Page 31 of Hearts of Resistance
‘Your father is the one who sent us here. Your mother was a traitor. Maybe you are, too.’
Sophia steeled herself against their words, surprised at how easily the lies flowed into her thoughts.
‘My mother was a Jew lover,’ Sophia snarled. ‘How dare you compare me to her and her love of those filthy people?’
She stepped aside, hoping she’d given Alex enough time, praying that he knew how false her words were.
‘Check everything!’
She stood, hands at her sides, teeth clenched so hard she feared they might break. Sophia watched as they looked under her bed, in her closet, behind her curtains. Everywhere a person could easily be hiding. It was when they circled back to her sofa that her heart almost stopped beating.
‘Make sure there’s no compartment in that sofa.’
‘Excuse me?’ she complained. ‘If you damage my sofa—’
Two of the soldiers picked it up then set it down, shrugging.
‘Nothing in there.’
‘What about this?’
‘You think a person could be in myottoman?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘For goodness’ sake, that’s ridiculous!’
‘Fire a shot.’
Sophia’s mouth went dry. She didn’t know where Alex was. She didn’t know where he was hiding.
‘The sofaandthis,’ he said, nudging it and meeting her gaze. ‘If you’re so certain no one is in there.’
This time she knew she wasn’t imagining his smirk. Had her face given her away? Was she not as good an actress as she thought?
‘By all means,’ she said, her voice not wavering despite the turmoil inside her. She couldn’t lose Alex and her mother on the same day. ‘But my father paid for all of this. If you don’t mind telling him that he has to have it replaced, then fire away.’
She thought that would stop them, thought the threat of her father would do something to halt their actions, but it didn’t.
‘Fire!’
The two shots straight into her sofa made her scream. They all laughed, every single one of them finding it so amusing to torture her like that.
Then they fired at the ottoman and her heart lodged in her throat, the noise of the shot reverberating through her. Then again. And again.
She shut her eyes, tried to pretend it was all a terrible dream.
‘Any blood?’
She imagined Alex’s bright red blood pooling through the fabric, seeping out on to her rug. Then another bullet fired at her head for harbouring a Jew. But there was nothing to see when she opened her eyes. No screaming, no blood, nothing.
‘Good luck gettingFatherto buy you a new one.’
The soldiers walked out, laughing, kicking her door on the way past, and Sophia found the strength to shut it behind them before collapsing, her legs buckling beneath her as she slid to the hard floor and wept.
A noise made her look up. And then she leapt up and ran to her kitchen, to the cabinet that was still open from when they’d searched the room.
‘That was close.’
Sophia bit back a scream as Alex’s head appeared from behind the false wall he’d built, his dark brown eyes meeting hers.
‘Oh, Alex! I, I...’ She gasped for air. ‘Thank God. I thought you were dead, I thought...’ She couldn’t even get her words straight as she whispered to him. She’d thought he might have dived into the ottoman to hide because it was closer, easier, but he was alive!
