Chapter 10 GIDEON
Four days. Four miserable, restless, engine-screaming days. Four days of flying, eating whatever passed for food in the mess, pretending to sleep, and doing everything in my power not to think about her.
Didn't matter. She was under my skin like shrapnel.
I didn't know why. Hell, I didn't even know what to call the thing clawing at me. I'd landed in burning cities, I'd lost half the people I cared about, I'd watched my own hands do things I still woke up sweating from, but this?
This was unbearable.
Maybe it was her absence. Maybe my mind had polished her until she gleamed 'because I hadn't seen her again. Maybe my dragon had decided she belonged to him, and my human half was just along for the ride. Or maybe I was simply losing my goddamn mind.
I hadn't even made it off the tarmac when I saw him—the man in the gray suit. No one wore suits in Berlin unless they wanted to bake, freeze, or get shot. This one looked like he didn't care which.
He stepped out from behind the hangar like he'd been waiting for me.
A shadow that decided to walk. "Captain Griffin?"
I didn't slow. "You need something?"
"Just a moment of your time." His voice was rich American with a Southern accent. He fell into step beside me, hands in his pockets, like we were out for a casual stroll instead of walking through the most heavily contested airfield on earth.
"I'm with Special Activities," he said softly. "You can think of us as… observers."
I snorted, pretending not to know that he was a spook. That he worked for a new organization called Central Intelligence Agency. Not many people knew about it yet but I had my sources. "That supposed to mean something to me?"
"It will." He cut me a sideways glance. "Tell me about the incident."
My stomach went cold.
"What incident?" I asked, keeping my voice bored, lazy, even though my pulse had started a low, furious throb.
The man smiled. Not kindly. "Good. Colonel Jamison said you were smart."
Jamison.
So this wasn't a trap. It was worse: it was sanctioned.
I crossed my arms. "If Jamison told you anything, then you already know there's nothing to report."
"Nothing," the agent repeated. "A damaged plane. Bullet-like punctures. Two pilots who swear they saw nothing unusual."
I gave him my best cold stare. "That's right."
A standoff stretched between us, hot air shimmering on the tarmac, men shouting in the distance, propellers whining. The agent didn't blink.
Finally, he exhaled. "Okay. Fine. I'll be the one to talk."
He glanced around—habit, not fear—then continued in a low voice.
"The Russians want Berlin. Badly. They're probing every weakness we have.
Air corridors. Supply lines. Morale. If they can push us into firing the first shot, they win.
If they can make us blink, they win. If they can accidentally down a plane and make it look like our fault… "
His eyes settled on me. "That's how world wars start."
Heat prickled at the back of my neck. "Jamison said the same thing."
"Jamison says what he's allowed to." The agent leaned in. "I'm telling you what he isn't."
The dragon surged under my ribs. Not in anger, just an instinctive reaction to danger and threats. My vision sharpened until I could see every bead of sweat on the man's temple.
"How dangerous are we talking?" I asked quietly.
His expression changed, something like sympathy, something like a warning. "We're one mistake away from losing the city," he said. "And maybe the whole damn world."
For a moment, the only sound was the growl of engines overhead. I thought of Inga. Of Klaus. The ruined building they slept in. The Russians, stalking the streets like wolves in a broken forest. The bullets that had torn through my plane.
I clenched my jaw. "So what do you want from me?"
"Nothing," the agent said. Then added, "Yet."
He stepped back, smoothing his suit jacket.
"Just keep your eyes open, Captain. Report nothing. Notice everything. And for God's sake…"
His voice dropped. "…watch yourself."
He turned and walked away, swallowed by the hangar shadows. I watched him go, and the knot in my chest tightened. Berlin wasn't just wounded. It was rigged with explosives. And the fuse was burning fast.
I'd like to say that it was the conversation with the stranger that drove me back to Die Ecke, not the urge to see that she was okay.
But I'd be lying. It was a need. Deep and primal.
I didn't go inside. I wasn't in the mood to watch people pretend the world wasn't on the brink of another war, that this city wasn't seconds from being run over by the Reds, who wanted nothing more than to rape and plunder it. If only to say, We won. Berlin is ours.
I didn't go into the bar; instead, I stood across the street and waited until the door finally creaked open and she stepped out. She looked tired. Not worn down exactly, just weighed down. Like gravity wanted more from her than from anyone else.
I stepped forward.
She gasped and pressed a hand to her heart. "You startled me."
"Sorry," I said, even though I wasn't. I'd been waiting for that moment.
She narrowed her eyes. "Is this how you get your kicks? Waiting out here for me?"
A smile tugged at my mouth, completely uninvited. "Maybe."
Flirting?
Was that what this was?
I'd never done it. I'd joined up at seventeen, enlisting in what was still technically the Army Air Forces back then, because the Air Force wasn't officially born until '47.
Before that, the extent of my romantic experience had been awkward hand-holding behind a barn and a kiss so quick it barely counted.
Then I was in England. France. Italy. And war does things to people.
Makes them reckless. Makes them hungry. Makes certain kinds of arrangements feel simple, transactional, necessary.
Girls had liked me, some because I had rations, some because I had wings, some because I was gone the next day.
But that wasn't flirting. That was survival dressed up like intimacy.
I'd never, ever, used a woman. Never taken something that wasn't freely, soberly given. There were lines I didn't cross, even when the world was on fire and everyone else seemed to be stepping over their own shadows.
But this?
This felt like something entirely different.
She crossed her arms, uncertain but… not leaving. "So what is this?" she asked quietly. "Is this… our thing now?"
Something inside me tightened, pleasure, fear, longing, I didn't know. "If you like."
Her lips parted. A shift happened, small but real. Like she gave herself a nudge from the inside.
"I think…" She exhaled. "I think I'd like that."
We started walking. Side by side. Awkward as hell. Every time our sleeves brushed, my heart thumped like a rookie's first jump.
"So," she said after a few strides, "where are you from?"
"Montana." Saying out loud the name of my home state felt good. "A little nowhere town with more cows than people."
"Montana," she repeated softly, like she was tasting the word. "That sounds… far."
"It is." I glanced at her. "Where are you from?"
She gave me a wry look. "Here. Unfortunately."
We kept walking, the silence settling into something less sharp.
She pointed at the dark sky. "Do you miss it? Home?"
More than I ever let myself think about. The mountains. My mother's cooking. My sister racing me across the fields. The way the wind smelled like pine instead of diesel and dust.
"Yeah," I said. "I do."
"And yet you're here," she murmured.
"Someone has to fly the food," I said. "And the city… it grows on you."
She snorted. "Like mold."
A laugh barked out of me before I could stop it. God, it felt good to laugh.
We turned a corner, and it hit me where we were headed. I recognized the pattern of bombed-out walls, the sag of the broken rooflines, the street lamp that leaned just a little to the left. I'd walked her most of the way home the night I rescued her.
My steps slowed.
"You live near here," I said quietly.
She nodded, eyes flicking toward the ruins. "Yes. Don't worry. You don't have to come all the way."
"I want to," I said before I could stop myself.
She looked up at me, shocked, but not displeased.
"We're close," she murmured.
Closer than she knew. Closer than I should be.
But the street didn't feel dangerous tonight. Her presence didn't feel dangerous. Only the way my chest ached when I looked at her.
This time, for once, I didn't push it away.
"So, Inga," I said softly, "can I walk you the rest of the way?"
She hesitated. Then, so quiet I almost didn't hear it. "Yes."
The walk passed too quickly. Every step with her felt… easy. Even the silences. Especially the silences. I kept trying to memorize the sound of her breath, the way her fingers brushed her coat, the way she glanced up at me like she wasn't sure if she should trust me, but wanted to try anyway.
She stopped suddenly and pointed into a cluster of half-collapsed walls and twisted beams.
"This is me," she said softly.
I stared. "That?"
She nodded. My brows drew together. "Inga… that isn't a building. That's—"
"Ruins," she finished. "I know."
"It's dangerous."
She shrugged one shoulder, weary but resigned. "It's… private."
Private.
Right.
No neighbors. No drunks. No watchful eyes.
Just darkness and dust and the possibility of the whole thing collapsing on her in her sleep. Then something colder dawned on me. A young woman. Alone. In a city crawling with men who had nothing left to lose.
"How old are you?" I asked before I could stop myself.
"Eighteen."
Eighteen.
Jesus Christ.
A girl her age should've been worrying about dances or school or whatever German girls did before the world caught fire. Not this. Not sleeping in a ruin like a trapped animal.
"Unprotected," I muttered before I could catch the word. "In a place like this…"
She stiffened, but she didn't argue. Maybe she didn't have the energy.