The Darkest Hour(47)

“We need to take out all of the files and grab as many weapons as we can,” I say, breaking out of my daze. I can be angry later. First, we have to make it out of headquarters alive.

“Yes, we need to follow protocol,” Sabine says. Somehow she has squelched any panic from her features, a trick Harken mastered, too. How else could he have made it as a double agent? “Matilda, handle the files. Lucienne, go to the weaponry. Fill three suitcases with whatever you can fit inside them.”

“What about you?” I say to Sabine.

“I’ll get the kerosene.”

“No, leave that to me.” A blot of color has returned to Tilly’s cheeks, and her fists are rooted at her sides. “If we’re going to blow headquarters sky-high, that’ll be my job.”

She gets no argument from Sabine or me. While Sabine heads for the file cabinet in the meeting room, I grab our extra valises from the wardrobe and bolt for the weaponry—in go the grenades and a few knives, in go the pistols with silencers, and in goes a miniature machine gun, along with a plump bag of Aunt Jemima. It doesn’t take long for the valises to groan from the new weight, but I’m not finished yet. I have pockets, don’t I? I stuff them full of pistol pens and gas pens and another knife for good measure. Even then, I’ve hardly made a dent in the weaponry. I place a solemn hand on top of one of the shelves. This room deserves a better end than going up in flames.

Boots stomp into the bookstore overhead.

They’re here.

Gathering the valises into my arms, I hurry toward the storage room. Shouts echo above me, and the footsteps clatter throughout the store. Our hatch is well hidden, but it’s a matter of time before the Germans find our headquarters. Sabine shoves aside a crate of potatoes and guides her hand along the stone until she locates a hidden latch that accesses our escape tunnel. With a sharp yank, a door pops open in the wall, just wide enough for us to crawl through.

“Where’s Matilda?” she asks.

As if on cue, Tilly appears behind us, panting and grasping a near-empty canister of kerosene. She pours the rest of it by the doorway and tosses the can aside.

“Did we forget anything?” she says, and I pat the bags.

“What about the L pills?” asks Tilly.

Sabine shakes her head. “There’s no time.”

With a valise under her arm, Sabine slides onto her stomach to fit into the dirt-packed tunnel. It’s my turn next. While Tilly strikes a match, I wriggle my bag and myself into the tight space. I’m about to scramble up the tunnel, but then I freeze at what I’ve forgotten.

“Are you stuck?” Tilly says behind me.

I frantically try to worm my way back down. “Theo’s letters! I forgot his letters!”

“I already dropped the match. We need to go!”

Those pieces of paper are all I have left of my brother. Even if that last letter of his brings me to tears every time I read it, I can’t let it get blown to smithereens. But Tilly’s telling me to move and I know we might get caught in the explosion if I don’t get up this tunnel fast. And yet, I’m frozen.

“Lucie, please!”

I clench my eyes shut and force myself to crawl. The letters are only letters, I tell myself. Just paper. Though that doesn’t stop my heart from splitting in half.

I slither over the damp until I emerge through a rain grate in a sour-smelling alleyway, about one street over from the store. I help Tilly out, and I stop thinking about Theo’s letters for a moment because I can see a dim red glow coming from deep within the tunnel. Soon that fire will reach headquarters—and we need to be far away before that happens. I may have taken a bag of Aunt Jemima with us, but there’s ten times more left back in the weaponry. Once the fire reaches it, every arrondissement in Paris will witness the flames.

“Run!” I whisper.

We take off with our bags bumping against our legs. When we catch a glimmer of headlights ahead of us, we break the other way toward the Luxembourg Gardens, trailing our fingertips against the brick wall to guide our feet. We’re four blocks away from the bookstore when the explosion hits my ears. Tilly falls to the sidewalk. Sabine drops her valise. I stumble into a lamppost and throw my arm over my head to shield it from the spreading heat. Behind us, a fire plume blossoms above the roofline, glowing like a jewel against the black velvet sky. Then another plume rises up, shooting ash and dust that showers onto our heads. I wonder if the remnants of my brother’s letters are mixed in with it.

The flames lick higher and illuminate the stately fa?ade of the Palais du Luxembourg, just across the street from us. I pull Tilly to her feet while I search over the palace windows. The Nazis have claimed the building for themselves, of course, and they’ll be sure to send in a swarm of patrols once they see the fire we’ve made.

“We have to keep moving,” I say.

Sabine nods. “The escape route to Laurent’s.”

The escape route that Harken taught us, I think. Should we even trust it? Is Laurent a double agent as well? But Dorner never mentioned Laurent’s initials, and at this point we have no one else who would take us in.

“Tilly, go west. Sabine, go east,” I tell them. I don’t like the idea of parting ways again, but we’ll draw far too much attention if we travel as a trio. “Watch your backs.”

As bits of paper fall down around us, we take off in our separate directions. I pick up my pace until I hit a run, fleeing from headquarters and from the only home I’ve known in France. I allow myself one last glance, and my gaze takes in the sight. All of those books, burning. All of my letters, gone. All traces of Harken, charred to ash.