Author's Note: I appreciate the reviews/theories ya'll are sending in. For the reader wondering whether the blonde with his hair tied back in the last chapter was Erd, nope it was the back of Artem's head :) Haha

Chapter 12: Escapé

"Le...vi?" Petra's lips felt foreign to this name she hadn't thought she would say aloud ever again. Was he really in front of her? This man with a jet black tuxedo on and white undershirt…It definitely was his voice and exact height. And general build. And that sharp undercut.

Oh god, it is him.

"Don't react. I'd say I'm on Vlak's hit list more than his invite list for these damn parties."

She opened her mouth to exclaim then closed it and then shook her head, shutting her eyes, trying very hard to accommodate his unruly request. She would rather opt to scream into a hollow vase. "W-What are you doing here then?!"

He didn't answer, watching her carefully as if he was contemplating his words and her possible reaction to them.

She tried again to side step the male but he kept his hold on her in their waltz.

Defeated, she continued, deciding she could just as well fight him off with words. "You are a liar. And a thief. You've been lying to me this entire time."

"I am a thief. But I never lied to you about who I was."

"You-" She tried to search her mind for a response, not wanting to face the fact that it was true: he had never openly come out and told her who he was or wasn't. He hadn't said much to her, in fact, for the time she had known him. "Well, I stand with my stat-AH!" The girl tightened her hold on his forearm as he brought her down into a dip in sync with everyone else and their partners.

"Petra." His face came parallel to her ear, voice urgent. "We don't have time. Hange is waiting for the signal so they can bring down the roof on this place-"

"Pardon?!"

"I just need you to tell me one thing." The male brought her back up from the dip, looking her in the eyes. "Are you okay staying with these aristocratic fools. Or do you want to get out?"

"Get...out?" She only had his eyes to measure whether this was a joke and they told her it wasn't. "How can you think I will take your word now after everything? After my mom...and capturing me..."

"Me being here right now can be your proof."

They had stopped dancing, standing now in the midst like a still in the storm. Her mouth formed a fine line. "I...Of course I want out. But then Vlak will have no leverage." Her gaze drifted around the room, expecting the Russian commander to have somehow heard her say his name. "Or worse, he will find my family and-"

"Petra." Levi's voice made her flinch. She couldn't believe that he was seriously handing her the responsibility of choosing on a platter after she had been stripped of her choice in this very mansion.

The bandit was right. Him being here meant she had more to know; Meant she had the option of grasping freedom once again.

"Focus on the moment. Make your decision. Do you want out?"

She bit her lip hard, searching his eyes for any clue as to what she should decide but he had truly left it up to her.

"All you have to do is give me the word." He continued.

"Hey! You were supposed to switch!" She heard Artem's voice bark from afar and knew her time was now chopped in half. She had mere seconds to make a decision.

Another man beside them in a blue tuxedo placed his hand on Levi's shoulder, saying gruffly,"You pric*, did you not hear-"

Levi grabbed the man's arm in a flash, pulling him forward so that he toppled over himself, earning a plethora of swears from his female partner.

Who am I kidding.

I already know what I want.

"Levi!"

He turned his head back to look at her.

"Yes. I want out of here."

It looked to Petra like the bandit inhaled in a breath at her response, his chest moving barely. In the second Artem began stalking towards them, Levi retrieved some device from his back pocket and aimed it at the ceiling, releasing the trigger.

BOOM!

The entire place fogged up with dense smoke.

The last thing Petra saw was Levi holding up the device, his eyes on something or someone behind her. Wispy clouds flooded the space between them in an instant.

In the crazy melee that followed, the ginger-head felt someone grab her arm and pull her away to the side. She registered the 'click' of an opening door. Once clearing through it and stepping out into the fresh breeze of nightfall, she coughed into the back of her hand, all the smoke barreling out along with her. The person that held onto her arm turned around to face her.

"Shane?!"

The boy shot her a smile and a two-finger salute. "Hey."

"What are you doing here?!" She looked back, seeing that they had taken a ballroom emergency exit.

"I was there the entire time! Now cmon, let's run!" The boy cackled, his short blonde hair like fluorescence in the dark. "So how ya been?"

"You're in on Levi's plan?!" She shouted, ignoring his question about her well being which in the moment was in confused shatters. Even more, her heels were not exactly the best suitable choice for an escape.

"This has been the plan all along!" The boy laughed as they ran, letting go of her arm.

This was the plan all along?!

"But those people inside! What is going to happen to them?" She exclaimed as they neared a hedge. From what Valeria had said, there should have been guards out here in the front gardens of the manor. But it lay barren.

"Nothing! It's just for you to make an escape, that's all."

"And Levi?! We left him in there!" She yelled, out of breath. What on earth am I doing right now!?

"He's the last person you gotta worry bout, trust me. He can escape a running missile, yaknow."

Somehow, she stupidly believed that.

The boy pointed to a readied carriage on the street beside other parked carriages. "Cmon, get in. Other attendees are going to start flooding out here, too, once they find out what's goin on."

/

Petra did not know where the carriage took them or how they had gotten away unscathed. Shane continued on about how the gate keepers had been drugged since Levi planned on limiting any and all possible casualties tonight.

In what felt like a few minutes, the horses stopped and Petra and Shane got off in front of a boarded up house amongst other houses.

Upon entry, she saw that it was in fact a pub. The doors opened with a loud chime. It smelled like someone had been baking -in a bar?! - for far too long, the aroma of cookies and bread lingering delectably in the air.

Petra gasped. The scene before her was quite frankly but marvelously wild.

There were hundreds of people in this pub.

Glitter and shimmer filled her scope of vision. Everyone wore sparking apparel, even in their hair and as adornments on their face accompanying the painted on glitter. This crowd of Martinstag celebrators put the sophisticated folk from the ballroom to shame. What she imagined were two strangers on separate sides of the room embraced happily, giving each other pecks on either cheek.

Caught up in a state of shock, she yelped when a random man came skipping by and took a gentle hold of her chin, planting a quick peck on HER cheek.

"E-excuse me?!"

The man exchanged pecks with Shane and barreled on ahead towards others.

A beautiful woman with glitter lining her lips came up to Petra, hugging her, registering the ginger-head's confusion and acute surprise. "You new around here?" Peck. "Midnight, darlin! It's hit midnight. It is Die Kussende Nacht!"

The third and final [day before Martinstag] is the distribution of gifts and food. Levi's voice echoed in her head. Also known as die kussende nacht.

Literally.

'The night of Kissing.'