Chapter 17 INGA
I hadn't seen Gideon in three days. Not at the bar. Not passing through the street. Not hovering awkwardly outside the alley pretending he wasn't waiting for me.
Nothing.
But the boys had.
Every evening while I worked, Gideon brought them food. A pot of stew one night. Two hamburgers wrapped in paper the next. A whole tin of peaches the night after that. They never came hungry to meet me after my shift, not anymore.
Axel giggled whenever he said Gideon's name, as if he carried a secret too big for his small body. "He says," Axel whispered one evening, eyes bright, "that when he's got a day off, he's going to take you on a real date."
My heart tightened in a way that should've worried me.
A date.
Me.
The idea sent heat curling low in my stomach whenever I thought about it, made the corners of my mouth lift even when I tried to force them down. I wanted that more than I'd let myself want anything in a long time.
But before I could wonder more about it, Klaus shouted from across the rubble.
"Inga!"
I turned, then froze. Axel was leading a little girl through the broken doorway of what we generously called our home.
She couldn't have been older than Klaus.
Six. Maybe seven. A tangle of dirt-blond hair hung over her face, her eyes huge and startled like a wild animal brought into a cage. Her arm hung at a strange angle.
I knew immediately it was broken.
"Oh God." I crouched in front of her. "Hello," I whispered gently. "I'm Inga, what's your name?"
She blinked. Her lips parted. "Hilde," she breathed, in a voice thinner than paper.
That was all she knew. That was all anyone knew. Axel swallowed hard and explained in his small, solemn voice. "Bastian and the others… they chased her. She fell through a hole. I got her out."
I stared at the crooked limb and swallowed the rising bile down.
Trümmerkinder were everywhere now, orphans, half-orphans, feral children raised by the ruins themselves. They stole to eat, slept in cellars or burnt-out cars, followed older boys who ruled the rubble like kings. The war had ended, but for them it had never stopped.
Hilde trembled, watching me with the wide, blind trust of someone with nothing left to lose. My throat closed. "Oh, sweetheart…" I whispered, brushing a leaf out of her hair. "You poor thing."
But then panic slammed into me. What was I going to do? I couldn't afford a doctor. I couldn't leave her alone. And I had to be at Die Ecke in less than an hour.
"Klaus," I said, trying to keep the fear from my voice, "go find Elke. Ask if she can take my shift tonight. Tell her it's important. Very important."
Klaus nodded instantly and sprinted out through the rubble.
I watched him dodge a rusted pipe and the jagged cement blocks he knew by heart.
When he was out of sight, I lifted Hilde carefully—as carefully as I could—but she still whimpered, burying her face in my shoulder.
She was tiny. Too tiny. Lighter than she should've been, like half her bones were missing.
Axel hovered at my elbow, uncertain. "She followed us," he said. "Maybe she thought… maybe she thought we would help her."
I kissed Hilde's temple. "You did the right thing bringing her here."
"But what do we do now?" Axel whispered.
I had no answer.
Not one.
Because every option I had was wrong.
Take her to the Jugendamt—youth care?
They would scoop her up like lost luggage and send her to one of those giant children's homes, where three kids shared a bed, and no one remembered your name. She'd disappear into the system, swallowed whole. Maybe sent to the countryside. Maybe not sent anywhere at all. Just… stuck.
A hospital?
We couldn't pay. And even if they treated her, they'd report her immediately. No papers. No parents. Gone.
The church orphanage down the street?
Overcrowded, strict, cold. I'd seen the line of thin faces staring out the windows like ghosts. Hilde would wither there. Her spirit would crumble.
A black-market doctor?
Maybe.
But where would I find one? And how could I trust someone whose hands traded in desperation?
None of the paths were safe for her. None led anywhere but to a terrible outcome.
This had been my worst nightmare for Klaus, and now for Axel too.
This girl was a stranger to me, but she was just a kid and already pulling on all my heartstrings and protective instincts.
And God help me… I couldn't choose any of those options for her. Not for this tiny, trembling scrap of a girl who already looked like life had eaten half of her. I held her a little closer. Her small fingers clutched my blouse as if she'd been waiting her whole life for someone to hold on to.
Axel looked up at me, waiting for a miracle I didn't have. Hopelessness hit me like a punch to the lungs. I could barely keep Klaus and Axel fed. Barely keep a roof over our heads—if it even counted as a roof. Barely keep myself sane.
How was I supposed to take on another child? How was anyone supposed to? But then Hilde whimpered softly against my neck. And suddenly the answer didn't matter. Because the world had failed her. I just couldn't be the next person to do that.
I swallowed hard. "We take care of her," I said.
My voice didn't shake, but my heart did.
Axel's eyes went wide.
"Us?" he breathed.
"Yes, us," I whispered. "Just like we take care of each other."
He nodded, a little proud, a little scared.
I sat Hilde on the mattress, smoothing her hair back gently.
Not for the first time since Gideon had vanished into the sky for three long days, I wished he were here, but this time, it had nothing to do with girlish dreams. And not because he could rescue me, either, but because I didn't know what to do.
And because some foolish, dangerous part of my heart believed he would.
Klaus came skidding back through the rubble, cheeks flushed, panting hard. "Elke says she will take your shift!" he announced triumphantly. "She said she wants the extra cigarettes anyway."
Relief washed through me so fast it nearly knocked me over. Bless Elke.
Bless her shameless hustle and soft heart underneath it all.
Hilde whimpered then, a small, thin sound that made every hair on my arms stand up. I pressed my cheek to her tangled hair. "It's alright," I whispered. "I know it hurts. I know."
Klaus dug frantically through the little box where we kept our precious stash, things Gideon had brought on nights before. He pulled out crackers, half a chocolate bar, and a tiny tin of something that might have been Spam.
He opened a packet of those dry American crackers, broke one in half, and set it in Hilde's good hand as if it were sacred.
She sniffed it, unsure, like a frightened animal, then nibbled. I didn't breathe until she took the first bite and then ate like she hadn't eaten in days.
Maybe she hadn't.
I wiped her face with a damp cloth. The dirt lifted away to reveal a child underneath, and a bruise on her cheek I hadn't seen yet. My throat tightened.
"Axel," I murmured, "heat some water."
He did, with a seriousness unusual for him, feeding scraps of wood and paper into the little tin stove. I washed Hilde carefully, murmuring to her, trying to keep her calm. She flinched each time I came near her broken arm.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered. "I'll make it better soon. I promise."
Then I took one of Klaus's shirts—too small for him now anyway—and cut it into strips. My hands shook as I fashioned a makeshift sling. It wasn't perfect. It might not even be good, but as I wrapped Hilde's sling around her tiny shoulder, a thought crept in, a soft, terrifying, persistent thought.
If I could help her… if I could help Axel… Maybe I could help all of them.
The Trümmerkinder. Children nobody claimed. Children nobody loved.
As I tied the knot behind her neck, Hilde sagged into me, exhausted. Her eyelids lowered, and she seemed to be falling asleep until a knock startled her awake and sent my heart stuttering. God help me, I didn't realize how much I had been hoping for that knock.
I nodded at Klaus and Axel. "Go. Open it."
They darted toward the door, pushing aside the patched boards.
Gideon stepped inside. And for a second, everything in me stopped.
He filled the space like he belonged there—leather jacket unbuttoned, hair windswept from flying.
He carried a flat box that smelled unmistakably like pizza, the American kind the boys now worshipped.
His eyes landed on me, "Inga!" he breathed.
The way he said my name—relief, worry, something too big to name—made my knees go weak.
He crossed the room in three strides, like he was going to kiss me.
My heart picked up in anticipation. I wanted him to, so much.
His hands lifted… stopped… then hovered uselessly in the air as he reined himself back.
He swallowed hard. "I… I didn't expect—"
His eyes fell on Hilde, and his entire demeanor changed. "What—who—?" He crouched beside her instantly, eyes sharp. "Inga, what happened?"
I told him everything. The fall. The gang of boys. The broken arm. Her having no one, nowhere. Her being one more Trümmerkind swallowed by a city that had no mercy left.
"She needs a hospital," he said immediately.
"I can't," I whispered.
He looked at me sharply. "Can't?"
I explained about the options and how bad any of them were, because they would all lead back to Hilde being taken to an orphanage.
Gideon's jaw tensed.
He looked at Hilde again, at the way she shrank from the world, and something hardened in him.
"Okay," he said softly. "Then we won't do that."
He stood, thinking fast—pacing once, twice—raking a hand through his hair. Then his eyes lit with an idea.
"I know someone," he said. "On base. A medic. He owes me a favor."
I stared at him.
"But… she has no papers. No guardian. No—"
"She doesn't need any of that," he said firmly. "Not where I'm taking her. The base clinic has a back entrance, and the night shift doesn't ask questions if you're with someone in uniform."
Axel gasped. Klaus looked awed. Hilde just blinked, dazed. And me? My breath caught. He was the miracle I had been praying for. "You would do that?" I whispered.
"Of course," he said simply. "For you, for her. It's the decent thing to do."
Heat climbed my throat. He held his arms out.
"Let me take her," he murmured.
I transferred Hilde carefully into his embrace. She weighed almost nothing. The sling held, but barely. Gideon adjusted it instinctively, as if he'd carried wounded children before.
Klaus grabbed my coat. Axel snatched the dirty stuffed animal he brought home one day. I wrapped Hilde in one of the new blankets Gideon had brought days ago. Then we stepped out into the night, into the ruins.