The bread wasn't worth dying for.
Lucien knew that. Somewhere deep in his gut, beneath the gnawing emptiness that had become his constant companion, he knew it. But hunger has a way of rewriting a person's sense of reason, and it had been two days since he'd eaten anything more substantial than a shriveled turnip he'd fished from a gutter near the Gare du Nord.
Winter in Paris, 1940. The city looked the same as it always had—same narrow alleyways snaking between ancient buildings, same slate rooftops catching what little sunlight managed to pierce the December gloom. But it felt different. Occupied. Like a body that had been taken over by something foreign, something that didn't quite fit right.
He pressed himself against the cold stone of a building on Rue de Rivoli, watching the Wehrmacht patrol pass. Three soldiers, their grey-green uniforms pristine despite the slush coating the cobblestones. They laughed about something. One of them smoked a cigarette that probably cost more than Lucien had stolen in the past month.
The curfew would start in two hours. Nine o'clock, when the city went dark and anyone caught outside risked a beating at best, a bullet at worst. Lucien had learned the rhythm of occupation quickly—you either adapted or you starved. Sometimes both.
His fingers traced the outline of the lockpick tucked into his sleeve. Not much, just a bent piece of wire he'd shaped himself, but it had gotten him into three apartments last week. None of them had much. The French were starving right alongside him, their ration cards promising 350 grams of bread daily but delivering maybe half that when the shops actually had anything to sell.
The Germans, though?
They ate.
Lucien had watched them through windows, seen the way their officers' quarters overflowed with real bread—not the sawdust-mixed garbage the French got—and cheese that didn't smell like it had already gone bad. He'd seen crates of meat being unloaded at their barracks while French children fought over potato peels in the street.
So yeah. He was going to steal their bread.
The patrol turned the corner. Lucien counted to thirty, then slipped from his hiding spot and darted across the street. His shoes—worn through at the soles, held together with wire he'd scavenged—made almost no sound on the wet stones. Six months of living like a ghost in his own city had taught him how to move, how to breathe quietly, how to become invisible.
The building was near the Place de la Concorde, requisitioned by the Wehrmacht for junior officers. Lucien had scouted it three times over the past week, memorizing patrol schedules, watching which windows stayed lit after curfew, noting which doors had guards and which didn't.
There was a service entrance around back. No guard—the Germans probably figured no one would be stupid enough to break into a military building.
Lucien was very, very stupid. Or desperate. The line between the two had blurred somewhere around the time he'd started eating dandelion roots to fill his stomach.
The lock was newer than the ones he was used to, but his fingers knew the language of tumblers and springs. He'd been picking locks since he was twelve, back when Paris still belonged to the French and his biggest worry was avoiding the local gendarmes, not the Gestapo.
Click.
The door opened.
Inside smelled different than French buildings. Cleaner, maybe. Or just better-fed. The hallway was dim, lit by a single electric bulb—the Germans had power when most of Paris sat in darkness after curfew. Lucien's heart hammered against his ribs as he moved deeper into the building, every shadow a potential soldier, every creak of old wood a threat.
The kitchen would be on the ground floor. They always were in these old Parisian buildings.
He found it at the end of the hallway, and for a moment he just stood there, staring. A whole loaf of bread sat on the counter, alongside real butter—real butter, not the rancid margarine that was all anyone else could get—and a wheel of cheese that made his mouth water so badly he had to swallow three times.
His hands shook as he reached for the bread. Not from fear. From hunger.
"Was machst du hier?"
Lucien froze.
The German soldier stood in the doorway, framed by the light from the hallway. Young, maybe early twenties, his uniform unbuttoned at the collar like he'd just woken from a nap. He wasn't holding a weapon.
Didn't matter. Lucien had seen what they did to thieves. Seen the bodies hanging in the public squares, signs around their necks declaring them Voleur or Saboteur or whatever excuse the Germans needed to make examples of people.
The soldier's hand moved toward the pistol at his belt.
Lucien ran.
He grabbed the bread—couldn't help himself, even knowing it might cost him his life—and bolted for the door. Behind him, the soldier shouted something in German. Boots pounded on the floor. The hallway stretched impossibly long, and then Lucien was through the service entrance and into the alley, his lungs burning, his legs pumping, the bread clutched against his chest like it was made of gold.
More shouting. The sharp crack of a gunshot that sent pigeons exploding from a nearby roof.
Lucien knew these streets better than any German soldier ever could. He ducked left into an alley barely wide enough for his shoulders, then right, then scrambled up a drainpipe to a roof. His hands were raw and bleeding by the time he pulled himself over the edge, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
He ran across rooftops, leaping gaps between buildings that would've terrified him six months ago. Below, he could hear soldiers spreading out, searching. The Germans were efficient. Methodical. They'd find him if he stayed in the area.
So he didn't stay.
Twenty minutes later, Lucien collapsed in the ruins of a building that had been bombed during the invasion. His chest heaved. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. The bread was somehow still intact, pressed against his ribs.
He tore off a piece and shoved it in his mouth.
It tasted like heaven. Like before the war, when bread was just bread and not something worth dying for.
He was still eating when he heard the footsteps.
Not German boots. These were quieter, more deliberate. Lucien's hand went to the piece of broken glass he kept in his pocket—not much of a weapon, but better than nothing.
A woman stepped into the moonlight filtering through the collapsed roof. Forties, maybe, with dark hair pulled back and eyes that looked like they'd seen everything Paris had to offer and weren't impressed by any of it.
"You're either very brave or very stupid," she said in French. Her accent was Parisian, but there was something careful about the way she watched him, like she was measuring him for something.
Lucien didn't answer. Couldn't, with his mouth full of stolen German bread.
"The Germans will be looking for you. They don't take kindly to theft from their officers' quarters." She tilted her head slightly. "Where'd you learn to move like that? Most kids your age would've been caught before they made it to the first rooftop."
"Most kids my age are dead or in work camps," Lucien said. His voice came out rougher than he'd meant it to.
The woman smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "True enough." She took a step closer, and Lucien tensed, ready to bolt again if needed. "You have skills, boy. Useful skills. How would you feel about using them for something more than stealing bread?"
"Not interested."
"Not even if it meant real food? Regular meals, a place to sleep that isn't rubble?"
Lucien's stomach growled traitorously. He hated how transparent his desperation must have been.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Someone who can offer you a choice," the woman said. She pulled something from her coat—a piece of paper, folded. "The Germans caught you on camera. They'll have your face by morning. You can run, try to stay ahead of them. Or…" She held out the paper. "You can come with me. Use those hands for something that matters."
Lucien stared at her. At the paper. At the last piece of bread in his hand.
"What's the third option?" he asked.
"There isn't one," she said. And from the way she said it, Lucien believed her.
He took the paper.
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End of Chapter 1