She and Daniel both looked frightful, and she knew it. She’d plucked the dress she’d been wearing for the past week from a clothesline; what had started as a cheerful teal wool was now a dingy corpse-gray. Daniel had stolen hiking boots for her from God only knew where when the straps broke on her flats, and she wore them over torn wool stockings. She’d lopped off most of her dark waves and tucked what remained under a driving cap.

Eight months of scavenged meals and terror and grief had whittled her curves into hard, stubborn planes. Before, she’d routinely lugged cow carcasses around their parents’ shop, then sacks of grain at their uncle’s farm. Now she woke up tired and weak and went to sleep feeling like a shadow of a person, the silk stocking a stronger girl had peeled off and cast aside.

“I’m not interested in getting my brother and me killed. We’ve survived too much for that. One or three—it doesn’t matter. We can’t stand against a hundred SS.”

Daniel laid his hand on her shoulder. “Please. Just hear him out.”

She recoiled from the uniform he wore; the scent of blood covering him was both repulsive and yet—in spite of herself—intoxicating. She couldn’t regret the confirmation of vengeance served. “Your—your clothes are in the corner,” she managed, throat tight, before turning away.

Daniel sighed, then went to change.

Liam had been studying her, his gaze hollowed out. It was the gaze of loss, the gaze of envy, and it didn’t sit well with Rebeka. He had no idea what it had cost her to keep her brother safe.

“You don’t know us,” she said, arms wrapping tight.

He winced, an acknowledgment. At least he understood that much. “I grew up in Hell’s Kitchen in New York.” He perched on a bale of hay. “Saw plenty of unfair fights. Was on the wrong end of more than a few. I know what it’s like to feel powerless.”

“And you’re here to keep up the streak?”

“Rebeka,” Daniel scolded from the other side of the loft.

She made a face at him. “You’re asking an awful lot of people you’ve just met, is all.”

“You don’t have to do this. I’ve told you that.” Daniel stepped out of the shadows, buttoning his shirt up to his throat. “We’ll find a train depot, somewhere headed west, get you to safety. This doesn’t have to be your fight.”

How did he not understand? Someone had to be with him to care whether he lived or died. She swallowed back the same tears she’d been swallowing for months. “Luxembourg won’t save us. We’ve tried that already.”

“You’re from Luxembourg?” Liam asked. “What the hell brought you here?”