-Elizabeta Héderváry-

She felt the cold, cylindrical barrel of the revolver press against the base of her skull as she was roughly tugged upward.

"Outside. Now."

The Hungarian stood up as she was ordered, her face a pale mask of dread. Even the Kapos feared their mistake. The room had fallen silent, and all of the other people in the room stared at her petrified. They did nothing, and Eliza could not blame them.

As she rounded the table, she risked a glance at the hand that held the gun that moved her along. Underneath the black leather gloves the hand bore the long tapered fingers of a student or an artist, not the rectangular laborer's fingers that belonged to the bulk of the SS.

The door was held open by a smirking subordinate guard who saluted at her shepherd before sending Eliza a knowing and cruel smile. He knew what was about to happen. Her skull was going to be splattered against the cement, and he was going to enjoy watching it. Elizabeta couldn't help but raise her lip in a defiant snarl as she passed the lower ranking guard. I refuse to give you entertainment, fascist bastard, she thought.

She felt herself being ushered on to the cold edge of the Appellplatz and turned to face her guard.

"Halt. Here shall suffice." the guard commanded almost apathetically.

She turned and eyed him evenly. There was no sense being submissive if she knew she going to die anyway. He was about her height, with clear skin and soft dark hair with strange, almost violet, shadowy eyes. Had he been any other person she probably would have thought him handsome. His build was thin and lean. She had fought boys tougher than him back when she was a kid.

I bet I could take him.

She corrected herself.

If I haven't been starving for two weeks and he wasn't armed to the teeth.

On that dystopian thought Elizabeta looked around, at the gray sky, at the wooden huts, and noticed a small piece of cement that had come loose from the plaza beneath her. Perhaps if she pretended to trip, she could scoop it up and bash his skull in before he could fire. Elizabeta knew she would be killed anyway. Probably that whole building, too. But they were already dead, and there would be one less Nazi in the world.

"Any last words?" he drawled boredly.

"Baszd meg."

Get fucked. Perhaps he understood her, because the officer's shiny black boot kicked her fiercely to the ground, and Elizabeta landed on bloodied palms and knees. She had less than a second and a half to act as the gun was raised above her head. With the animal grace of the staved she rolled to the side, her right arm reaching to pluck away the loose shard of cement.

Right before a black boot mercilessly crushed her outstretched wrist.


-Gilbert Beilschmidt-

"Tsk Tsk. Now what do we have here?" he asked.

The black suited Prussian slowly lifted his heel from Elizabeta's wrist, displaying his trademark shark smile. He had walked up on the Austrian when he saw him drag out Elizabeta when on patrol at a nearby building. The two had been so absorbed that they had not noticed him. Not that an execution wasn't completely attention consuming to either side. In very different ways, of course.

Roderich's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Idiot. What does it look like I'm doing!"

The Prussian cut him off with a vicious glare. "I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the girl. Look what's in her hand."

Roderich followed his gaze to Elizabeta's hand, which was paralyzed with pain and half closed around a large jagged cement shard. The Austrian inhaled quickly with realization.

"The little slut was trying to attack me!" Roderich exclaimed, disgusted, even though he was about to kill her.

"No doubt I just saved your life," the Prussian replied smoothly.

Roderich, however, was less composed. "She should be hanged publicly!" he stammered, completely overcome with rage. "Rip her nails out! Her ribs out! We need to make an example of her!"

Gilbert nodded, closing his eyes. "You're right. She'll die. But not now. Do you have any idea when the next shipment of Hungarians are coming in?" he asked rhetorically. Roderich narrowed his eyes.

"Tomorrow?"

"Two weeks from now. All the Kapos we've trained over here speak Hungarian, we can't put in another group. We won't be able to replace any we've lost for another two until the next ones are here, which is much longer than usual, considering most Jews only last two weeks. That would be detrimental to our workload and we're already much behind schedule," Gilbert said.

"People are dying every day. How is one more to make a difference? And she's the one who has been sewing the flags backwards!" the Austrian exclaimed.

"The sick and weak are the ones dying, who weren't contributing much anyway. We need all the strong we have to work since this time they won't be replaced in a while."

"She'll be disciplined," Roderich growled.

"And she shall be," Gilbert said plainly. "Now get back to your post. In your absence a half dozen of our flags have probably been disgraced. " he commanded.

The Austrian glared at Gilbert, perhaps angered by the crudeness of his order. But Roderich eventually holstered his pistol and started pacing back in the direction of the building. He stopped and looked over his shoulder, violet eyes flashing with curiosity. "How are you going to do it?"

In a single fluid motion, Gilbert unhooked the crop from his belt and swung it with the full force of his well-muscled arm against the nearest brick wall. A shower dust of red stone chips flew from the impact, and a loud FFWRRUKK cursed the plaza with its harsh resonance like the crack of a thunderbolt. Elizabeta cringed beneath him at the sound.

"I think I can handle it," he said simply.


A/N

The Appellplatz was a cement plaza outside where the roll call was taken for the prisoners. It is derived from the German word for "roll call" (Appell) and "place" (Platz). Prisoners had to wait here every day at 4:00 am and be counted no matter what the weather in their thin uniforms. It often took hours, even more if there was a miscount.