my free arm, but he caught that wrist,too, and twisted it until the bones creaked. "No fight," he said, grinning. "Pretty girl. Just quick, okay?"
My body froze, but my mind sprinted backward, years and years, to the bomb shelter behind a ruined building where we'd hidden during the last horror. I could hear it all again: the stampede of boots, the pounding on the door, my mother's hand clamped over my mouth to stifle the noise. The memory was a dark river, and it dragged me under, back to the day when the Russians came to our shelter and pulled women out by the hair, laughing the whole time. My mother's eyes had locked on mine, empty of fear, just cold and clear, like she'd always known that would happen. Then the door had ripped open, and hands had swept her away, and I'd never seen her again.
I flailed, but the men laughed louder. "Nice," said the one with the cigarettes. "She has spirit." He pinched my cheek, hard, and I spat in his face. He howled, and the man in the cap slapped me, hard enough that my ear rang and the world spun sideways. I landed on my knees, scraping them and my last nylons raw on the grit.
"Stop," I said. It was the smallest sound, a whisper, but as soon as it left my lips, it ballooned into something much bigger. I tried again, louder, and this time it came out edged with panic. "Stop!" The word ricocheted up the brick walls, desperate and ugly and useless.
He clapped a hand over my mouth, squeezing my jaw until my teeth dug into my own lips. I bit down, tasting blood, and he cursed and shoved me against the wall. I crumpled to the ground, the dragon-shape of terrorunfolding in my chest, claws raking, wings beating. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I could only remember, and I remembered everything, me and the woman with the braid, the night we crawled upstairs and found the bodies spread like broken dolls outside the bunker, left like trash.
