The Lebensborn clinic looked like an assisted living center from the outside.

That’s what it’d been before.

Children ran around in the gathering dusk, trying to catch fireflies in jars, their innocent laughter a jarring contrast to the building’s sinister purpose. Women, middle-aged and complacent, watched over them, seated on benches along neatly trimmed paths, remnants of the place’s past life. The building’s exterior had been scrubbed clean, the windows adorned with heavy drapes, and new security cameras discreetly mounted at every corner. The front lawn, now perfectly maintained, had flower beds meticulously arranged in a bid to mask the dark reality within.

Marta waited on a rock that served as her chair, her eyes scanning the scene with a mix of anger and determination. The bingo hall had been transformed into an exercise pavilion for the girls, the bingo hall into a communal gathering spot for the would-be brood mares to meet their studs. She hadn’t wanted to bring Susan along, but the girl’s escape made her an expert on the clinic’s security measures. Unfortunately, however, she was also dumb as a post.

And Alex, who fancied himself some kind of therapist, wouldn’t shut up with the questions. “Your parents must’ve been shocked when….” He gestured at the round swell of her stomach.

“My parents did warn me to avoid them,” Susan admitted. “The SS men, I mean. There were rumors.” She sounded so gullible as she spoke, so unaware of the horrors this façade of order truly hid. Describing what was where, earlier, she might as well have been selling Marta on a timeshare.

“You mean,” Alex prompted, his voice tight, “about the rapes?”

“Rapes?” Susan turned to him, surprised. “What rapes? I mean about this place. They even forbid me from going to the beach.” She sighed, a wistful sound. “I ignored them. I wasn’t about to spend my summer hiding in the basement, you know? I told them nothing would happen, and I was right.”

At Susan’s confidence, Alex knitted his brows together. “Something happened.”

Susan bit her lip, suddenly embarrassed. “Nobody kidnapped me, or anything like that.”

Marta’s gaze flicked to the young woman.

“It was another girl who approached me,” Susan explained. “We got clams, and she told me about the program. She said I’d get a lot of money. Whatever I wanted to wear, too, whatever I wanted to eat. All I had to do was get an exam. She’d done it, she told me.”

Alex blinked. “You went willingly?”

Marta shared his skepticism, although it extended to him as well. The naïveté of these two fools was almost unbearable. Susan evidently thought that joining a selective breeding program where people were treated like livestock would end in sunshine and roses—and Alex had been as willfully ignorant! He and Zelda were going to find their own happily ever after, just as soon as she quit the Gestapo. Voight’s soul was as black as his meticulously pressed uniform, but Zelda had gone home with him from the hospital. Marta had been watching from the shadows then, too, seething with hatred at them both. God knew what tortures Bill was suffering right now, at Voight’s hands, but Marta seemed to be the only one who recognized that the world was evil.

Meanwhile, Susan prattled on. “Everything Jenny said was true.”

Marta pulled out her night vision goggles. Anything to block out this make-believe. Susan’s chatter blended into the background, while Marta squinted at the guards and started counting. “My family,” the girl added, almost as an afterthought, “we’re hungry.”

Alex’s shoulders sagged, as he understood. “You wanted an escape.”

Susan’s nod was almost childlike, her eyes wide and earnest. “After arriving, I signed some kind waiver. I agreed that this wasn’t really my child, that he, or she, belonged to the Reich.” She laid a hand protectively over her belly. “Even then, nothing felt real. Part of me kept waiting, honestly, for a camera crew to pop out and announce that this was a prank.”

Because Nazis were such comedians, Marta reflected grimly. She touched her gun, finding solace in its solid presence. This mission, this final act of defiance, was the only thing keeping her grounded. Along with the knowledge, she supposed, that she’d see Bill soon—one way or the other.

Her thoughts drifted to the broader implications of their mission. Stabbing Charlotte had been about revenge, pure and simple, but their attack here was about more; Tonight, Marta would expose the true nature of the Reich. Most people only saw what they wanted to see—the parades, the banners, the shiny modern technology. They were willfully blind to the rot at the core of this society, the cruelty and exploitation that propped it up, because they could be. By targeting this so-called clinic, Marta hoped to rip the veil off the Reich’s blighted face and force people to confront the horrors writhing beneath. She needed the world to wake up, to see the ugly truth and finally rise against it. If she could do that, then all the pain, all the loss, would have been worth it.

“Please.” Alex put a hand on Susan’s knee, a gesture meant to comfort. “Continue.”

“I’m Swedish. I mean, my parents are. I speak a little.” Susan smiled, a hint of pride in her voice. “I think that’s why they picked me. They like blonde hair and blue eyes.”

“How many other girls are there?” Alex queried, for once focusing on something relevant.

“There were twelve,” Susan replied, “At least when I was there. We didn’t know much about each other. We weren’t allowed to use our real names.” She hesitated, as if deciding how much she was allowed to share, now that she’d left. “Nothing happened, at first. Not until after I had my period. The doctor examined me. He was nice, too. Like my grandpa. Then, after that, we met our—the matron, the woman who runs the place, she called them conception assistants.”

“Conception assistants?” Alex repeated, stunned.

Marta felt her patience wearing thin, her irritation mounting with every word. How could Alex still be shocked by the depths of the Reich’s depravity? How could he, after everything, still cling to his belief in humanity’s fundamental goodness? She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, focusing instead on the task at hand. There was no room for sentimentality here, no room for disbelief or horror. They were at war, and war was a brutal, unrelenting teacher.

Susan giggled, evidently thinking she’d joined some sort of picnic, and Marta resisted the urge to slap her. “They were all handsome,” she confided, “although none of them seemed very bright. We were allowed to pick the one we wanted.”

“Magnanimous,” Marta muttered under her breath.

“We didn’t know their names, either.” Susan clarified, oblivious to the growing tension. “Only that they were all SS men. Because, you know, genetically they’re supposed to be the best. I picked one of the ones who spoke English, then there was more paperwork. I gave him permission to….” she shrugged. “You know. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be babies.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Alex, plainly, couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “And he actually did?”

“Three nights in a row,” Susan confirmed. “The other nights, he had to visit a different girl. I asked to leave, after the first night. Not because he’d done anything wrong, I’d just changed my mind. But the matron said no, I was too valuable.” Her face fell, a faint sign of the trauma beneath her composed exterior. “He got me pregnant, and I have no idea who he is.”

“This is insane.” Alex shook his head, as if trying to clear away the horror.

“There’s a shortage of men,” Marta stated, her tone flat. “That happens, with war.”

Alex’s head whipped around. “So this is the Reich’s deranged version of ‘take a tree, plant a tree’?”

“Keep your voice down,” Marta hissed.

“I snuck out,” Susan whispered. “The guards aren’t that attentive. The craziest part, to me, is that everyone expected us to be happy. Some of the girls are, I suppose, but I can’t give up my baby.” Her voice cracked slightly, betraying the fear and confusion beneath her bravado.

Marta prayed that the ignorant slut had run out of words, but Alex hadn’t. He leaned closer to Susan, concern etched on his face. “What happens to the other mothers? The other babies?”

“The babies get adopted, ideally.” Susan’s face fell, her bravado cracking for a moment. “If they don’t, they’re raised here. The boys, if they’re suitable, join the SS. The girls, I guess they marry them. One of the nurses was a Lebensborn baby,” she added. “Helga. She honestly seemed pretty normal. She wasn’t a slave, or anything, she chose this job and was planning to leave after she got married. She had a boyfriend, but he worked up at Williston.”

Alex leaned closer, his voice gentle but probing. “The mothers?”

Susan shrugged, her gaze distant. “They leave, when they’re done.”

“Can’t these men fall in love,” Alex wondered, “maybe get married, like normal people?”

Susan’s eyes flashed with confusion. “They do get married. Just not here. Besides, a lot of the men already are married. They’re supposed to do this, regardless. For the Reich. To have as many children as possible, and that includes with the girls at these clinics as well as with their wives.” Her tone was matter of fact, as if reciting a lesson she’d forced herself to accept.

It wasn’t cheating if you laid back and thought of the Führer, Marta mused bitterly.

“The Reich hasn’t been here that long,” Alex protested, his voice filled with disbelief. “Some of these children are six years old, minimum.”

“Oh, them.” Susan twisted her hands in her lap, still avoiding Alex’s intense gaze. “Some of them are orphans. Some of them…I’m not sure.” Her voice faltered, the reality of her situation finally intruding into her shock. She’d clearly avoided thinking too deeply about the real identities of those children, the same way she’d tried to avoid thinking about her own predicament.

Marta was almost relieved she’d planned a suicide mission; never had two people tried harder to attract attention. She stood and winced as the children went back inside, signaling it was time to move down the hill and regroup. Her thoughts turned dark as she pondered the grotesque reality of the men who’d arrested Bill—did they volunteer themselves as breeding stock too? The very idea was sickening. The image of Voight and his cronies, those grotesque parodies of men, mechanically coupling with innocent girls to produce more soldiers for their perverted cause filled her with a visceral revulsion. She could almost smell the sickly mix of sweat and terror, the stench of their depravity mingling with the sterile odor of the clinic. This wasn’t procreation; it was production, an assembly line of life, twisted into something unrecognizable and vile.

Susan disappeared into the woods, blissfully ignorant of the true intentions behind this little outing. Marta hadn’t revealed her plans to anyone. Alex wouldn’t have come, and Susan definitely wouldn’t have. As the last members of her group materialized from the trees, they looked like shadows come to life. Karen passed out their crudely made housewarming gifts in silence—wine bottles filled with a mixture of gasoline and roofing tar, their wicks fixed with masking tape.

Everyone wrinkled their noses at the smell.

Gasoline burned quickly, but the tar would make sure the fire lasted. The wicks were short, just three inches each, so there was no time to waste. Marta knew this was their final stand. “Attack after I do,” she instructed, tightening her grip on her gun. “You’ll see fire, and you’ll know.”

Her compatriots nodded, and then she watched them vanish, her thoughts a storm of fury and resolve. The clinic truly represented everything she despised about the Reich—the mechanical breeding, the cold-hearted manipulation, the lives destroyed for a depraved ideology. She pictured the men who’d tormented her husband, their participation in this grotesque charade, their bodies intertwined with this deviant machinery. It was revolting. This place, this symbol of the Reich’s corruption, would burn tonight, and the world would see the truth.

“It’s busier than I’d expected.” Alex sounded nervous.

“Yes,” Marta agreed. “But we should have just enough time.”

Five minutes later, they’d all taken up their places. The memory of their fallen comrades weighed heavily on Marta’s mind. Once, they’d been a formidable force; now, only this handful remained, survivors of raid after relentless raid. The loss of Bill at the mausoleum, just before dawn, was still raw. She could still see Moritz pouncing on him from a tree like some demented cat, the others closing in around them. The news had called Moritz the Ghost, for his uncanny ability to vanish, but even ghosts could be exorcised with enough raw willpower.

Bill’s execution date would be announced soon, after his farcical trial. Marta’s heart ached with the desire for him to know, before he died, that they’d done something meaningful. Most people denied that this place existed; rumors were dismissed as fantasy. But now, the entire world would know the truth, and the rest of Massachusetts would wake up to who and what the Nazis really were. She imagined the shock, the outrage, the inevitable uprising.

There’d be a revolution, then, a second and greater one. The blood and sacrifice of her comrades, the agony of loss, it all had to mean something. Her life was worth that much, all their lives were. The thought steeled her resolve, lending strength to her conviction. Her fingers tightened around the lighter, the small flame a beacon of defiance that no amount of persecution could extinguish.

Ted Hood had almost done it, almost beaten them back. He was their Paul Revere, their George Washington, the man men thought of when they gave themselves courage. He’d died at Dassel’s hands, along with hundreds of others, but she’d avenged him. She’d avenged them all. She’d laughed as she’d plunged the knife into Charlotte, watching the light go out of her eyes and imagining how Dassel would react when he learned that he’d lost his plaything.

In Marta’s eyes, Charlotte had deserved what she’d gotten and more. She was a symbol of everything Marta despised—someone who had betrayed her principles for comfort and safety, lying with the enemy and in exchange for what? Charlotte’s wide-eyed incomprehension in those final moments only fueled Marta’s contempt. The people Dassel had hung in Marblehead, they’d been the real victims. Dassel would have a long life, she assumed, to reflect on how he’d brough this suffering down on his own head…at least until he was executed for war crimes.

She crept to a window, peering inside at this semblance of domestic tranquility. In the common room, girls played out a parody of family life. Most of them were fair, like Susan. They were all pretty. Some were chatting, some were watching TV, one was even knitting. To Marta, it was a grotesque tableau, a display of how the Reich corrupted youth into compliance. These girls were being groomed to perpetuate the very system that’d destroyed so many lives—that’d destroyed their own lives, although they hadn’t realized it yet.

Beside her, Alex’s expression turned apprehensive as he surveyed the scene. “There are so many children,” he murmured, his tone worried. “This isn’t their fault.”

Marta flicked her lighter again, illuminating her hardened face. “It isn’t?”

Alex stiffened, his grip tightening on the bottle. “No.”

She studied him, her eyes narrowing. “I bet Zelda would love that pool,” she taunted, her voice dripping with venom. “Do you think it’s heated in the winter?”

For a moment, Alex hesitated, an image of Zelda in the pristine water no doubt flashing through his mind. His mouth went slack, then resolve narrowed his eyes. He held out his bottle, staring in silence as the tiny flame caught the wick and ignited it.

A gulch of fire shot skyward as he wound his arm back and threw.

Glass shattered as the night erupted in shouts.