PLEASE NOTE: I do not give permission for any reproduction, re-imagination, or re-adaptation of this story in any way, shape, or form. Do not plagiarize my work.
September 22nd, 1943; Wednesday (6:57 AM – Paris Outskirts)
Gnarled vegetation snaked width wise across a rut stricken trail, the mud beneath Krista's shoes slippery as she ran.
She was running. Running for her life. She knew not what direction she was heading, or even what time of the day it was; all that surrounded her was darkness, all-consuming and black like ink in an inkwell.
Wind screamed and howled through the flurry of leaves being forced from their branches and it whipped Krista's hair across her flushed face. It was freezing; she could see her breath inches from her face.
Her heart was beating painfully against her ribs from her pace, and her lungs threatened to give out with each intake of icy air.
Racing footsteps through fallen leaves closed in behind her, but shaky glances over her shoulder revealed nothing. Her sandpaper-like tongue darted out over her cracked lips not to avail. She needed to stop.
'How long have I been running?'
The trail seemed to never end, like she were running to the end of the Earth. Mud and slop turned to gravel and rock as the trail opened and widened, the tree line thinning. The wind slowed to a nipping breeze, and she could feel the chill in the air through her shirt.
Flawless Cartier diamonds surrounded her neck, each gem setting banging against her chest as she fled through the veil of the night. Krista's leg muscles throbbed and ached. They were begging her to stop, but she wouldn't listen. She hadn't the luxury of stopping for a breath.
Her head whipped over her shoulder when the crunching of leaves neared, and the vague outline of a woman's black cloaked figure swept into sight. She forced her legs forward, her footing becoming lost with the stab of a jagged rock into the ball of her foot. She toppled to the ground, her palms catching her before her face could collide with the cold ground. She scurried to her feet and brushed the rock and grit from her hands a droplets of blood began to form on her palms.
A clearing loomed ahead, the rocky trail transitioning to dense, wild grass. The blades cut at her skin, leaving stinging slices behind. She cast another glance to her rear to see a pallid hand with long, white as snow nails outstretched toward her. She continued to run faster than her body would allow her, anxious for distance between her and her assailant.
The air stilled as if she landed in the eye of a tornado. Leaves in the distance became a flurry of fallen foliage, but the trees nearest her were unmoving and silent.
She faltered at the snag and rip of her tulle skirt by a jutting out branch, but kept moving.
She could feel the warmth of blood forming a slow drip down the side of her thigh, but it would have to wait.
Her heart raced ever faster when her head whipped around again. The skin on the hand peeled and flaked like old paint on a kitchen wall. Krista longed to be home now, but she seemed far from it.
The woman's fingertips were like biting ice against the back of Krista's neck, the last ounce of endurance she had was employed. She gained distance, the grass around her thinning. She turned again, the hand still unfolded and just behind her.
She groaned in frustration as her footing failed her, causing her to lose significant momentum. The decaying fingers closed around the necklace and pulled it back, restricting her flow of oxygen. She choked and gasped, her chest was heaving as she struggled to keep moving.
Rock crumbled from the edge as her feet slid from solid ground. The fingers were pried from the cold metal of the necklace and left behind as Krista's eyes grew wide in panic.
She was in freefall.
She had reached terminal velocity, and she was plummeting.
Krista's eyes flew open and she bolted upright, her heart rate rocketing at the slam of the front door into its frame. Her hands were clammy and shaking before her as she lifted them, her forehead slick with sweat. The intake of four deep breaths wasn't nearly enough; she felt like she was recovering from an exhausting PT session.
She flopped her head back down into the goose down pillow and rubbed her hand over her throat. 'You're not the first woman this necklace has been given to.'
Her heart rate returned to normal, and she stared up at the ceiling and pushed away the replay of the anger in his voice from the night before.
She should have never taken that stupid photo from Red in the first place.
Krista pried herself from the warmth of the bed, and rotated the waist of her gauzy pants so they were correct. She padded through the house, the floor cool beneath her feet.
It was silent. Only the birds minding their own business outside the windows and up in the trees could be heard. She glanced around before shuffling over to the front door and opening it to peer outside.
Another gloomy day, she was afraid; lack of brightness and cheer. The clouds above churned angrily, all of them shaded in one form or another of dark grey. She stepped out onto the small porch and let the autumn breeze flow through her hair. She curled her arms around her torso as she took a seat on one of the steps off of the porch.
Her eyelids grew heavy, falling halfway over her dulled emerald eyes. Leaves of vibrant, lively green faded to a dull sepia and waved in a gentle easterly wind. The first leaves of autumn began to fall to the soil below, rich with the previous day's rain.
She tried to turn her focus to the flawless beauty of nature that surrounded her, but their argument just replayed. It wouldn't stop. She let the hot, silent tears fall from her eyes and she let it play back.
"Do you have any idea the mess you've created for me?" He said, a deadly venom in his voice.
Her heart was racing, but she kept the emotion from her trembling voice. "I remember not that long ago that you told me that you weren't concerned about that. And now that your career could actually be in jeopardy, it's a different story."
Hans tensed, but kept quiet. His white knuckled grip on the coffee cup on the table was on the verge of skull crushing. He shook his head slowly to the side, forcing his rage back down and releasing his grasp on the innocent coffee cup.
"I should have never kept that picture," she admitted after a long, heated, tension filled silence.
"Why did you keep it?" he asked, his voice easing down to a simmer.
"It was all I had to defend myself."
He threw his hands up and shot her the iciest glare she'd ever been on the receiving end of. It stung her flesh. "Jesus Christ… Why didn't you come to me?! Let me defend you!" He shouted, his delicate facial skin adopting a gradient of red beginning at his neck.
She never thought that a simple photograph could be the source for so much grief. "I didn't want you involved," she answered evenly, crossing her arms across her chest to still her nerve wracked hands.
"You didn't want me involved? Krista, I could have helped you! I could have gotten you out of it!" He was like a storm raging out of control.
She shook her head. "No you couldn't have. Kaltenbrunner's agreement was my problem, and I didn't need it to be yours, too. You have enough to worry about."
"I would take a bullet for you, Krista!" Hans roared, his nostrils flaring.
She took a moment and simply held his gaze. He was fuming. "You think I wouldn't do the same?" she asked as tears began to sting her eyes. She blinked them away, letting them trickle down her cheek.
"Then why didn't you tell me the truth? If you don't tell me the truth, I can't lie for you. The more you tell me, the more I can protect you. That's my concern."
"I wouldn't ask you to lie for me."
"I already have," he pointed out.
Her forged identification was a low blow. That was all on his own accord, and never requested. "And I didn't ask you to do that."
He turned his face toward the ceiling and closed his eyes. "I didn't have any other way to keep you in Paris."
Krista's brain was filled with a flurry of competing thoughts, but none of them capable of being transmitted vocally. "Do you wish you would have left me alone in the bar the night I met you?" She asked riskily, bracing herself for possible emotional impact.
His head slowly turned to her, and he shook his head again. "I don't regret that for a second."
The tension eased, the storm seemingly calming. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have that picture. And that's on me."
Hans strode around the kitchen table and stopped with a handful of feet separating them. "You can have my bed tonight. Goodnight, Krista," he said simply, locking his eyes with hers one last time before brushing past her to the couch.
She kept her gaze forward at the wall, blinking away the last of the tears that had formed. She heard him rustling around behind her, gathering a pillow and blanket from different places in the living area. Krista sniffed, wiping her eyes with her thumbs before making her way to the back of the house without a sound.
She closed the door behind her, leaving a crack large enough to let light from outside in. She crawled on top of the bed and closed her eyes as she brought her hands over them. God, she had royally fucked up, and she'd never be able to outrun it. At least, not anytime soon. This type of blackmail didn't just go away like magic.
She shifted her body, and tugged the thin blanket from atop the bedspread over her fully clothed body. She pulled it close around her chest, exposing her bare feet to the chill in the air.
Her eyes felt sore and tired but she knew that any form of sleep, shallow or otherwise, would be an uphill battle.
It all felt so vivid still, she could still feel the coldness in his voice as they parted ways for the night.
She remembered lying there alone in his bed for hours, the embrace of sleep evading her until the first sign of morning light burned through the night in the east.
She stared ahead into the expanse of trees that danced and swayed with the wind, their branches bending and their leaves waving hello. Her face fell into her hands, her eyelids fluttering shut. Everything felt like it was falling apart so quickly, and she couldn't hold it all together.
They say that a photo says a thousand words; and all of them spelled out 'mistake'.
7:47 PM
Smoke from Krista's cigarette floated away in a cloud with every exhale, and drifted away into nothingness. A pair of headlights rounded the corner, and slowed to a stop in the grass. She looked up from the steps and brought the cigarette to her lips for one last hit. She crushed it out and placed what remained in the ashtray at her side.
She watched quietly as Hans stood up from the driver's seat and held his briefcase in his hand. His eyes fell to her almost immediately, and she tugged her bottom lip between her teeth nervously.
"I'm surprised you're still here," he said as he slowly made his way to the steps, the fallen leaves crinkling beneath his footfalls.
She rose to her feet as he stopped just before her, meeting him at eye level. "Where would I go?" Krista asked as she brought her arms around her frame to shield it from the coolness of the wind.
He nodded once slowly. "I suppose that's fair," he said, removing his visor cap with his free hand.
For an extended moment, they simply held each other's gazes while the wind whistled through the woods in the background. "Where do we stand?"
He shook his head; he didn't understand. "What do you mean?"
"You're worried about losing your career because of me one minute, then the next, you tell me that you'd run with me no matter what the consequences were." She kept her voice level and even.
"What are you getting at?"
She swallowed the mass of nerves that formed in her throat before she spoke. "Would it be best if we went our separate ways?"
Hans fell silent, the mood immediately shifting. "Is that what you want?" he finally asked, stiffening.
She held his eyes firmly, refusing to let them waver from hers. "No. But I don't want you to look at me and hate me because I ruined everything you've worked for."
Hans dropped his briefcase and visor cap to the ground with a clatter and scrubbed his hands through his hair. He dropped his hands to his sides, his head turning toward the sky. "I don't think it's possible for me to hate you." He turned back to Krista and sighed. "If you want to know the truth, I didn't think it would come to this. I didn't expect the High Command to get involved."
"That's my fault," she admitted sadly. "I should have kept my mouth shut."
He offered her a lazy shrug. "What's done is done."
"I'm sorry," she finally said after another long bout of silence. "I didn't think I was going to make as big of a mess as I did."
"The damage has already been done," he said, finally scooping his belongings up from the ground. His lips pressed to her cheek gently, his eyes falling closed. How ridiculous of her to think that he could hate her. "All we can do now is take it day by day."
"Yeah. I guess you're right," she said, watching as he slipped past her up the steps and into the house.
He stopped in the doorway with his palm on the door handle loosely. "Do you want something to eat?"
"Not really," she answered curtly. Putting food into her body was the absolute last thing on her mind.
He nodded to her then pushed the door open fully to let himself inside, leaving it cracked open to let it outdoor air.
Krista turned back out to the vastness of the nature kissed environment around her, and let herself drop back down on the bottom step.
10:49 PM
Sparkles of shining stars peeked through the splotchy openings created by breaking cloud cover, their beauty being more than Krista could have asked for. She wished to be up there with them, floating without a care or a purpose.
She heard his footsteps behind her, but hadn't the energy to react. They stopped directly to her rear at the very top of the steps. "Are you going to come inside?"
"At some point," she responded, lifting her eyes from the ground and rolling her neck slowly in a circle.
His footsteps descended down the steps slowly until they finally met the ground. "I figured I'd get an answer like that." That woman could be so stubborn.
He draped the blanket he was carrying around her shoulders before claiming the empty space to her left. "Thank you," she said, tugging it tighter around her goosebump stricken and shivering body.
"Of course." He offered one of the two cigarettes he had palmed in his hand, and smiled weakly when she turned to him to accept it. "It's almost eleven o'clock," he noted, bringing his lighter flame to the end of her cigarette before his own.
"Oh god… I'm sorry… I didn't think I was sitting here that long."
He shook his head and took a draw. "Don't apologize. It's easy to get lost out here," he said almost dreamily.
She let her eyes take in everything about him. He was wearing simple slacks with a white shirt unbuttoned at the top with the sleeves rolled up. She'd never seen him wear anything but his uniform, and she realized that she had a certain adoration for him in civilian clothes. It was something she could easily get accustomed to. It was refreshing for him to be donning something other than his SD insignia.
Krista took a drag and held it in her lungs until it was uncomfortable before she exhaled into the air. "You know, I really thought that I could make things right."
He flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette and turned his head to her. "You let your heart take the lead and not your head. You're impulsive."
She let out a breathy laugh. "I am," she confirmed.
"If you weren't, you wouldn't be here with me right now."
Had she not acted on impulse all the way back in March, she doubted that she would even still be in Occupied Paris; she would have packed it in and called it a day long ago, having met Jonas or not. "I'd probably be back home." She twisted the cherry off of her cigarette against the concrete step, and drew the blanket tightly around her neck to block out the wind's nipping chill. Her head fell gently to his shoulder and let her eyes close.
Hans's arm looped around her blanket-thickened frame and brought her flush into his side. "I'm terrified to lose you," he confessed quietly, just above a gravelly whisper.
Just three months wasn't much time. It was rather inadequate in fact, but it was all the time they had left. It had been gnawing at her all day, and she just had to know… "What's going to happen when you go back to Germany?"
Hans looked out ahead of him taking one last drag from his cigarette before extinguishing it. "I try not to think about it," he said sadly. "I can't stand the thought of leaving this city without you."
Author's Note: Hey everyone! This is a short chapter compared to most of my other, so I hope you don't mind.
I've been referring to chapters 21 forward to be my "late game chapters" and now that I'm getting around to writing them, it's hitting me that this story is on the road to completion.
I'd love some reader input! What are you thinking of 'The Temptress?' Do you still like it? Are you bored with it?
I'm also curious: Do you have a favorite chapter? And do you have any predictions? I'd love to hear what you think.
As always, a huge thank you for reading and continuing to read!