Hey guys! Here's a new chapter for you to enjoy! I must make a disclaimer that there's a bit of violence in this chapter, so just be warned.

And now... Here's the continuation of the lovely cliffhanger I gave you...

The door slid open slowly on rusty hinges. A small creak cut the air. Gilbert slipped through the door and closed it behind him as quietly as he could. His breathing was slow, deep, even. His jaw was clenched so tightly, he thought his teeth might break. His feet were like lead, but they moved on their own accord down the hall.

The wooden floor creaked as he reached the top of the stairs.

A hushed German voice from downstairs drifted up to Gilbert's ears.

"Someone's here."

Gilbert took a breath and smiled. He knew that voice. It was one of his subordinates. These were his men that were here, but… For the life of him, he couldn't think of why.

It was alright though. He knew these men, so this threat might pass easily.

If he could play as his normal happy-go-lucky self, then he might be able to avoid a catastrophe and spare a life by getting these men out of here and away from Monika and Miriam, who were hidden in the room just behind him. Under the bed. Scared out of their minds.

Just breathe, Gil. Concentrate. Think on your feet. You can talk your way out of this, easy. Just clear your head and it'll all be fine.

At least, so he hoped.

"Unteroffizier Kempfe? Is that you down there?" Gilbert called out. Please let this be a good idea.

There was a confused pause. "Hauptsturmführer Beilschmidt?" a voice called back.

Gilbert sighed in relief. They would all be perfectly fine. Kempfe, the man downstairs, was one of his good friends. There was no danger here.

"Ja, it's me," Gilbert called as he started down the steps. He got about halfway down before he stopped to lean his elbow against the railing. He stealthily slid his right hand behind him to conceal the pistol that he still held.

"Oh good," Kempfe said with a smile. He lowered the rifle that he held so that it rested loosely in his hands. "We thought that there was a prowler here. No worries now!" Kempfe was a young man, early twenties, and was as loyal a soldier as Gilbert could ask for. He truly liked Kempfe, and Kempfe had saved Gilbert's life on the battlefield on numerous occasions. Gilbert had gladly returned the favor.

Another man walked into the house through the front door. Gilbert couldn't be happier, and his face didn't hesitate to show it. The man was another trusted young soldier named Hauptsturmführer Meissner. "Meissner!" Gilbert called.

"Beilschmidt!" Meissner laughed. He lowered his weapon also. "What are you doing here?"

"Ja," Kempfe asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, Ludwig and I had a fight and I just needed some space," Gilbert said, dismissing the men's questions with a wave of his hand.

Meissner frowned. "This is quite a long way from headquarters. A bit of a drive."

Gilbert shrugged. "It was a big fight. I needed-"

"A lot of space, I follow," Kempfe laughed. "Well, this is certainly a good place for some solitude." His eyes wandered around the room. "Forgive us for intruding, but we're searching all the houses on this street. There was a suspicion that there were Jews hiding here."

Gilbert's heart skipped a beat. He frowned in an attempt to hide his thoughts, as his mind had just ascended the staircase. "Jews? Here?" Gilbert asked. Play it off, play dumb, he thought. Remember, you have no clue what he's talking about. "I thought this street had already been searched, what, over a month ago?"

"It was," Kampfe said. "It doesn't make any sense to me, but you know how it is. Orders are orders, no matter how dumb they sound." He rolled his eyes. "Honestly, we could be doing much better things right now instead of walking through empty houses. This street was liquidated forever ago."

"So who ordered this?" Gilbert asked.

"Schieck." Kampfe droned. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "There's something wrong… You know…" He wiggled his fingers around his head and made a sound. "He's a bit off in the head."

"Tell me about it," Gilbert laughed nervously. "You're searching empty streets. I mean come on. The guy's a lunatic."

The sounds of approaching engines filled Gilbert's ears. More jeeps were driving down the street. Gilbert glanced out of the open door. Some were stopping in front of buildings that were surrounding them. Gilbert's heart began to race. This wasn't looking good. His palms began to sweat. His mind raced. How am I going to get the girls out of here now that this place is swarming with Nazis…?

"Yeah, he's a little out there," Meissner remarked, "But orders are orders. We just have to take a look upstairs and we'll be out of here."

Gilbert's heart stopped. Take it easy. Talk your way out of this. Keep your mind clear. Think.

"Oh guys, there's no one up here, it's just me." He tightened his grip on his pistol, which was still hidden behind him.

"We know," Kempfe said, "But we still have to look. You know. Orders." He shrugged and started toward the bottom of the steps. Gilbert slowly centered himself in the middle of the staircase. "Trust me," he said, his voice hardened just a touch, "There's nothing here. Move on to the next house."

"Gil, it's a simple search," Kempfe said. "What… What's going on?"

"Yeah, you're not acting like yourself." Meissner added. "You have a problem with us going upstairs for some reason?"

"Just…" Gilbert took a deep breath through his nose, then let it out slowly. "Please. Just go on."

In his mind, Gilbert was losing his cool facade. They need to just leave! I've got to think of something before it's too late!

Meissner took a step back and frowned. "Look, you need to relax." He started to laugh. "I mean come on, it's not like you've got a Jew hiding in the attic or anything!"

Gilbert couldn't keep his face from contorting just a hair. His face told the whole story. The second he felt his expression change, he knew he had just destroyed any hope that he had of making it out of this encounter unscathed.

Meissner's laugh slowed until it faded to nothing. "You've got to be kidding me. This is a joke, right? Look, you're famous for pranks, but this is just…" His voice gradually got quieter until it was barely a whisper. "You're joking, right?"

Kempfe looked back at Meissner, then turned back to Gilbert. His eyes were wide, confused. "Beilschmidt?"

Gilbert clenched his jaw, and he tried to hide the pain in his face. I can't believe this.

Meissner's jaw dropped ever so slightly. His words came out like a breath. "Mein Gott, you didn't!"

What have I done.

Gilbert's finger slid down to rest on the trigger of the pistol. A knot that he couldn't swallow came up in his throat. Tears burned in his eyes.

Meissner's face was clouded by shock, but Kempfe's face was wrought by the despair that comes with betrayal. "Gil… Tell me you didn't…"

Gilbert's pained silence was answer enough for them.

Kempfe nearly dropped his rifle. "Gil…?" His voice was thick and heavy. "I don't understand…"

What do I do now, what do I do now, what do I do now? Okay, think of something, anything! I have to keep them from coming up the stairs… But there's only one way to do that… No! No, I am not doing that, these are my friends… But my girls, I'm the only one that can protect them...

I am going to do anything that I must to protect my girls.

Anything.

These two men, his friends, were the only ones that knew.

He had no other option.

Gilbert's pistol flew up in the blink of an eye. He leveled it with Kempfe's head.

Gilbert's voice shook with emotion. "Move and you die."

No one moved. No one breathed. The air was still. To Gilbert, it was as if the earth had stopped spinning.

Kempfe's face betrayed his thoughts. How could you do this?

He could only whisper one word. "Gilbert…" His eyes were filled with pain.

Meissner steeled himself. Gilbert may be my friend, but he's holding a gun to my other friend's head. His lip curled in disgust. And all over some Jewish scum. He raised his rifle to his shoulder in one swift movement.

Gilbert saw everything out of the corner of his eye.

He couldn't stop himself.

He swiveled to his left.

He aimed without thinking.

He didn't hesitate.

The crack of the pistol echoed through the room.

Meissner's head whipped back, and he fell backwards. His body tumbled over a chair, and both crashed onto the floor.

The wall was painted with blood.

Gilbert whipped the gun back automatically so it was aimed at Kempfe once again. Gilbert's eyes swam with tears. Kempfe was reeling from the shock of just seeing one of his best friends shoot one of his other best friends in the head. His eyes were wide open, and his mouth was gaping open. Tears streamed down his face.

"What have you done!" Kempfe screamed.

Gilbert's pistol began to shake. His vision blurred.

What have I just done! I just… I…

He stared at Kempfe down the sights of his pistol.

Now what am I supposed to do?

An image of the two girls cowering under the bed upstairs came to his mind, and his nerves were steeled.

His mind couldn't think of anything else but his girls. Now, it didn't matter that Kempfe and he were battle buddies, that each had put their life on the line for the other more times than could be counted.

Kempfe was his brother.

But Kempfe stood in the way of his girls' safety.

And that just couldn't happen.

Gilbert pulled the trigger.

Kempfe stumbled from the impact and fell back against the wall. His rifle fell to the floor at his feet. He looked down slowly at his chest and at the growing red stain. He looked back up at Gilbert with wide, shocked eyes.

For an entire second, Gilbert couldn't move. He was completely numb. When that second passed, he shoved his pistol back in its holster with shaking hands and ran down the steps to catch his friend in his arms, as his legs had just given out.

"It's okay, it's okay," he hurriedly whispered in Kempfe's ear. Kempfe tried to shove Gilbert away, hit him, hurt him in any way, but his weakening body could do nothing. Gilbert eased him down so that he sat with his back against the wall. Gilbert knelt over him and held Kempfe's face in his hands. He leaned forward so that their foreheads touched. "Oh forgive me, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Kempfe relaxed his body and took one, two sickeningly wet breaths.

He reached his hand up and grasped Gilbert's collar.

"What is it, buddy?" He listened eagerly. Kempfe was going to say something.

Kempfe smiled coldly, then choked out a bloody, "Screw you," before his body fell limply forward onto the floor.

Gilbert wanted to be anywhere but in his own skin at this moment. Hot tears spilled onto his cheeks. What in the world have I done? He wanted to just stay here forever in his misery and anguish, but he forced himself to rise to his feet. Monika and Miriam weren't out of danger yet.

He was just trying to figure out what to do when the door of the house was thrown open. In three seconds, the room was flooded with Nazis, and all their rifles were pointed straight at him.

The rifles advanced toward him, and someone was screaming from behind them. Gilbert couldn't see his face.

"He shot them! I saw him!"

Gilbert looked down at his hands and chest. He was covered in Kempfe's blood. He looked up and was struck in the face with the butt of a rifle. He fell back against the stairs, and his head hit the edge of a step. He was flipped over on his stomach, then a boot pinned him down and hands yanked his arms behind him. Blood dripped from a cut over Gilbert's left eye. Metal handcuffs were slapped around his wrists. Someone ripped his pistol from its holster. Arms jerked him to his feet, and he was dragged outside into the sunlight. Once outside, someone shoved him down to the stone sidewalk. Gilbert grunted as he hit the ground, but he wasted no time in getting up onto his feet. His head throbbed horribly, but he tried to ignore it as best as he could. He looked up, and found himself face to face with the very last man on the planet that he wanted to see.

Schieck.

The man that everyone knew was a psychopath.

The obscenities running through Gilbert's mind were enough to make even the most hardened soldier raise his eyebrows.

Schieck stared into Gilbert's eyes. He returned the steely gaze with his own icy one. He blinked the blood out of his eye.

The street was silent.

Gilbert could hear the blood from his cut drip, drip, drip onto the ground.

His breathing was ragged.

Schieck broke the silence with words that came straight out of Gilbert's nightmares.

"Search the house. Kill anything you find."

Gilbert struggled to keep his face like stone, but he couldn't hide the panic in his eyes.

Schieck smirked.

Monika and Miriam are only under the bed! They'll find them the second they walk into the room! They'll find them and kill them! No, they can't! I have to stop it somehow!

But Gilbert could do nothing.

He could only hold Schieck's unwavering stare while his heart felt as if it would burst.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

They haven't found them… They haven't found them… They haven't–

Gilbert couldn't hold his scream back when a rifle shot rang out through the air.

Schieck kicked Gilbert in the knee, sending him down to the pavement with a cry. He then kicked him as if he were a mangy dog, but Gilbert only took the blows. He did nothing. He lay there, all the strength gone from his body. He wanted to die. He had failed.

But there was only one shot.

Gilbert waited for the second shot, but it never came. At the sound of boots, he rolled to his side, then struggled up onto his knees. He raised his head and looked to the door.

Three soldiers walked out onto the street holding their rifles.

A fourth dragged Monika's bloody body out by her hair.

No…

The scream that ripped from Gilbert's throat was everything that he could possibly feel. His scream was the sound of despair. His body went limp onto the ground. He couldn't stop his screams and tears.

Schieck curled his lip in disgust. "Jude Liebhaber! You nasty Jew lover!"

The blows that the Nazis who were gathered around delivered to Gilbert's body were nothing to him compared to the absolute devastation inside of his soul. His eyes were glued to Monika's crumpled body, which lay forgotten in the street. His tears mixed with his blood, and his cries masked the sound of his breaking ribs. Breathing was impossible. With every sucking breath, a boot kicked the air right out of his lungs. A rifle butt to his eye broke the bones around it, and that eye swelled shut in seconds. A kick to the shoulder pulled it from its socket. His hands and fingers shattered with one bootfall. His intestines felt as if they were going to burst.

Gilbert could only think about the forgotten body in the street.

Monika… My sweet, innocent, beautiful Monika…

"Stop!" Schieck's voice cut through the thuds and cracks. The beating skidded to a halt. Gilbert gasped to breathe. His eyes were still on Monika's body.

Everyone waited for the inevitable.

Gilbert knew what was coming now.

Schieck sighed. He waved a hand in the air.

"Take him over there."

Arms gripped Gilbert under his armpits and dragged his limp body across the street. Gilbert cried out in pain with each of the soldier's steps. They threw him against a cold concrete wall and stood to the side. Gilbert's body hit the wall and fell heavily onto the ground. He lay there in his agony and waited.

A metal click in front of him made Gilbert's good eye shoot open. His tiny breaths caught in his throat.

The cocking of a gun.

There was a bullet in that gun with his name on it.

He swallowed hard.

This is it.

But Gilbert was not about to allow himself to go down like this.

I'm not dying on my face, weak, like this.

Painstakingly slow, Gilbert pushed himself up to his feet. He used the concrete wall at his back to slide up. Twice he fell to his knees, but he only groaned and cried out as he got back up again. He fought the pain until he stood, shakily, on his own two feet. He leveled his defiant gaze with Schieck's. He looked past the gun in Schieck's hand, which was leveled with his brain.

"If you're going to shoot me," Gilbert said slowly, "You're going to look me in the eyes when you do."

It probably doesn't matter, Gilbert thought, but at least I'm dying on my own two feet.

Schieck narrowed his eyes.

Gilbert stared down the barrel of his gun, unphased.

There was a pregnant pause, then the sound of a lone jeep driving down the street reached Gilbert's bleeding ears. He paid it no attention until a familiar blond head came into view.

Impossible…

Gilbert's eyes flickered over to the man. They widened to the size of saucers upon recognizing who that man was, and he couldn't hold the scream back.

"LUDWIG!"

That's when the gun went off.

Gilbert's head slammed against the concrete wall and then fell forward. His body followed it. He dropped limply against the street with a final thud. His dull eyes stared forward at nothing. Blood oozed from the bullet hole in his forehead onto the street. It pooled at his head and meandered down the cracks and crevices in the street, down into the gutter. It mingled together with the refuse of the street.

-x-x-x-

Ludwig fell to his knees where he stood. The breath in his lungs felt as if it were sucked right out of his body.

My eyes are lying to me. There is no way that this is real. I did not just see my brother shot in the head. I didn't… I couldn't… No, this is impossible… Oh Gil…

Someone drew him up to his feet and took him toward the body. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the bloodstained platinum hair and the empty eyes.

Someone said something to him that he didn't catch. "Wh… What?" he mumbled.

"I said," Schieck repeated, slightly annoyed, "Your brother was caught hiding a Jew." He gestured over his shoulder to Monika's body. "Death is the consequence. It's the law."

Ludwig's brain jumped into high gear. They only found Monika. Miriam is still alive, somewhere. I have to act completely unaware of anything.

Ludwig steeled himself and stepped up close to Gilbert's body. He took the toe of his boot and moved Gilbert's head so that he could see his face. He swallowed bile back down his throat as he let Gilbert's head loll back to its resting place on the street in a pool of his own blood.

Make it believable.

Ludwig screwed up his face and spat on his brother's body.

"Jude Liebhaber," he muttered.

He turned his back on his brother's body and walked decisively back toward the jeep. "Leave his body where it is," he called over his shoulder. "That Jew-loving swine doesn't deserve a grave."

Ludwig walked back to the jeep as fast as he dared. He knew where he had to go, and he had to get there before anyone else did. He climbed into the jeep, fumbled with the keys, and started it up on the third try. He threw it in gear and drove down a side street, away from the bloodbath and toward the convent that Gilbert and he were planning on taking the girls that night.

He had been driving for no more than two minutes before he spotted something that nearly made him crash the jeep right then.

It was Miriam.

He would know that head of curls anywhere.

She was walking on the side of the street in her nightgown and shoes, dragging a tiny bundle behind her.

Ludwig slammed on the brakes and put the jeep in park.

I can't believe this! It's her!

He opened the door of the jeep and stepped out onto the street.

"Miriam!"

She turned around, eyes wide and scared. The second she spotted Ludwig, she sprinted toward him. He knelt and opened his arms wide, and she collided with his body. Her arms clutched at his body with every ounce of strength that she had in her tiny body, and he held her as tightly as he dared. "You're safe, you're safe, it's all going to be okay now," he whispered in her ear.

"Where's Monika? She said that she was coming after me. Where is she?"

Ludwig was silent. How could he tell her that Monika was dead?

I can't… I just can't.

Miriam drew back and looked Ludwig in the face. "Lud, where's Monika?"

He couldn't look her in the eyes.

"Come on, let's go. The church is just around the corner."

-x-x-x-

Ludwig stood in a shower stall late that night in the communal bathroom. After he had taken Miriam to the church, he drove straight back to headquarters. He went up to his room and locked himself in until dark. He could feel nothing. He tried to feel something, anything at all, but he couldn't feel anything no matter how hard he tried. He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at a crack in his wall. His mind was blank. He was okay with that.

When he couldn't hear any voices in the hall outside of his room, he numbly picked up a towel and headed for the showers, which were, thankfully, empty.

He closed the door of the shower stall furthest from the door, unwound his towel from his waist, and draped it over the door. There was only one water temperature, cold, so Ludwig turned the faucet and shivered when the icy water hit his chest. He let the water run over his head, through his hair, over his face, down his back, and all the way down to his toes.

Ludwig sighed and listened for anyone that could be around him, but there was no one to hear. He was completely alone.

That's when he broke down.

When the body-racking sobs started, he couldn't stop them, nor did he want to. His body went weak, and he sat down in the middle of the shower stall. He drew his knees to his chest under the stream of icy water, and buried his head in his hands.

I don't want to face a world without my brother in it.

I can't do it.

I just can't.

No. I'm not okay. I'm bawling my eyes out.

No tears in the author, no tears in the reader, right?.

Oh Gilbert, I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.