“Good.” He wrapped his arms around me. “I was trying to keep you safe by staying away. But I see now that was a mistake. None of us are safe, Ella. The best way to protect you is by keeping you close.”

He turned to me and his lips met mine with more intensity than they ever had before. Something was different now, the layers of distance between us stripped away. We fell into each other’s arms. I kissed his lips, let his hands travel to the places they had only gone the night before he left for the war. “I’ve missed you so,” he said as he rose above me, and I could tell by his pent-up desire that there had been no one else for him either in the time that we had been apart. I let myself be swept away, blocking out the voices that said this was wrong because he had left me and we were no longer really together. We had found each other once more. It was a moment of rare joy in a sea of danger and darkness and I took it greedily.

After, we lay in one another’s arms, letting our breath subside and not speaking. I rested my head on his chest.

“You returned Sadie underground safely?” he asked finally.

“Yes,” I said, grateful to talk about something other than us and what had just happened. I remembered the look on her face as she disappeared below the earth. “She seemed so sad to go back. But grateful for the food,” I added quickly. “How did you even get it?”

He smiled and brushed away a lock of my hair that had fallen into my eyes. “I have my ways.” Then his expression turned serious. “Someone owed me a favor.” He pressed his lips together and I knew he would say no more about it.

“Well, I’m beyond grateful. If there is ever anything to do to repay you...”

“There is,” he said quickly, surprising me. He paused for several seconds, as if debating, and I could not imagine what he would ask. Was he planning to ask me to help with his work once more? “There are supplies, guns and weapons, that are critical to our work. I need to find a place to hide them for a bit.”

“But where? Surely you don’t mean for me to store them in my house with Ana Lucia constantly bringing her German friends around.”

“No, of course not. But you have the perfect place: the sewer.”

I sat up, covering myself. “You can’t be serious.” But his solemn eyes told me otherwise. “No, I can’t do that.”

“Just ask Sadie. For all that you have done for her, I’m sure she would say yes.”

Of course, that was the problem. Sadie was grateful and she would be only too willing to help. But she was barely surviving down there. I couldn’t ask her to do something that would jeopardize her even further.