She turned to look for them and felt something hit her leg, as if a sharp stone had been hurled at it. She collapsed, and now she was lying on the concrete floor and the air was thick with caustic smoke, making her eyes stream. She crawled toward a corner where she could hear screaming, feeling wet stickiness beneath her. “Olga!” she screamed. “Mama!”

She felt the edge of a skirt and groped until she could find the body. A tiny waist. Soft hair. “Anastasia?” she whispered, and two arms were flung around her neck. Anastasia was panting with fear and Maria clung to her.

The firing stopped as suddenly as it had started and she heard the men talking in low voices, then they stepped outside the room. Perhaps they had decided to let the women live. Surely they must.

“Are you hurt?” Maria whispered, but Anastasia couldn’t speak. As the smoke began to clear a little, Maria realized her sister’s eyes were wide with shock. She followed the direction of her gaze and saw their mother on the floor in front of them with part of her skull missing. She retched. There were brains everywhere, white and glistening. Her mother’s brains.

She could hear moaning. Women’s voices. The others were alive. They had to get out of there. She should crawl toward Olga, ask her what to do, but she couldn’t leave Anastasia.

The respite didn’t last long. Yurovsky came back into the room alongside a big man with wild dark hair. A long knife glinted in his hand. Maria tried to twist out of the way as he raised it and brought it down toward her, but she felt it slash her middle and she screamed with all her might. Then Yurovsky raised his gun and pointed it at her head, and she looked up into his cold killer’s eyes just before she lost consciousness.

Chapter 7

THERE WAS COOL NIGHT AIR ON HER FACE. MOVEMENT. Pain. Maria realized she was being carried, slung over someone’s shoulder. They were walking. Then they stopped. Other hands were on her. She was lifted and thrown, landing on a surface that was uneven. She was only part-conscious but knew she must keep her eyes shut, stay still.

Someone lifted her wrist, pressed fingers to her pulse. She held her breath. Now they would find out she was alive.

“This one’s gone,” said a voice that sounded like Yurovsky. The voice of her murderer.

Maybe he was right; perhaps she was dead. But she didn’t think so.

There was a thump as something landed beside her and she knew it was another body. She desperately wanted to open her eyes, to reach out, see who it was, but she was frozen in terror. How could they not hear her heart thudding?