Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
✲꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏✲
Watching the intruder from the shadows, I quickly noticed how clumsy his movements were. It was immediately clear that he was either no real soldier or one with very little training. Most likely, he was a partisan recruited by the German command for a covert mission.
What puzzled me was how none of our men had arrived to apprehend him. Surely someone in the camp must have heard the deafening sound of breaking glass.
"Stop where you are, or I'll shoot without hesitation," I warned as I stepped behind the German just as he was about to enter the kitchen. From the inside pocket of his vest, he was pulling out a plastic bag filled with white powder.
The young man turned toward me, revealing crooked, almost rotten teeth. His twisted grin was so mocking that he looked like a madman.
My suspicion was confirmed the very next second.
He struck my arm, knocking the knife from my hand.
Fear shot through me.
I hadn't expected such a sudden attack, even though I had been prepared for resistance—or even violence.
"What do you want here?" I demanded, narrowing my eyes as I tightened my grip around the pistol. My index finger rested on the trigger, ready to fire at any moment.
I spoke to him in German.
My father had been German before fleeing his homeland many years earlier and settling in Boston, where he met my mother.
He had always felt a deep loyalty to the country of his birth, and although he never returned to it, he insisted that his only daughter learn his native language.
So from early childhood he taught me German.
After his death, I stopped speaking it, but not a single day passed in which I forgot it.
The German soldier's grin widened even further the instant I felt the cold barrel of a gun pressed against the back of my head.
A sharp metallic click echoed behind me.
The weapon had been cocked.
I kept my own pistol aimed steadily at the sneering partisan before me, making it perfectly clear that I would shoot him without blinking.
To leave nothing to chance, I aimed directly between his eyes.
"Drop the gun," a voice behind me ordered.
I swallowed hard but refused to obey.
Instead, I tightened my grip around the pistol and continued staring coldly at the man in front of me.
I could feel my blood turning to ice, my legs rooted to the floor, yet I refused to move.
