The Darkest Hour(61)

Won’t that be nice? Dr. Nacht says. Wouldn’t you like that?

He repeats the question to me every day, and I’m getting closer to telling him yes. But there’s this churning in my stomach that holds me back. I think it has to do with someone named Theo. Or Ruth. One or the other or maybe both.

Or are both of them lies that the OSS has told me?

When Dr. Nacht returns to my room one afternoon, he holds his usual clipboard in one hand and balances a small cardboard box in the other. I smile at the sight of him, but a quiet alarm bell whispers to me that I shouldn’t be happy to see him at all. Soon, though, Dr. Nacht administers a new syringe of serum and I sink back into my cot with a sigh.

“How are you today?” he says.

My lips twitch into another smile. “Fine, Herr Doktor.”

“Wonderful. You’ve made some noticeable progress in the last two days. After that bumpy start, you’ve come very far. Not as far as my other patient but a long way nonetheless.”

Disappointment hums through me. “Other patient?”

“Your colleague Matilda.”

Matilda. Do I know a Matilda? A memory floats up. Oh, yes. “Tilly?”

“Yes, both of you were terribly manipulated by that organization you were involved in, the OSS. Don’t you remember that?”

“I do,” I murmur, “but you saved me from them.”

“That I did. That’s a good girl. For our session today, I’ve brought you a little something.”

A honeyed feeling flows through me. I wonder if he brought a “little something” to Tilly, too. Hopefully not. “Just for me?”

“Just for you.” He opens the box and allows me to peek inside. “See here?”

I take a look, wondering if it could be a chocolate bar or a strudel—I have been very good these last couple of days—but what I see inside makes me flinch.

“Now, now, don’t be afraid. She’s harmless.” Dr. Nacht scoops my present from the box and places it into my hand.

I nearly snatch my hand back, but I know this wouldn’t please him, so I push down that feeling. “A mouse, Herr Doktor?”

“A special mouse—one of the specimens from the animal lab across the hall. I picked her out for you.”

The tiny creature, with red eyes and cream-colored fur, sniffs at my palm and digs its needle-sharp claws into my skin.

“Go on and give her a gentle stroke. She’d like that,” he tells me, watching me as I pat the mouse along the spine, doing as he says because I don’t want to disobey him. “What should we name her? Lulu? Jutta?”

I’ve never named a mouse before, but Dr. Nacht is waiting for my reply. “Jutta seems nice.”

He claps his hands together. “Then Jutta it is.”

Dr. Nacht lets me spend a few minutes playing with Jutta. I stroke her fur from neck to tail—which, I agree with Dr. Nacht, is quite soft—and allow her to climb over my arms. Her whiskers twitch at the new scents of my room: alcohol, bleach, the sausage on Dr. Nacht’s breath. She’s nothing like the brown mice that darted across my apartment floor at home, stealing our crumbs and leaving their droppings along the wall. Besides, Jutta is a present from Dr. Nacht. Because of that she’s very special.

Dr. Nacht taps his pen against his clipboard. “We don’t have much time left in our session.”

“Must you leave so soon?”

“I’m afraid so. I’ve other patients to attend to. Before I go, though, I have a favor to ask of you.”

I sit up. This has to be important. “Yes?”

He captures Jutta, who has been exploring the edges of my cot, and drops her into my hand again. “Careful. Do you have her?”

“Yes, Herr Doktor”

“Good, good.” He finishes jotting a note down onto his clipboard. “Now I’d like you to crush Jutta’s windpipe.”

My hands freeze in place. “What?”

“You heard me,” he says with his usual smile. “Crush the windpipe—a little pressure on her neck. It won’t take long, considering how fragile she is compared to you.”

I glimpse at little Jutta, her whiskers twitching. I want to ask him why he wishes for me to kill her, but he wouldn’t appreciate that. So I keep my mouth closed.

“Go ahead.”

I’ve killed mice before. Dozens of times. But not like this.

“Fr?ulein.”

I press my thumb and pointer finger against Jutta’s soft neck, but something holds me back from squeezing. A small voice rises within me, clawing from beneath the fog, begging me to stop, shouting at me to stop listening to him.

Dr. Nacht scribbles onto his clipboard again. “I believe you can do it.”

I want to please him very much, so I tighten my hold on Jutta. A squeal escapes from her little mouth, and her little paws scratch at my skin. A little more pressure and it will be done. Jutta’s short life, easily snipped.

And yet my hesitation keeps tugging at me.

Dr. Nacht’s fingers tighten around his clipboard. When he speaks to me next, his voice has hardened like a fist, the first sign of frustration that he has shown me. “I gave you an order.”

I hear the edge in his voice, and my grip loosens on Jutta. That’s all the time she needs to leap out of my hand and onto his foot. Dr. Nacht curses and shakes her off his shoe, stumbling back in the process. I don’t see what happens next, but I hear a terrible crunch. When he lifts his shoe, I see a slick of red.