The only sounds within the narrow alleyway were heavy breaths from the others, along with a light breeze that blurred the line between reality andhell.
“Do you know where we are going or what they have planned for us?” I asked the woman I was facing. She shook her head as she pulled her wool coat tightly over her protruding belly. “No. They came in, raided our house, and forced us out,” shesaid.
“Are you alone?” I asked her, wondering if I was the only unlucky one to be separated from myfamily.
She twisted her head to the right and took a man's hand—I assumed he was her husband—and pulled him up alongside her. “It’s the two—well, three of us, God willing,” she said. “What aboutyou?”
Once again, I looked for any sight of Papa or Jakob, but I didn't see them anywhere. “My Papa and older brother are up ahead in the line,” I told her. “But my Mamawas—”
The woman placed her hand on my cheek and hushed me. “I know.” Her kindness forced a wave of emotion to unravel within me. A lump caught in my throat, but I managed to pull in a bit of air with the hope of maintaining control. I knew I couldn't cry. Along with being terrified that those heartless men would try to make an example of me just as they did with Mama, I also knew I couldn't let them see how much they had taken fromme.
The woman lowered her hand to mine and squeezed it tightly. “I'm Leah,” she said, peacefully. She was like a braveangel.
“My name is Amelia,” I told her in the same softtone.
“We have to be strong, Amelia. That’s all we can do rightnow.”
The meaning of strong had rapidly changed throughout the previous hour. Before that first day, being strong meant holding in my tears when I scraped my knee as a child, or learning to keep my chin up when a boy at school would tease me. I was strong when Grandmother passed away, knowing she had lived a long, fulfilling life. At that moment in time, though, I didn't know how to be strong—not after watching Mama murdered in coldblood.
The worst part was that I had no idea how much stronger I would need to become in the comingweeks.
