Page 73 of Sinner's Salvation

“What happened to you, Anna?” he asked.

“They didn’t realize I was...younger, my disguise was a good one, so they thought I was an old woman. They punched me in the face until some of my teeth were knocked out. Then they shot me in the head.”

It had hurt so much. But what came next hurt so much more.

“When I regained consciousness, I was in a mass grave about half full of bodies.” The memories of that moment came back to her in a rush, swamping her senses with the overwhelming smell of rotting flesh. The bodies on top of her pressed down and made it hard to breathe, their blood and body fluids coating her skin.

It had taken weeks for her to get the smell of death and decay out of her nose.

“It was night, but I could tell that dawn wasn’t far away. I pushed my way out of the pile and climbed out of the pit.” A faint buzzing in her ears broke her out of the memories, and she realized she was breathing too hard. She gripped Evan’s hands harder and focused on his face, his eyes, rather than the dead who lived so deep in her head, they could never really die.

“The Germans had burned the brothel to the ground. What was left was still smoking and hot. There was no one in sight. Not one person. Not a single sound.

The small town had a couple hundred people living in it. When I turned back to look in the hole, I realized that there were more bodies in it than I first thought.”

“The whole town was in there?”

“Yes. They’d killed everyone.” She barked out a hysterical laugh. “They’d even shot the dogs.”

Evan eased her closer and rubbed small circles on her back. “Gramps said some horrible shit went down during the war.” Evan shook his head. “But that’s next level fucked up.”

“We weren’t people to them,” Anna whispered. “We weren’t people, so killing us didn’t mean anything.” She leaned against him. “Ledger doesn’t see me, anyone connected to me, or anyone like me as a person or people either.”

Did Evan understand? Did he see that the small difference in attitude could mean the difference between following the law or committing monstrous crimes?

“If he’s allowed to continue...working,” Anna said, “He will find a way to either control or kill me.”

Evan tugged at her hands, and she let him pull her into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. His breath ghosted across her ear. “Then we’d better make sure that doesn’t happen.”

***

Evan held Anna fora long time. She didn’t cry, but her whole body shook for several minutes. Finally, she relaxed enough to make him think she’d fallen asleep. But his grandfather had told him she didn’t sleep, not in the same way other people did.

Eventually, she raised her head to look at him. She opened her mouth to say something, but steps on the stairs leading out of the safe room had her getting to her feet instead.

Baz came down and stopped at the base of the stairs. He put his hands on his hips. “Please tell me I didn’t interrupt anything.”

Evan almost laughed at the sour expression on his friend’s face.

“A man and a woman can offer platonic support to each other you know,” Anna said.

Baz raised an eyebrow and looked at Evan.

He smiled and shrugged. “I almost fell asleep.”

Baz shook his head. “Tell yourself whatever story you want, mom.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “What clusterfuck of a day.”

“It’s not over yet,” Evan said.

“You got that right. The apartment is empty, but the hotel is crawling with law enforcement and military.”

“What do you mean, crawling?”

“I mean they booked rooms. The FBI booked two suites for a week. Marek booked a room for three days, but if anything interesting happens here, he’ll stay longer. I know that guy, he’s a nosy fucker.”

“How is Nika?” Anna asked.

“Nothing new since that first phone call. I’ve been dealing with all the assholes in the hotel.”

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