Page 70 of A Resistance of Witches

After a moment of digging, the man held up the bullet and dropped it into a cracked teacup on the bedside table. Rebecca gasped with relief, until he opened a bottle of clear liquid and smiled apologetically.

She braced herself. “Do it.”

He poured the liquid onto the wound. A muffled moan escaped from between her teeth.

“You must be Lucas,” she gasped as she caught her breath.

“I am.” He had a kind face, with large brown eyes and a jaw he owed as much to hunger as he did to luck.

“Are you a doctor, Lucas?”

He set about stitching her wound. “Technically no, although I was heading in that direction before the war. As it stands, I’m the closest thing you’ve got.”

A shadow fell across the door, and both Rebecca and Lucas looked up. Claire watched from a distance, holding a pitcher of water.

“Almost done.” Lucas carried on stitching with practiced movements.

“Don’t rush on her account,” Rebecca said. He chuckled.

When he’d finished his work, Lucas cleaned and gathered his tools and gave Rebecca a reassuring smile. She watched as he and Claire huddled just outside the room, speaking in tones too low for her to hear. They stood close, and Lucas’s fingers brushed Claire’s as he walked away.

Oh.

Rebecca studied Claire’s profile, the golden spirals falling out of her chignon and curling around her ears as she watched Lucas leave, and told herself that the ache she felt was just the pain in her shoulder, nothing more.

Claire sat at Rebecca’s bedside, setting the pitcher on the table.

“So, he’s the one,” Rebecca said.

Claire rolled her eyes. “Don’t start.”

“No, he seems nice. Handsome.”

Claire ignored her. “Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Rebecca…” She noticed that Claire wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. “What the hell happened to you? André is dead. So is the rest of your group. I assumed you were dead too.”

André is dead, Rebecca thought.Good.At least the traitor got what he deserved in the end.

“I was captured.” Rebecca watched Claire’s eyes go small and hard, and realized she’d made a terrible mistake. Claire had strict rules about maquisards who were captured and then released. The fear was that a fighter could be turned, either through torture or threat of violence against their family, and be made to betray their countrymen. “They didn’t let me go,” she said quickly. “I never broke. I escaped.”

“Escaped? How?”

She wasn’t sure what to say. Telling Claire she’d been saved by a witch would be ludicrous.

She settled on a version of the truth. “There was a woman there, a German. I killed her with her own knife, stole her jacket, and walked out.”

Claire looked down and said nothing.

“There was a policeman there who tried to flirt with me. He thought I was her.” Rebecca reached for Claire’s hand. “I bet he was surprised when he found that bitch dead in my cell.” She had hoped to make Claire smile, but her face remained stony, and a moment later, she pulled away.

“And that’s when you were shot, when they captured you?”

All business, then. Fine.

“No, that happened later.” She was getting tired and feared she mightsay too much. “I can tell you everything tomorrow if you like, but right now, I’m hungry, and thirsty, and I’m in a lot of pain.”

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