1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Wilson Revision 2

Name: Kip Wilson

Genre: Young Adult LGBT Historical

Title: The Most Dazzling Sunrise in Berlin



The steel-gray sky loomed above the battered tenements, pressing me to escape. With one hand, I held on to my cloche hat. With everything else I possessed, I launched my heeled oxfords over the sidewalk. Nothing would stop me that night.



Most people moved aside as I sped past, but one bespectacled old woman glared with disapproval, clutching her handbag with hawk-like talons. Perhaps she wished she had an important appointment, too. Or perhaps she thought I was a thief. I pulled my own handbag closer and, like a moth, hurried toward the lights of the main street, Alt-Moabit.



At the corner, church bells chimed six o’clock. I stumbled. It couldn’t be. I had to make it to my audition; I simply had to. Yet each chime made it more impossible. The film production studio was all the way across the Spree River; I’d never arrive in time. Leaning against a jewelry shop window, I fished the advertisement from my pocket and held it up to the light.



Extras wanted for Fritz Lang picture:

Murderer Among Us

10 Reichsmark/day

Auditions Nero-Film AG, Unter den Linden 21

Doors close at 18:00



Doors close. The words bit me. I kicked the stone storefront and balled the advertisement in my fist. I should never have indulged Lottchen one last fairy tale before bursting into the evening. I’d blown my chance to get discovered by the world-famous director of Metropolis.



And I’d have to find another way to get the Reichsmark we needed.



Movement inside the shop caught my attention. A carefully-coiffed, well-fed woman pointed at the display case. The salesgirl smiled proudly and held up a necklace of three strands of golden beads, gathered with a mother-of-pearl clip. I pressed my nose against the glass. An impulse to snatch the necklace gnawed at me with as much ferocity as my empty stomach. Not because it was beautiful—though it was—but because its theft might tide us over a bit longer.



Evidently the necklace tugged at the customer too. She waved the salesgirl to do her bidding. With a smile, the girl took great care placing the necklace in a box and adorning it with a silky bow before handing it to the customer, who slipped it into the pocket of her ermine coat as though it were nothing. Yet that unimportant necklace could feed my little sister for a month.



My mind was made up. I pulled my cloche lower and leached into a doorway beside the window just before the woman stepped onto the sidewalk. My heart pounding, I fell into step behind her and attached myself like a shadow. Matching her movements, I swept my arm forward when she did. With a deep breath, I slid my fingers into her silk-lined pocket and lifted the box with extreme care. She continued down the block, oblivious, and I dropped the box into my handbag. My fingers trembled. I’d done it.

Only then did I see Kurt across the street, watching. I froze. He stood spindly as a street lamp in his threadbare trousers. His cap was tipped back, giving him a startled expression. A foggy breath escaped my lips as I waited to see what he would do.



For another moment, the two of us stood there, observing each other. We had history, Kurt and I. History that had ended badly.



His gaze fixed on me, Kurt pulled his cap firmly in place. He ran.



I turned and sped in the other direction—as far as I could get from him.



Surely he was already on his way to turn me in to his Ringverein’s boss. Their gang was only one of many in Berlin, but this was their territory. I should’ve been more careful. Cold droplets of sweat formed on the back of my neck. I had to get out of here. My breath thundered in my ears as my heels pounded down the block. Kurt’s boss probably had spies everywhere, but I didn’t think anyone would’ve been watching my theft.



Especially not Kurt.



I hurried down the sidewalk, slowing only when I got to the corner of Lüneburger Straße. The oncoming traffic was never-ending. I waited, dangling a foot over the curb. A taxi honked its tinny horn at me. If only I had the handful of Reichsmark needed to step inside and let it whisk me away.



But I didn’t, and before I could cross the street, rough hands grabbed me. A thick arm braced my neck in a choke hold.



“Help!” I cried. None of the passersby who’d been on the sidewalk moments before my theft were anywhere in sight now. I was on my own. Before I could twist around for a look at my attacker, he had already dragged me to the mouth of a dark alley. Fear sent an icy chill down my spine. He could do anything to me back there, and no one would know.



“Let me go!” I wiggled my shoulders to try to free myself. But my struggle only made him drag me faster. Within seconds, we were deep in the alley. It stank of week-old garbage. Something scurried over one of my shoes, and I quivered, snatching my foot away. But whatever creatures lived in the alley were the least of my worries. My gaze darted left, right, up. There was no way out.



The thug shoved me against the wall and ripped my handbag from my grasp. Two more shadows appeared at the end of the alley, blocking out the light from the streetlamps beyond. One was solid and stout, the other tall and thin. Kurt. For a moment, I dared hope our shared past meant something to him, but Kurt was clearly on his gang’s side, not mine. He’d be no help. Together he and the other shadow made their way toward us as the man in front of me rifled through my handbag.



“That’s mine.” I tried to snatch it back, but he shoved me against the wall again. Once he found the box, he handed it to the giant of a man who stepped forward from the shadows. Even with the brim of his black fedora low over his eyes, I’d have recognized him anywhere: Emil Feuerstein, the boss of Kurt’s Ringverein. I glanced beside him at Kurt, but he avoided my gaze.



“I’ll take that.” Emil pocketed the box and moved closer. His muscle-bound thug pressed closer to my side as if reminding me he was there. As if I could forget. The sweat that had formed on the back of my neck returned in an instant, sending a chill over me.



“Magdalena Braun.” Emil poked my chin upward with a thick finger. “I don’t know what you were thinking, robbing in my neighborhood. The spoils around here belong to me, which can only mean one thing. You belong to me.” His finger jabbed into my chin from below again, knocking the back of my head against the wall, coating my hair in alley grime. My head smarted.



“Hey,” I said, trying to sound brave. “Watch out. You’re hurting me.”



“I’ll hurt you a lot more than that if I have to.” His grip closed around my throat. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. I shot a glance at Kurt. He was all I had.



Kurt was shifting his weight in apparent indecision, but after meeting my gaze, he stepped forward. “Emil.”



Emil whipped his head around.



“Come on,” Kurt said, his expression serious. “Cut her a break.” I pressed my lips together, silently thanking him for the help. Hopefully it’d be enough.



Emil turned back to face me, his lip curled up in a smirk. “All right.” He released his grip, and I coughed, rubbing my neck. “But she’s not getting out of this for free. Anyone who owes me a debt has to work for me.” He looked me up and down. “Luckily for you, one of the dancers at my cabaret up and left this week, and I can use a pretty girl like you to replace her.”



A cabaret. As badly as I wanted to make it big on the silver screen, I hadn’t sunk that low yet. The cabaret wasn’t a rung on the way to stardom; it was a step down. Even worse, I’d heard the rumors about Café Domino—that it catered to lesbians. I squirmed in my heels.