Chapter 9! It's even closer to the end, and in fact, this might be the last chapter. I'll rewrite it for NaNoWriMo this year, hopefully novel length and a lot better.

As I'd expected, Jakob had more feeling behind his kiss, behind his touch. Rather than politely keeping his hands at my waist, he took my entirely into his arms, and instead of settling my hands on his shoulders, I did the same. He didn't kiss me sweetly, and it wasn't soft-- rough and passionate as though the emotion had been pent up and was now flowing out.

Alecz couldn't be gone for a long time, and Jakob knew that as well as I did, reluctantly breaking off sooner than either of us wanted. I don't know what I had been thinking with Alecz, and then nearly….

"Sorry," he said, leaning his forehead on my shoulder. Why did him and Alecz feel the need to apologize? "Why" I asked, and he let go, sitting up.

"You don't need this right now, and you're so much younger than me."

"Firstly, I believe I know what I need better than you do. Secondly, like that matters?"

"It does matter."

"Why?" I argued. Why would it? It wasn't illegal and even if it was…. Clearly that had never stopped us before.

"I'm old enough to your father."

"I don't care. You're better than Alecz."

"Thanks. I'm just rebound, right?"

"No! You are though, and I didn't feel anything with him, either."

"And you do for me?" I was silent. The words were easy enough to think of, but when it came to saying them…. Why was that so hard?

"Hi, I just erased everything. Cat, are you all right?" I looked up to see Alecz standing in the room looking like his usual cheerful self. And I wanted to drown him in the bathroom sink.

"Yes, everything's fine. Thanks Alecz," I replied civilly, and glanced quickly at Jakob before standing up. "When do we leave for the city?" I asked.

"Tomorrow. They'll be ready in a week, but everyone's moving tomorrow." I knew it was dangerous to be asking and giving information this important, but we couldn't appear suspicious. That also meant I had to be as friendly to Alecz as I had been previously. That meant that if he kissed me…I'd have to let him.

I nodded and walked to my room, telling Jakob and Alecz that I was going to sleep early, though it was only 7:00.

Throughout the night, the anticipation nearly killed me. What would happen with Alecz around as all those people moved in? How would we do it, anyway? Would it be like in Der Tunnel, that old German movie? Or would everyone just move in small groups, straight off the street? That seemed to make more sense. Just wait until there were no SF officers on the street and duck in. But who knew?

I couldn't sleep, even at two in the morning, and an hour later, the connecting door to my room opened. I stayed as still as I could, lest it was Alecz, but when they sat down next to me and whispered in the dark, I sat up to see Jakob.

"Cat?"

"Yes, what? Is something wrong?"

"No. Or, yes, but not in a minute. Come on, get dressed."

"Why?" I asked, doing as he said anyway. When I came out of the bathroom, he was standing by the window, wrestling it open.

"What are you doing?" I hissed. "Are you crazy?" He didn't turn from his work when he replied. "No. I'm getting us out. You just have to climb across to the other window on the left, then make your way down on everyone's balconies."

"You are crazy!" I exclaimed in a whisper, and then his actual words sunk in. "What do you mean 'you'?"

"We, sorry. Let's go. It's the only way to escape. When I said everyone was leaving tomorrow, I meant it. It's morning." I nodded, though I doubt he could see me, and he climbed out the window, shuffling on his toes to the next window, grabbing the rail of the balcony and lowering himself down to the next rail. Soon enough, he was on the third floor, and he beckoned silently for me to follow.

I shook my head in exasperation, but knew he was right. We could have gone out my door, but the locks were loud here, and the receptionist would see us leave, consequently reporting to Alecz. Still, that didn't mean I wanted to be climbing out windows.

But I turned around and swung out, gripping the sill tightly as I edged very carefully to the balcony, mimicking Jakob's movements as best I could. By the second floor, I felt my sweating hands start to slip, and flung my arms over the bars. Jakob was already on the ground, and each time I looked down, he was looking up, impatiently. Just because he could crawl down building using the balconies didn't mean everyone else could, though I don't suppose he took this into account.

I finally hit the first floor, and dangled a good distance from the ground. "Come one!" Jakob whispered up to me, and I looked down again. No, I didn't think so. That looked awfully high to be jumping from. "Just drop down!" he said, glancing at his watch.

Then I figured: if I fell and died, I wouldn't have to live in this world anymore, and if I lived, I could live in a better world. If I died I'd see my mom, a little voice in the back of my head said, and I agreed, but told myself that that wasn't why I let go and fell on the grass, knocking into Jakob. He stepped back as I fell on him and I hit my head on the ground. "Thanks very much," I said, standing up and rubbing my head.

He let out an exasperated breath and dragged me by the wrist through some bushes and down the street. He kept turning around and looking on all sides of us, paranoid, but we made it to an old building, probably derelict even in the sixties, by the looks of it.

Someone sat against the side of the building, sleeping, chin on her chest, and when we were close enough to see her in the dark, she waved us in, startling me. I swear she was asleep. "She's posed as a homeless person, observing each person before letting them pass. If the SK comes, they'll tell her to get up, and rather than question her, knowing the idiot officers in this area, they'll take pity on her as a woman and let her go."

"Well thought out," I said, and he agreed. We wandered down some stairs and found an underground room—the basement—filled with lights and people and boxes.

A young man with blond hair like mine waved to Jakob, and he waved back with a small smile. We walked down a flight of iron stairs that looked as though they'd fall if someone breathed on them, and the young man made his way over to us from the crowd. "Finally got a girlfriend, did you Hauser?" I reddened but Jakob was the one to respond.

"You wish,"

"Yeah, I do," the man said with a heavy German accent. "Hello Fraulein. I'm Oskar, Jakob's friend and confidant."

"You wish," Jakob repeated, smiling.

"So, you're really not his girlfriend? He's not just lying?" I shook my head, and he sighed, placing a hand on Jakob's shoulder. "You're telling me this pretty young woman isn't your girlfriend…. That just breaks my heart, Comrade. I'm trying to look after you, and you refuse to have a woman in your life."

"What do those have to do with each other?" Jakob asked, but Oskar ignored him.

"You need love Hauser! Love!"

"Shut up, would you?" Oskar gasped in mock hurt.

"Comrade Hauser! How could you?"

"Oskar?" I feminine voice called. "Oskar?" He turned at the sound of his name and his face lit up as he ran to a woman with black, short, curly hair, like the woman in the movies from the 40s. "That's my fiancée, Hermina," he said quickly to us before running off.

All I said was, "Comrade?"

"When Communists became the leading political party, he started calling everyone Comrade."

"Oh," I said.

We walked for a few minutes, waiting to entre into the underground. There was something different in the buzz of the room. Maybe it was the anxiety, the anticipation, playing with my mind. Maybe it was the fact that, when you got close enough to hear other conversations, they were about history. Maybe it was the sense that something was changing, that relief was coming.

That mood, however, collapsed in shouts and crashes as white uniforms with red, black, and orange armbands, a white doves plastered on, came in. They didn't swarm, and they didn't surround—they didn't need to.

Crashing down the stairs they came, shooting whomever they could, sparing no one. I guess they were desperate, possibly afraid that if they didn't kill, we would. People fell all around us, and others ran madly, but somehow Jakob and I managed to stay together. We tried to get to the stairs while avoiding the SK officers that were now mixing in the crowd, and more people fell, making those standing easier targets.

Someone caught my eye, standing up on the floor of the warehouse. The floor dropped off so you could see into the basement, and then the staircase ran along the outer wall. And on the edge of the upper floor stood Alecz, arms crossed, smirking in the blaze of lights where we were.

I noticed there were no SK officers at the stairs, and Alecz was too preoccupied in the massacre, so I nudged Jakob and pointed. He scanned the crowd and started when his eyes fell on Oskar and Hermina. They were already running. Jakob looked hurt for a second before he saw Oskar turn and search the crowds for him. When they caught each other's gaze, Oskar pointed to Alecz and nodded. Then, he took a box lying near the stairs, crept up behind Alecz, and, just being missed by an SK bolt, knocked him off the edge, right when Jakob grabbed my wrist and ran for the stair. Shots were fired after us, and I saw one hit Jakob, but he continued, darting out of the warehouse in time to see Oskar disappear around the corner. The country was just a mile away, and we ran for it.

Jakob was faster than me, but his injury slowed him down, and we ran close together. In old books, the main character often tells how they ran and never looked back, sometimes regretting it later. That didn't happen. I looked back, but by the time I did, we were too far away to see anything.

Come dawn, the last sign of defeat was the thick clouds of smoke rising from the destruction factories, covering Berlin.

It's over. Now, it's time for work and rewrites, but in essence, it's over. Really over. Maybe an epilogue. I can't believe it.