The Only Thing to Fear

by Caroline Tung Richmond

  Crack.

  The second hit underneath her chin. She crashed onto the floor.

  “Zara!” She heard her uncle screaming. His voice was so racked with pain that she almost forgot her own. “Zara!”

  As blood dripped into her eyes, she clenched her hand into a fist. Desperation took over. If she didn’t use her powers, the Nazis would kill her anyway. The air swirled around her fingertips, but then the last strike smacked her in the forehead.

  Crack.

  “We’re done here,” said the Colonel. “Clear out.”

  It was the last thing she heard before sinking into darkness.

  * * *

  Zara opened her aching eyelids, only to shut them a second later. Her head hammered from the slightest of movements, and her nose throbbed with a stabbing pain that made her want to retch. She breathed in and out until the nausea finally retreated. Forcing her eyes open, she found herself lying on a bare mattress. Her clothes — a bloodied shirt and her work trousers — were damp with sweat. Her fingers pried at her sticky collar while her gaze traveled to the foot of the bed, where sunlight leaked through a barred window. The place was hot as a womb.

  Blinking slowly, she saw eight cots spread on both sides of the bleak room, four on one side and four on the other. It was a cramped rectangle of a space, hardly large enough to fit five patients, much less eight. Zara’s eyes trained on two of the beds opposite from hers that were occupied with unconscious women, both of them black. The rest of the cots were empty.

  “You’re awake,” someone said, crouching next to her.

  Zara looked up to find a familiar face. “Kristy?” she said. A million questions sprang onto her tongue, but only one word came out. “Where … ?”

  “We’re in the old hospital at Fort Goering.”

  It took her a moment to put together what Kristy was talking about.

  “They put us here, in the mental ward. For the locked doors.” Kristy nodded toward the thick door behind them, dread in her eyes. “Do you remember what happened?”

  Zara closed her eyes, and a memory came to mind: the Colonel bursting into her house and arresting her and Uncle Red. Despite the roaring in her head, she hoisted herself onto her elbows, fists clenched. “Where’s my uncle?”

  “He’s probably at the prison like everyone else. The Nazis arrested so many people that they dumped the women and the elderly in this waste of a building.” She scowled at the rotting walls and the water-stained ceiling that let in a steady drip of stinking water. Most likely sewage. “You were delirious when they brought you here.”

  “I was?”

  “You kept muttering about going to Neuberlin.”

  Seconds passed before Zara stitched together what Kristy was talking about. The mission to storm Neuberlin. The last part of the Alliance’s plan. She had never meant to say that aloud, and never in front of Kristy.

  “Like you said, I was delirious,” Zara said, hoping Kristy wouldn’t prod any further. Not that it mattered. If both Garrison and Farragut had been killed, there wouldn’t be an attack on Fort Goering, much less the rest of Operation Burning Eagle. She sank back against her thin pillow, no thicker than her fingertip. Her nose stung, pounding every time she moved, and a deep anguish sank into her stomach. She could handle the pain, but she couldn’t handle not knowing what had happened to her uncle. Had the Nazis hurt him? Had they … had they killed him?

  “I have to find my uncle,” Zara said frantically. Dizziness shrouded her eyes, and she tried to blink it away. She had to get both Uncle Red and herself out of this place.

  “Didn’t you notice the bars on the windows?” Kristy said with a joyless laugh. “And believe me, my mom and I tried to pick the lock on that door yesterday. We’re not getting out.”

  “Yesterday? How long have we been here?”

  “Almost two days.”

  Two days? Zara realized that she had been unconscious for forty-eight hours — and that meant her uncle had been withering in a jail cell for just as long. Or worse. He could have been declared guilty and shot already. She had to get out of this room, but how? Her gaze flew toward the locked door and the barred window, then at the wounded women across from her.

  The Nazis had taken everything she had, and there was nothing she could do. Every inch of her yearned to tear the Colonel apart with her lightning and destroy his fort with the wind at her fingertips. But every time Zara tried to sit up, a wrenching agony twisted inside her skull, leaving her breathless.

  “Just stay still,” Kristy huffed. “We’re not getting out of here.”

  Zara shut her eyes, wanting to be left alone. “Why are you even talking to me?”

  Kristy stiffened. “You think you’d be my first choice? Like there are so many other options.”

  Zara sighed and glanced at the occupied cots. “Who are they anyway?” One of the women shivered, while the other didn’t move a finger. Makeshift bandages, stained with blood, covered their foreheads. No doubt they were victims of Colonel Eckhart’s rampage through the city.

  “I don’t know their names. I think they threw a few punches when the Nazis arrested them.”

  “They weren’t killed for that?”

  Kristy’s lips pursed. “It doesn’t matter. They’re as good as dead anyway. That woman had her ribs crushed.” She glanced out the window, and Zara noticed the purple bruises that climbed from Kristy’s chin to her eye. “There were seven of us at first, but they took one of the girls away for interrogation and she never came back. Then they moved another woman into a different cell.”

  “So there’s five of us now?”

  Kristy’s gaze skittered toward the floor, but not before Zara saw the tremble in her eyes. “No, four. My mom tried to break us out, but it didn’t work. They took her to solitary confinement.” She chewed on her fingernail and headed back to her cot, but not before adding, “There’s water by the door.”

  Mustering every last bit of strength, Zara dragged herself toward the lone bucket planted next to the room’s entrance. Her right ankle felt stiff and it still bore an angry bruise, but the pain was nothing compared to the throbbing in her head. By the time she reached the water, sweat had poured down Zara’s shirt, but she brought the bucket to her lips, drinking it in great gulps. The lukewarm water soothed her parched throat.

  “You should thank your Nazi fling for that,” Kristy said, glancing up from her bed. The fear that Zara had seen on Kristy’s face only a minute earlier had already been wiped clean.

  Zara wiped her mouth with her hand. “Fling?”

  “The Colonel’s son. He and a bunch of cadets dropped off that water. Something about the Nazi Women’s Charity League.”

  Zara almost dropped the bucket. Frau Eckhart used to run the Nazi Women’s Charity League — was Bastian behind this idea of giving water to the prisoners? If his father found out about this … Bastian never should have stepped foot in the hospital, but her heart warmed — her first flicker of hope — at what he had done. At what he had risked.

  “What did he say?” Zara said.

  “The guards wouldn’t let him say anything.” Kristy paused. “I guess they didn’t want your fling to catch any of our diseases.”

  Zara set the bucket down hard. “He isn’t my fling.”

  “Is he more than that, then?”

  “He’s not my anything!” Zara snapped, which she regretted immediately, because that made her head hurt more.

  “I’ve seen how he looks at you at school.”

  The accusations kept pouring from Kristy’s lips, and Zara had had enough. “We’re locked inside this room and that’s all you can think about?”

  Boots pounded against the door. “Shut up in there!” a soldier shouted at them. “Quiet!”

  Kristy stormed toward the windows while Zara flipped onto her side, ignoring the sharp ache that shook through her body every time she moved. Still, the pain was worth it. At least she wouldn’t have to look at Kristy anymore.

  Curling int
o a tight ball, Zara waited for her headache to lessen, but the throbbing refused to go away, along with her questions. Was Uncle Red all right? Where had the Nazis taken him? The worry chewed at her heart, making her stomach turn all over again.

  A tear slid out of Zara’s eye, followed by another. The Nazis had bombed the Alliance, and they had taken her uncle away. She wished she could talk to him. Or Mrs. Talley. Or her mother.

  But her mother was dead. Mrs. Talley was, too. And maybe her uncle was as well.

  Zara buried her face against the mattress, huddling against a burlap blanket. It was the only thing she had, this scratchy scrap of cloth. She knew she should get up and figure out a way to break out of this room, but she pulled her knees against her chest instead, utterly spent.

  Hopelessness drifted through her. This was all too much. The Nazis. Her arrest. This stifling-hot room. When sleep finally came to her, Zara succumbed to the darkness, not sure if she ever wanted to awake again.

  The next twenty-four hours passed horribly for Zara.

  She slept fitfully, waking every half hour from the same awful nightmare of her uncle getting beaten and dragged across the square, just like Mr. Kerry weeks ago. And when she awakened, things didn’t get much better.

  With the windows locked, the air sweltered and almost suffocated every one of Zara’s breaths. She wished she could send a breeze through the room with her powers, but she couldn’t take that risk right under the Nazis’ noses. They could kill her anyway, of course, but why give them a reason to? The longer she stayed alive, the longer she had to find her uncle.

  The stale stench of soiled bandages and days-old urine perfumed the room, making Zara’s stomach curdle. There was a toilet at the corner that she and Kristy used, but their two unconscious cellmates had wet themselves overnight. Kristy had been doing her best to clean them, but the women never stirred, never even groaned. One of them, the older woman with crushed ribs, had died that morning. The soldiers had taken her body already, most likely to be incinerated.

  Zara stared at the cracking ceiling, trying not to think about that poor woman, or the pounding in her nose. It had swollen like a melon overnight, and even the softest touch made her want to scream. And yet, despite her bruises, Zara knew she was probably better off than her uncle. From her barred window, she could see the entrance to the prison, a hundred yards away, all gray and grim. At least she had water, thanks to Bastian. Her uncle and the rest of the male prisoners probably had nothing.

  For hours, Zara tried to figure out an escape plan, but each idea fell to pieces. There were only two routes out of the room — through the windows or out of the bolted metal door. She could muster a wind to chew through the window glass, but the air wouldn’t be able to blast through the iron. As for her new lightning ability, it wouldn’t be much help to her here. She could shoot a bolt at the door, but that would only electrify the metal instead of opening it.

  With her nose still pulsing, she sank onto her mattress, her head bowed low. It was Sunday, she realized. The day of the planned attack on Fort Goering. But instead of helping the Alliance prepare for the mission, Zara was locked in this room and had no way of getting out — and the Alliance wasn’t coming to save her, not after Camp Hammerstein. All spark of hope emptied out of Zara, leaving her only a shell of a person.

  As the sun dipped below the horizon, Zara heard footsteps thudding down the hallway. Her pulse cartwheeled as the door swung open and a soldier marched inside, a box and a bucket in hand. He dropped both on the floor before turning on his heels.

  “From the Nazi Women’s Charity League,” he sniffed. “Scheiße, you women stink.”

  After he locked the door behind him, both Zara and Kristy raced to the goods. Kristy arrived first and slurped water straight from the bucket while Zara reached for the box. She was surprised to find a bundle of food inside it: a loaf of bread, a rind of cheese, and a few green apples. Her mouth watered at the sight of it all. She hadn’t eaten since her arrest.

  Right before she tore off a chunk of bread, Zara remembered what the soldier had said to them. From the Nazi Women’s Charity League. Could Bastian be behind this somehow? He could have sent a letter to the league, maybe by forging his mother’s or father’s signature. And if he had gone to that much trouble, he might have hidden a message for her. With frantic hands, she scoured the box, running her hands up and down its sides, searching for clues. Frustration bubbled through her when she came up empty.

  “What are you looking for?” Kristy said. She snatched the bread from Zara’s hand and broke it in half. “They gave us food. Good food. Eat up.”

  Zara blinked at the box. She had no idea what Bastian was trying to tell her. Or if he was telling her anything at all.

  Kristy swore and spat something out. A piece of paper. “Pass the water, will you?”

  Eyes wide, Zara snatched up the paper and stared at it, the gears churning in her head. Her heart thudded as she unfolded it and read the message.

  Shift change 22:00. Meet at Officers’ Hall 22:30.

  Kristy stopped chewing. “What does that say?”

  Zara didn’t answer. She clutched the paper tight in her hand, silently thanking Bastian, and returned to dismantling the box again. If Bastian wanted to meet that night, he must have given her something to get out of this room. Her hands swam through the box, coming up empty, and then she reached for the other half of the bread. Hands trembling, she broke it again and something sprang out from the loaf. Something small. Something metal.

  A three-inch iron key.

  Both Zara and Kristy stared at it.

  This was Bastian’s escape plan.

  Zara’s fingers closed around the key and her gaze flew to the locked door. Hope bloomed inside of her, pushing aside the misery of the past few days — and she owed it all to Bastian. It couldn’t have been easy finding out what room she was in and securing this key — but he had done it anyway.

  “Is that a key to the door?” Kristy whispered.

  Zara barely heard the question. She stared out the window instead, trying to gauge the time. The sun had dipped below the horizon, but streaks of blue and purple stretched across the sky. It would be at least another two hours before ten o’clock struck. She cursed softly.

  Kristy made a grab at Zara’s hand. “What are we waiting for?” she said, careful not to let the guards hear them.

  “The soldiers don’t change shifts until ten.”

  “Let me see that paper.” Kristy seized it from Zara’s hand. “Who sent this? Was it that Nazi? Bastian?”

  “He’s not a Nazi.” Zara scowled. How could Kristy even say that after what he had done for them? Only weeks ago, Zara had thought the worst about Bastian, too, but he had proved her wrong over and over again.

  “He’s the Colonel’s son. How can you trust him?”

  “You can think whatever you want about Bastian, but I’m leaving at ten,” Zara said coolly. She didn’t need an interrogation from Kristy of all people.

  “Let me see the key.” She lunged for it, but Zara sidestepped her. “I only want to see it, you —”

  “Kami?” Zara spat out, before Kristy could say the word. Memories slashed through her of how Kristy had treated her, of the name calling and the smirks, of making Zara’s life more miserable than it already was. A breeze stirred at her fingers, but she curled it into her fist.

  For a second, Kristy winced. “Look, I know I’ve called you some things —”

  Boot steps thundered down the hallway toward their room, cutting Kristy off. Icicles shot down Zara’s spine, and she forgot about Kristy as the door flew open. Sentinel Achen stood in the doorframe, his gaze fixed on both of them. Fear shot through Zara as she remembered how his hands had wandered over her the last time she had seen him. Had he come to finish what he had started?

  “Quiet, the both of you!” Sentinel Achen barked. He stepped inside and locked the door behind him. Thinking quickly, Zara crossed her arms behind her back, tucking the key awa
y from his prying eyes.

  “We’re sorry, mein Herr,” Kristy said, her head bowed.

  “What were you shouting about?” He stepped toward Zara, those watchful eyes of his searching every inch of her. The slightest of smiles played upon his mouth.

  Zara trembled, squeezing the key behind her, willing her face to remain calm. If he discovered what she was holding, he could fire a round through her forehead, no questions asked. “Nothing of importance, mein Herr,” she said. “Our apologies. It won’t happen again.”

  “Maybe you two need a lesson in sharing.” His lips arched and he pushed Zara, hard. Crying out, she stumbled backward, losing her balance — and her grasp on the key. A metal ping echoed through the room as the key hit the floor. The Sentinel froze when he saw it.

  “How did you get that?” he demanded. Spittle sprayed from his mouth and he seized Zara by the wrists, shoving her back against the wall.

  “I — I found it!” Zara stammered.

  “Don’t lie to me.” He slapped her so hard that she saw stars. “Who gave this to you? Did you bribe one of the guards? What did you offer them, huh?”

  Zara struggled to shove his hands off her, but he only tightened his hold on her wrists. He slammed her again and this time her head snapped back, hitting the concrete wall, dizzying her.

  The Sentinel curled one hand around her throat while he turned his attention on Kristy. “Who gave you the key? Tell me!” Using his free hand, he snatched at Zara’s shirt, ripping the sleeve, but Kristy jumped in and clawed at his eyes. Achen snarled and knocked an elbow into her stomach, sending Kristy to the floor, coughing. With him preoccupied, Zara smashed her hands against his chest to escape, but he yanked her by the collar so hard that she choked. He threw her on the floor next to Kristy, pinning her there.

  “Where do you think you’re going, little Mischling?” His face was only inches from hers, so close that she could smell the coffee on his breath. His hands groped at her sweaty shirt. “What else are you hiding?”

  Panic raced through every inch of Zara’s body. She thrashed and kicked, but the Sentinel was too heavy, his arms too strong.