Simone took aim.

The crack was too loud in the autumn air; the rifle’s butt jolted beneath her, petulant. Without a sniper’s stand to brace against, the sight had slammed into Simone’s eye, and a hot welt was already forming. Dammit. Behind her, Phillip and Rebeka had fallen into a shocked, perilous silence threatening to teeter over into screams. But Simone ignored them and brought the scope back up to her eye once her vision cleared.

They should already be running, but she had to be sure. For Helene’s sake.

“What are you doing?” Phillip whispered, quietly but with searing urgency. “What in the hell—”

Helene’s body had gone limp, sagging between the two guards who’d dragged her from the Kino. The guards were just now turning, bewildered, to stare at the red fountaining from her forehead. The blood framed her cheeks, her chin; between those crimson streams, it almost looked like she was smiling.

The guards looked up. Looked at each other. Sputtered something Simone was too far away to hear.

Then they dropped Helene and started to shout.

Simone curled her arms around the rifle and sat back. Her relief was so warm and all-encompassing, so sharp, that for a moment she felt tears gather in her eyes. They should all be so lucky, if they were caught. To God we belong, and to God we return. To hell with all the rest.

But there was no more time to waste. “We need to head back to the tunnels.”

“You killed her,” Rebeka sputtered. “All those Nazis in the street, and you killed the woman who helped us—”

“Do you have any idea what they would have done to her? To the rest of the Resistance members, once she gave them up?” Simone swallowed down a rush of bile in her throat. “Adab al-qital. The way of war. She asked me to do whatever it took, and so I did.”

Sacrifices. So many sacrifices lining her path. Too often she felt like one of her idle carvings, shaving off strips of herself in a vain effort to whittle down into something that felt right. Her homeland, her family, her dignity, her love, her respect for human life. She was the artless hunk of wood that remained.

But she had done the right thing, whether the others could see it or not. Maybe in that, she’d reclaimed something.

Phillip’s eyes were still wide with disbelief, but Rebeka lowered her head. “You’re right.”

“Yes, I know.” She slung the rifle over her shoulder and hoisted up her pack. “But if we don’t move soon, we’re going to be next—”

The rush of fire was immediate. Simone turned back toward the church at the noise, just in time to see the windows burst out of the second floor. The projection room. The shouts already filling the town square ratcheted into shrieks, the frantic pounding of boots.