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Claudette left me on the ground bleeding and perhaps dead, left my sick daughter out in the cold to freeze. Somehow the fact that I know her only makes my fury greater. If I’d planned to let her off the hook—though I really hadn’t—this discovery would have put an end to it.

I spring from the bushes, felling her with the same brick she used on me. She’s knocked unconscious by it—which is probably for the best—and I pull out my knife.

It would be so easy to kill her right now. My blood hums with desire for it, and she deserves just that for leaving Cece so vulnerable. It takes all my restraint to hold back.

It’s not her life I need right now, though—it’s her finger.

I cut off her pinky and place it carefully in my pocket. And then I leave her on the ground, to die or not die, just like she left me.

* * *

For the last stage of the plan, I return to regular time. Dr. Nadeau doesn’t sleep as soundly as Roche and is fumbling for his glasses when I walk into his room—holding Cece on my left side and a gun in my right hand.

He winces at me and turns on the lamp beside him, flooding the room with low, flickering light. “What the hell are you doing?” he sputters. “Put that thing away.”

“I’d be happy to,” I reply. “As soon as you treat my daughter.”

“You really think you can threaten me?” he asks. “I could destroy your entire family with a single word.”

“I could destroy yours as well. And if my daughter isn’t cured tonight, I will. I know where your son lives. He’s a dentist in Reims, correct? I met him and your sweet little grandson at mass once.”

For the first time I see fear in his eyes, and I relish it. I’ve been terrified for a month because he refused to help Cece. It’s about time he discovered what it’s like. “You wouldn’t,” he says, though he doesn’t sound certain. “He’s just a child.”

I laugh. “The little girl I hold in front of you is just a child, yet you were willing to let her die.”

He snorts. “That wasn’t murder. You could have found another doctor. I would never hurt someone intentionally.”

“Well, you and I are different in that regard,” I reply, pulling Claudette’s finger from my pocket and placing it on the nightstand. He’ll know who it belongs to by now. I’m sure the whole town has heard about this morning’s attack on Claudette, and I’m sure she made herself sound absolutely blameless.

His jaw drops. “Claudette—” he says with a gasp as he puts it together. “How could you?”

He was willing to let a one-year-old die simply because she’s a quarter Jewish, yet Claudette’s loss of a pinky is the true crime? “Because you have placed me in a desperate situation.” I bring Cece forward. “Figure out what’s wrong with my daughter and fix it. Now.”

He barely even looks at her. “Rash and listlessness following a case of strep throat,” he says. “It’s rheumatic fever.”

Which happened because you refused to treat her. He is responsible for this and he doesn’t care—feels no guilt at all, even with her sweet little face staring up at him. “Fix it,” I hiss.

He raises his hands. “You need penicillin for that. I’ve had none since the war began.”

This stupid man still believes he’s in charge.

“Would you like to see something interesting?” I ask with a smile. “Something you can’t even imagine possible?” I walk to the far end of the room, place the gun on the desk, and lay Cece on top of my coat.

And then I disappear. I hear his gasp as it happens and he’s still sitting there, thunderstruck, when I reappear beside him. I’m naked now, of course, but he’s so stunned he hardly seems to notice.

“How did you—” he begins.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, returning to my clothes, which sit on a pile on the floor next to Cece. “You’re under the impression that you can warn your son and grandson before I get there, but guess what? If I don’t walk out of here with enough penicillin to cure her, I can go back to the previous day and do what I want to do. I can go back a year. I can go back thirty years and make sure your son never even exists.” I finish dressing and pick Cece up, holding her close. “So, I suggest you figure something out.”

He shuffles across the room to a drawer and hands me a vial of penicillin.

“More,” I demand.

He raises a brow. “I know some of your secrets too, you know. I saw you walking home with Jeannette Olatz’s children that day she disappeared. I know they’re at your house.”

I still. This man who now hates me, and hates my daughter, knows about Charlotte and Lucien. And he thinks he can threaten me with that information.

It makes what might have been a difficult decision quite easy.