Today's Reading

After making two right turns, I finally found the room where the sunlamps were temporarily set up. I was understandably grateful when I found no queue waiting for me. I'm not, as a rule, a woman who is embarrassed by her own nakedness—I spent too many years at boarding school for that. However, I didn't relish being starkers around my colleagues even if they were firmly behind a locked door. If I hurried, I hoped I could finish the whole process before anyone came along.

I banged on the door of the temporary treatment room to make sure I was alone and then hauled it open. The room had been cut into two with a set of screens, to create makeshift changing and treatment areas. Since this was my first go-round with the sunlamp, I skipped past the dressing room to investigate the device. Better that than standing shivering and nearly naked, trying to make the bloody thing work.

I rounded the screen to the treatment area and stopped short. A woman in a crimson and white cardigan sat on a metal folding chair in front of the card table holding the sunlamp. Her head was pillowed on her arm, asleep.

"Hello there!" I called. I knew enough about the cabinet war rooms to know that sneaking a quick kip on the job would not be tolerated.

The woman didn't respond. With a sigh, I edged closer.

"I hate to be a terrible bore, but I can't imagine you want to be caught—"

A drop of red liquid dripped off the desk and onto the floor in a pool at the girl's feet.

"Oh my God!" I cried, dropping my book as I rushed to her. I grabbed her arm, and her jumper gave under my grip like a wet sponge. Her head lolled forward, revealing a short, slim-handled knife protruding out of the side of her neck.

All at once, everything went black, and the room's metal door crashed behind me. I whipped around in the dark, the sound of something scraping against metal chilling me to my core. Someone had shut the door and thrown the large metal bolt on the corridor side.

Nausea rising, I tried to think past my rising panic. Logic told me that the light switch must be near the door on the other end of the dark, unfamiliar room, but there was a much closer light at hand.

Trying my best to avoid where I thought the body was, I felt along the partition screening off the treatment area until my fingers hit the table. There must be a switch somewhere...

The full blast of the UV lamp stamped a black void ringed with brilliant yellow across my field of vision. I stumbled to the door, catching my foot on the partition and sending it tipping drunkenly in my wake. Still, I didn't stop until I reached the door handle.

I yanked at it. Nothing.

Again.

It didn't even budge.

I slid down to the ground, the cold metal of the door raking up my cardigan and shirt. Someone had locked me in with a dead body, and I had no way out.


CHAPTER ONE
August 27, 1940
Eleven Days Earlier

If I had to look at one more tray of anti-tank shells, I was going to scream. A full-throated, head-thrown-back, ear-piercing bloody scream.

Now, I'll admit that this threat was more metaphorical than literal; however, I am my mother's daughter and Maman was predisposed to the occasional display of dramatics.

Gripping the workbench in front of me with both hands, I took one or two of the deep meditative breaths my dearest friend, Moira, swore by and reviewed the facts at hand.

One: I was nearly done with my shift at the royal ordnance factory.

Two: Mrs. Jenkins expected me to pay my usual rent at the end of the week.

Three: There was a war on.

Taking all of these factors into consideration, I had to admit that it would be neither prudent nor patriotic to find myself sacked. We were all supposed to be doing our bit in the war against Nazi Germany. I just wished my bit wasn't quite so mind-numbingly dull.
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