The gun felt heavy in her hands, heavier than anything she had ever felt or held.  The clammy sweat on her palms made her grip tenuous at best but she tried to steady herself, wanting, no, needing to bring this to an end.   The woman in front of her kept her eyes locked on Naomi's face, a sneer turning up the corners of what might have once been a beautiful mouth.

"You can't do it, can you liebchen?  You can't kill your mother." The word 'mother' twisted the woman's features into a death mask of hate.  "I wish I had known you had survived the day I killed your father, it would have made finding the diamonds so much easier."

Naomi faltered.  Everything she had believed about her life had unraveled into a tangled knot of lies.   The woman before her was a ghost from her past, the mother she believed to be dead.

"It was surprisingly easy to to trick your father into thinking I was in danger.  After all, his first wife, your real mother, had been raped an murdered by an SS officer. "

"My real mother?"  Naomi's heart began to pound in her chest and she took a deep breath to quell the trembling of her hands.

"Yes, your real mother was American.  After she died I stepped into her place, convincing your father that you needed a motherly influence.  The Gestapo was suspicious of your father and his ties to America and shortly after you turned five he moved to America. "

"Why America?" 

"Europe was already talking of war.  Germany was moving into Poland and your father wanted to continue his work."

"As a jeweler?" Naomi licked her dry lips.

"No you stupid girl.  Your father helped his own kind get paperwork.  Identity papers, Visas, Passports.  He was sneaking Jews out of Germany.   After he moved to America he kept up the effort.  He used gold and diamonds as collateral."

"Diamonds.  You said you were looking for diamonds."

"Yes.  Since this was all very illegal, everything had to be smuggled in an out.  A large shipment of diamonds, millions of dollars worth in fact, came shipped in a box of presents for your birthday.  Before I could get to them he had re-hidden them.  I think your father began to suspect me, but never let on."  

Naomi suppressed a shudder, remembering her presents.  She had been given a porcelain doll that looked just her, dressed to match right down to her shoes.  There was a leather bound sketch book and steel nib ink pen, a charming china tea set and most precious of all, a real teddy bear.  Less than a week after, as silent tears streamed down her face, Naomi clutched her teddy bear, listening to the sounds of destruction.  Hours later she was pulled from the heating vent and shielded from having to see what had become of her life.  But even as her head was pressed into the shoulder of the woman who had saved her she saw the blood and broken china from the corner of her eye. 

"You never found them?" 

"No." The woman's voice was cold.  "But he knew he was under surveillance so I know he wouldn't have taken them out of the house.  And now I know you're alive, I might have the missing key."

"I don't have the damn diamonds!" Naomi shouted.  "And even if I did, I'd never let a person like you have them!" She had waited too long.  There was a low moan of agony from the dark corner where her sister lay and Naomi knew she couldn't wait for Marietta to come save them. "Gehen Sie zur Hölle!"  She shouted and turned to shoot one of the guards.  He fell and cracked his head on the table, gun skittering out of his hands. 

Naomi swiveled and barely ducked in time to avoid getting shot by the other man.  She pulled the trigger twice and saw him go ashen, dropping to his knees, blood bubbling from his mouth.   Before she could turn to face her mother she felt a searing pain in her shoulder.  She bellowed in shock and stumbled forward, using her momentum to turn around.  The other woman had scooped up the guard's gun and shot her.

"Sie Verräter." Naomi murmered.  "You traitor."   Her hands trembled, the pain in her shoulder growing, crimson blood flowing faster than she would have imagined it could.  Another stab of pain and another.  Naomi crumbled, hearing the other gun click.  Although she could barely breathe, she lifted her gun and prayed.  "Gott, bitte, bitte, bitte." God, please, please, please.   With the earsplitting raport the gun went off.  Once, twice, three times, then tumbled from the child's hand.    She heard the dull thud of the traitor's body as it hit the floor.  With a grim smile Naomi crawled slowly to the corner where her older sister lay.  "K-Kates.  It's over.  We're going to be ok!"  If Kates replied, she never heard it as the pain and darkness engulfed her.