April 13, 1941

Long chapter, sorry!

Hersch �"

Sunday, April 13, 1941

            Rebecca’s here! God, I missed that girl so much. I really could barely believe my eyes when I saw her actually standing there in the dorm. Jim actually discovered her first and I guess they’ve been getting on pretty well. I’ll have to keep an eye on that.

            Knight is letting her stay on the campus for now. I feel bad letting they guys think he’s a heartless prick, but what choice do I have? If they find out that Knight is actually helping me, they are bound to start asking questions.

            I have been so happy to see my little sister, but it has been a little tough to be around her. Sometimes I catch her looking at me and I know she’s thinking about those long weeks on the train after we left Poland, how it felt to hear me sobbing so hard my bunk would shake, how she hid my knife and my razors, just to be safe. Rebecca is my last link to the past and it has been really hard to be around someone who knows who I really am. It makes it a lot harder to seem like a normal guy.

            She is supposedly on leave from work (she told me she works in a bar, waitressing probably), taking a holiday to visit me at the school. I have no idea if that is actually true. Rebecca is an amazing liar and I know it. For all I know, she got fired, threw a fit and quit, or never even had a job. But I’m not about to tell her to leave. I would do anything for her, really. And if she needs to stay here then it’s all right by me. Besides, she’s got Mom’s temper and I wouldn’t live to see another day if I tried to throw her out.

…

Jim �"

            When I found out Becky had every intention of staying at Wellington’s, I weighed my options carefully. The way I saw it, I could do one of three things: murder her, run away, or commit suicide. Frankly, at the time any of the choices sounded better than enduring the torture of having her around.

            I thought about it carefully. Unless I wanted to go back to Wisconsin, running away wasn’t really an option. Since the only weapon within fifty miles was my switchblade, killing her would most likely involve penetrating her body with an oblong object, an activity which I intended to avoid at all costs. And suicide, well I just liked myself too much to go through with that. So my only choice was to endure her being there and hope she would just go away.

Luckily for me, she kept to herself. Hersch had somehow talked Knight into letting her stay in the guest room, and she stayed up there most of the day. Hersch usually visited her after class, so I also no longer had to worry about avoiding him. I still felt like vomiting when I saw him stick his tongue out in concentration (how had I never noticed how annoying that habit was?), but Becky’s presence seriously limited the amount of time I had to spend alone with Hersch, so I was able to gradually start getting over it.

Sometimes still I saw her, though; usually she was parading herself past the window or sitting under the oak tree after school hours. And, believe me, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Really, I mean, she’s hanging around in a place where guys haven’t seen anyone naked besides their roommates for months. I swear she wore her skirt and inch too short on purpose, just to make me crazy. Sometimes I woke up with sticky sheets, dreaming about the night I first saw her.

It didn’t take long for me to realize why Becky never came out of her room. In fact, she never even came back to the dorm after that first night. When it occurred to me, I had been unable to hide the grin that spread across my face (which was unfortunate, since we were in first period and Hersch had looked at me like I was an idiot). Becky was avoiding me. I knew her secret, and I had the power to tell Hersch. She had threatened me, but, though the image of wild dogs feasting on my balls was not completely gone from my mind, I could still sell her out.

I wouldn’t, though. Not yet, anyway. Not only did I like having something to hold over her head, but spilling her secret would also involve telling Hersch that his little sister had sucked my prick. And, like I said, I really didn’t feel like dying.

I had ended up telling Gabe and Erich everything. The day after Becky showed up, they cornered me in the library (by which I mean Erich cornered me and Gabe stood behind him) and demanded I tell them what the hell the story was. Okay, I didn’t tell them everything. In my version, I stayed awake for the whole thing and never got strangled. Of course, they were impressed. It turned out Erich had gotten girls to do that kind of thing before, but Gabe obviously hadn’t. I made them swear not to tell, and since Erich definitely likes me more than he likes Hersch, and Gabe hardly opens his mouth, I figure the secret is safe.

Anyway, by the next week Becky was staying in her room so much she was almost completely off my radar. We had bigger things to worry about, as it was. The West Block Wankers hadn’t given us trouble in ages, and Hersch and Erich both agreed that was a bad sign. Back in the dorm on Wednesday, they talked military strategy.

“I’m saying we shouldn’t just sit around and wait around for them to try and pull something,” Erich said angrily.

“And I think we just have to wait,” Hersch argued. Typical that they should agree that there was a problem, but fight to the death about what to do about it. “We study them, figure out what their next move is, and try to outsmart them.”

Erich snorted. “To hell with that! You’re starting to sound like Banhart, like we’re playing chess or something.”

“Hey!”

Neither of them heard me. “Oh and your plan is to just walk up to them and start punching? That ought to get you far,” Hersch sneered sarcastically.

“If they’re making plans, we should be too. They’ll set fire to the dorm if we give them enough time! They won’t stop until they run us into the ground.”

“I have experience with people like that,” Hersch said darkly.

“And I don’t?”

The conversation had suddenly taken a vicious turn, and I realized they were talking about what they knew from back home. I sunk down in my bed and tried to become invisible.

Hersch took a few deep breaths and began calmly. “Fine, what do you suggest we do?”

Erich’s lip curled. “If they want a fight, we can give them a fight. From my… experience… I would guess they want to take us all out at once.”

“Wrong,” Hersch cut him off, shaking his head. Erich looked angrily at him but Hersch continued. I wondered how Hersch had managed to learn how to face down Erich without shaking with fear. “They want to assert their power and send a message. Odds are they’ll target just one of us, the easy target, someone who doesn’t stand a chance.”

Something occurred to me, and I looked up from the book I was pretending to read. “Hey, where’s Moretti?”

It was late, well after dark, and Gabe hadn’t been back in the dorm since dinner. The three of us looked around, as if he might actually be there, and I felt a unanimous feeling of dread spread across the room.

Erich was out of his chair in a second. “I’m going to find him.” He was already to the door by the time we could respond.

“Erich wait!”

“You two wait here,” his growl was so fierce it glued Hersch and me back to our seats. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, they’ve got me.”

…

Gabe �"

            I had snuck out to the music building after dinner. I had heard someone had broken into Professor Crackers’ files and gotten some really good music. I hadn’t even thought of a lie to tell the guys. They barely even noticed I was there anymore.

            I had stayed longer than I meant to, and it was really dark by the time I headed back to the dorm. I left my violin in the music room so I wouldn’t have to sneak it back in with the guys all in the dorm. I had come close to being caught by Erich with it last week. It was cold, and I didn’t have a jacket, so I walked fast. I was between the main building and the west block dorm when I heard footsteps behind me.

            There were two guys on the path behind me. I had been surprised anyone else was out so late, and it made me a little anxious. But they didn’t bother me, so I just kept walking. It wasn’t until the two others came around the corner that I realized I was in trouble.

            I froze, an animal instinct, as if they couldn’t see me if I stood perfectly still. One of them, with red hair, walked into a pool of light that shone onto the path from a window above me, and I realized they were west block boys. I felt my heart pounding in my chest, felt my breath quicken as I tried to decide what to do. Then a voice slithered through the dark.

            “Hello, fairy.”

            At those words, I ran. I turned around as fast as I could and took off in the other direction. But I had been herded, trapped like an animal by the guys behind me. “Get him!” I heard the redhead yell. I pushed past the guys behind me, but one of them got his arms around me and the other one punched me in the stomach.

I hadn’t expected to be hit so fast, and went down without any more fight. Any of the other guys could have gotten away, I thought bitterly, but I was no fighter. They grabbed my arms and forced me to my knees. I tried to jerk out of their grip, but there were too many of them. I was pathetic, I knew, beaten without even putting up a fight.

            The redhead, the leader, crouched down in front of me. “This is a warning,” he seethed. “You’re friends had better stop walking around here like kings of the school, cause we’re going to show them what we do to our enemies.”

            I felt cold fear in the pit of my stomach. I knew they would hurt me. Bad. The redhead took the cigarette out of my mouth and pressed the burning end into my shoulder. It hurt so much, I cried out pathetically. Get away, I told myself, run away. I tried to throw them off me, tried to get to my feet. I groaned and yelled, thrashing around to get him to stop.

“Hey, shut him up!” one of the ones holding my arms hissed. The redhead flicked the cigarette away and nodded the second one, who kicked me in the stomach. I doubled over, straining in their grip and wheezing. They all laughed and he kicked me again, this time in the balls, then again in the chest. I lashed towards him and they laughed even harder at my attempt to fight back.

            The redhead grabbed me by the hair and yanked me to my feet. With just one of them holding on to me I had a better chance. I pushed away from him as hard as I could. My elbow caught him in the chest and he let go. I wasn’t two steps away when two of the others shoved me back towards him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He got a hold of my collar and threw me against the brick wall. The first punch left my ears ringing. My head snapped back and hit the wall. He punched me in the stomach, then in the jaw when I keeled over. He shoved me into another guy, who caught me in the nose with his elbow. Then another punch got me in the eye and I lost my balance.

            I landed on my back and felt my head crack against the cement. My head spun and I struggled to stay conscious. In a second all four of them were on me. Two of them had my arms and one had my legs while the redhead straddled my chest. I didn’t have a prayer.

In the back of my mind, I knew I was being clobbered. He punched my face over and over, though all I could feel through the buzzing in my head was a dull thumping. “Come on, fairy!” the jeering laugh sounded like it came from far away. “Fight back, why don’t you?” As if I could.

My vision got blurrier and my face hurt more and more, but they didn’t let up. I’m going to die, I thought. Something snapped in my chest. My head throbbed and my face felt crushed. There was blood in my teeth, dripping down my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I squeezed my eyes shut and begged God to let it be over soon and waited for them to kill me.

            Then, a miracle. The weight of the guy on my chest was gone, and I opened my eyes in time to see him go flying off of me, yanked off by something I couldn’t see. The other three let go of me and I tried to sit up.

            “Gabe, stay there!” I couldn’t see where the orders came from, but I knew the voice. I sat up shakily, straining my eyes to see my savior. Even in the dark, I recognized the hulking shadow.

            Erich

            Three of them had him cornered, circled around him. Erich had apparently already gotten a hold of the one who had my legs, who was propped against the wall with his arm hanging out of its socket. The redhead wiped blood from his lips. “Here to save your fairy? Well it’ll be damn hard for you to suck his dick without any teeth!”

Erich roared and charged at him. He got the redhead around the waist and the other two tried to pull him off. Erich flung a massive arm backwards and sent one flying into the wall. I looked up in time to see the guy sprawled, out cold, on the cement.

            I managed to pull myself to my knees, my head swimming. I did my best to stay upright while I watched the scene in front of me. Erich had gotten his hands on the redhead, massive fists colliding with the guy’s ugly face. The second one tried to pull him off, but Erich was too big to move. After a minute, he turned and elbowed the guy behind him in the throat. He wanker stumbled back, sputtering. He landed on his hands and knees a foot away from me, gasping for air. “F**k you, Davis. You never said there were two of them,” he wheezed at his friend before turning and running back towards the west block dorm.

            The redhead, Davis, jerked out of Erich’s grip and backed away. He reached in his pocket and smiled. I saw the light from the moon glint off his knife. I panicked and managed to get to my feet. Erich saw me.

            “Stay there, Gabe,” he ordered. He was frozen where he stood, just far enough away that Davis couldn’t get to him easily. “Don’t move.”

            Right then, Davis lunged. Erich dodged it; his reflexes were quick for such a big guy. Davis lashed at the air again, and Erich jumped out of the way. I could see there was no way Erich could keep this up forever. I staggered towards them, hoping to distract Davis.

            Instead, I distracted Erich. He threw himself at me, getting between me and Davis. He knocked me out of the way I caught myself on the wall. “Stay back, I said!”  It was too late. Davis was less than an arms reach away. The only way for Erich to keep the knife away from his chest was to block it with his hand. I didn’t see it, but I heard Erich’s groan of pain as his palm was sliced open. His hand was covered in blood; he couldn’t fight anymore.

            But instead of taking him down, Davis turned back to me. He closed his hand around my throat and shoved me against the wall. The knife was at my stomach. “I’ll show you what you get when your cocksucker tries to be a hero!” he growled. I braced myself for the pain.

            Then we heard the click of a loaded gun.

            Davis wheeled around, still choking me, but taking away the knife. I looked past him. Erich had a pistol.

            His face was dark and full of a kind of rage I had never seen before. I had never seen anyone angry enough to kill. “Let him go,” the words came like the snarl of a wounded bear. His hand, though slick with blood, was steady on the gun.

            Now Davis was really afraid. He let go of me immediately and I lurched towards Erich, towards safety. Erich did not lower the gun. “Now take your friends, and get inside.” Davis nodded, frightened, and pulled the other wankers to their feet. Erich kept the pistol pointed at their backs until they struggled through the doors of the west block dorm.

            Then we were alone on the path. Erich looked down on me. I felt dizzy, but didn’t dare ask for help. His face was still so full of rage I could barely keep eye contact.

            He wiped his bloody hand on his shirt, put his gun in his pocket and turned around. “Let’s go.”

I followed Erich shakily down walk back towards the dorm. My head was spinning, and I struggled to walk in a straight line, but I had enough balance now to stay on my feet. There was a searing pain in the right side of my chest. Erich walked in front of me, not saying anything. Occasionally he would squeeze his injured hand and curse, but I could see he didn’t want to talk to me.

My mind was too fuzzy to really understand that he had saved my life.

We still didn’t say anything as we made our way down the stairs and into the dorm. I kept my eyes on the ground, watching drops of blood from Erich’s hand hit the floor. Finally, we made it to the room.

Jim and Hersch stood and rushed over to us. “Holy s**t, what happened?”

Erich pushed past them and sat angrily at the desk. “Damn it, Abrahamson. You were right.”

…

Erich �"

            Don’t ask me why I did it, because I don’t know the answer.

            I don’t know what I expected to find when I went looking for Gabe that night. Hell, yes I did. Abrahamson really knew what he was talking about. I told myself I wanted to prove him wrong, but I knew better than that. I could only think from the attacker’s point of view, but Hersch knew how to deal with being the victim. I knew he was right the second we realized Gabe was gone.

            In retrospect, it would have been smart to let the other guys come with me. The numbers would have been even and I probably wouldn’t have gotten my hand cut open. But, before I realized that the fight might actually be dangerous, I had thought it would look impressive if I beat the wankers by myself. And I hadn’t wanted the guys to see me defending Gabe. I didn’t want them to see me defending anyone. What would they think of me then?

            The numbers had been uneven, but the fight itself wasn’t so hard. I was the best hand combat man in my unit, used to make money on the side in amateur boxing matches. I could pull a shoulder out of its socket with one tug, which was exactly what I had done.

It hadn’t been enough, though. Once the goddamn redheaded wanker came at me with his knife, I didn’t have a choice but to pull my gun. I had purposely avoided using it; I would be thrown out of school in a second if Knight found out I had it. I hadn’t used it in ages, and I had forgotten what if felt like to point a gun at someone.

Once we got back to the room, Hersch and Jim were all over us, wanting to know what had happened.

“Holy s**t, what happened?”

“What the hell?”

“What did you do?”

“Was it the wankers?”

“How many were there?”

“Did Knight catch you?”

“Are you okay?”

I didn’t have the patience to deal with them. Gabe and I both needed help. I hated having people worry about me, like I couldn’t take care of myself.

“Shut up! Shut up!” I roared. “You two get the hell out of here and do something useful. Go get bandages and ice and water and some meat for his eye. And clean up the blood in the hallway so Knight doesn’t see it.”

Hersch nodded and headed for the door, but Jim look reluctant. “Amery, let me…” I mustered up all the energy I could into one angry, intimidating look, and he scurried out the door.

Once they were gone, I looked at Gabe. He sat in his bed, propped up against the headboard with his arms draped across his knees, grimacing in pain and coughing and sputtering. There was no doubt about it, they had clobbered him. It wasn’t the worst beating I had ever seen, but still pretty bad. There was blood in his teeth and nose and his face looked completely smashed, already swelling and black and blue. He was panting, and I figured they had gotten him in the stomach a few times, knocked the wind out of him. Even with the cut, I had made it out in better shape than him.

Even I knew what it was like to lose a fight, fair or not, and I knew he must have been absolutely humiliated. For once in my life, I could relate to him.

I watched him raise a hand to the back of his head and wince. I had seen him hit the cement just as I came around the corner. “How’s your head?” I asked roughly, not looking him in the eye.

Gabe looked up in surprise, like he hadn’t expected me to want to talk about it. “Spinning,” he answered weakly, “Throbbing, actually.”

I nodded, “probably a concussion. You’ll be all right. Just don’t pass out.” The pain in my hand seared and I groaned, clutching my wrist to try and slow down the bleeding. I was pretty used to this kind of thing, but I was worried that the guys wouldn’t be able to find any bandages.

Gabe noticed. “How’s your hand?” I asked in return.

I scowled at him. “How do you think?”

He looked down. “Sorry.”

I didn’t answer but pressed my other thumb into the cut. “Goddamn it!” I cursed. It felt like fire.

Gabe blinked hard a couple of times, probably just clearing his head, then shakily stood up. He slowly made his way over to me. I felt more and more uncomfortable the closer he got, until finally he kneeled down on one knee in front of me. “Let me see,” he murmured, reaching for my hand. I jerked it away instinctively, not at all wanting to touch him. “Come on, let me see,” he insisted. It hurt too much to try and get away, so I had to give up.

He took my hand in his, inspecting the cut. It was a good size slice, running from the space between my thumb and index finger to the heel of my hand, near the wrist. Gabe looked at it with concern. “Lucky you’re left handed,” he said. How the hell had he noticed that? I realized for the first time how much smaller and more delicate (despite the ragged chewed fingernails) his hands were than mine. “This should probably get stitched up.”

I sneered at him. “Yeah? By who? We can’t just walk into the infirmary and tell them the wankers pulled a knife on us.”

Gabe didn’t argue. He never did. Instead, he pulled his shirt over his head. I’m sure my face was probably some ugly mix of surprise, confusion, and disgust, but Gabe didn’t seem to care. He ripped off the sleeve. “It’s ruined anyway,” he said quietly, as if that explained everything. He pressed the fabric against my cut. It hurt.

“F**k!” I howled, jerking my hand away. “Don’t do that!”

Gabe looked annoyed and held out his hand. “Come on, Erich. If you don’t stop the bleeding you’re going to black out.” I was starting to feel dizzy, and I figured he was right. I gave him my hand back sullenly.

Gabe silently wiped the blood away from my arm and hand, so it didn’t look as gruesome. I grabbed a half full bottle of whiskey off the desk and took a long sip, hoping to numb the pain. After a few minutes, he dropped my hand suddenly and bent over, clutching his side and groaning.

“What?” I asked, actually concerned.

Gabe shook his head. “I don’t know. Something… something from when Davis was on me,” He took his hands away and I could see the black and blue mark on the side of his chest.

“Bruised rib, I think” I said. “That’s a b***h. You’ll be limping for a while. Could have been worse if he snapped it, though.”

 He didn’t answer, but went back to bandaging my hand. Now that we had actually started to talk about the fight, I half expected him to start up some sentimental speech about my saving his life, but instead he said: “you have a gun.”

It wasn’t a question. The pistol was still in my back pocket, and I tossed it on the table. “Yeah,” I muttered. “It was my dad’s. He gave it to me when I was fourteen and I moved up in the Hitlerjugend. Might have been the only time he was ever proud of me.” What the hell? What was it about this guy that made me want to tell him everything?

Gabe kept his eyes down, focusing on my hand. “Why do you have it now?”

I thought about telling him to piss off and stay out of my business, but when I looked down and saw him staring up at me with those big green eyes, the truth came pouring out, “Because I don’t feel safe without it.” Arschloch! How could I say that? How could I show him, again, just how weak I was?

Gabe didn’t even seem to notice. He tore off another strip from his shirt and began wrapping it around my hand. “I’m glad you had it,” he said quietly. “They probably would have killed me.”

I scoffed. “Nah. They wouldn’t have gone that far. Roughed you up a little worse, probably.”

He didn’t respond but just kept winding the fabric around my hand. “Sorry you had to do that,” his voice was so quiet and scared I could barely believe it came out of a human.

Looking down at my hand, I realized it really was his fault this had happened. If he hadn’t been walking around alone at night, if he would just act like a normal guy and come back to the dorm with us, nothing would have happened. But I wasn’t angry at him. I was so surprised to realize this I couldn’t respond to him for a long minute. I was always angry, and I was especially always angry at Gabe. So why now, when he had actually done me harm, did I not care?

My answer came before I could think about it. “You would have done the same for me.” It was the truth, but since when did I treat Gabe like he treated me?

Gabe smiled for the first time all night. He tied off the bandage on my hand and stood up, “If I could. I couldn’t even take one of those guys. You were… amazing.”

Damn it! He always made things so uncomfortable, always went a little too far. I looked down and tried to brush the comment off. “Yeah, I’m… pretty good at that kind of stuff.”

I was still waiting for the speech, but nothing came. Instead, Gabe just nodded. “Well, thanks.”

I looked up at him, really looked at him for the first time. In a month and a half I had never really noticed how he looked. I don’t know what possessed me right then, but that was the moment I chose to stare at him.

Gabe’s skin was a dark tan, a true Italian tan. He was slight, almost dainty, but not without muscle, and half a head shorter than me. His hair was loosely curly and pitch-black and glossy. His features were large, huge eyes and full, round lips. His face was swollen and bruised now, but not unattractive. His bone structure was almost feminine, but with a contrastingly masculine jaw. His chest was smooth, but there were tufts of black hair in his armpits and a trail of it running from his belly button into his pants. He was…

That was when I realized I was staring. Neither of us had said anything for a long time, and now it was just awkward. I felt warm and lightheaded, probably from loosing all that blood. “I… I’m going to lie down,” I muttered. Gabe shrugged and turned back to his own bunk. That was when I first noticed the smattering of freckles across his surprisingly well-muscled shoulders.

I lay down in Hersch’s bed, across from Gabe, squeezing my eyes shut. My hand hadn’t stopped bleeding, but the makeshift bandage was helping.

Lying there on my back, I thought about what the wankers had said. They had called Gabe a fairy more than once, and he hadn’t fought them. I had wanted to kill Davis when he called me a cocksucker, but the accusations didn’t seem to faze Gabe. I was suddenly wildly curious: was he really…?

“Hey Gabe?” the words were out of my mouth before I could think about it.

“What?”

I took a deep breath. “Are you...”

At that second, the door burst open. I sat up so fast my head spun. Hersch and Jim were back, holding what looked like a pile of completely random items.

“Hey!” they panted. “We got everything,” he held up each thing as he listed it off. “Bandages, water, ice, thread…”

I looked at them suspiciously. “Thread for what?” I knew one of those idiots was planning to stitch me up.

Jim went on without listening. “Antibiotics, meat…”

He tossed a cut of meat at Gabe and it landed with a thump on his chest. Gabe held it up with a disbelieving look on his face.

“Chicken?”

“You said meat!”

I shook my head. “Arschloch.”

…

            I went to bed that night with a bottle of whiskey and fresh bandage on my hand. Jim had gotten it into his head that he was some kind of doctor �" no one believed him until he started reading out loud from a stack of medical books he had stashed in his trunk. He’s actually kind of a genius; who knew?

Jim checked his books and decided that Gabe did have a bruised rib and a mild concussion. And eventually he convinced me to let him stitch up the cut. It had hurt like hell, but the bleeding stopped and I had my whiskey, so it wasn’t actually so bad.

The worst part was having to sit there and let them watch, trying not to show that I was in pain. Never show anyone that you’re hurt, I thought; no one can help you anyway.

Gabe and I told our sides of the story while Jim sewed up my hand. I enjoyed that more than he did, since I obviously had something to brag about. Gabe hadn’t done anything he could talk big about. They had just pummeled him without even giving him the chance to fight back.

Anyway, we eventually all calmed down and called it a night. We promised to take shifts waking Gabe up every couple of hours, to make sure his concussion didn’t get any worse. My hand was still aching, but the whiskey made me sleepy.

What a dirty fight, I thought groggily. Four against one, trapped him, never even gave him a chance. Just like… just like…

I was asleep before I could remember what it was like, but the thought gave me a stomachache all the same.

            In the dream, the air was dark and thick and foggy, like it was in the industrial side of town back home. It was the dream I always had, so I knew exactly who was coming at me when the shadowy silhouette appeared in the distance.

Brigitte prowled towards me, like a cat stalking her prey. I smiled watching her, remembering her sharp features, slanted hazel eyes, stringy blonde hair. She took me by the collar of my shirt and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around her, savoring the familiar feeling of her bony body under my hands. She stroked by biceps; she had always loved how strong I was.

I stuck my tongue in her mouth and she moaned. Oh yeah, I remembered how she liked me sloppy. She took my face in her hands and returned the gesture. I knotted my fingers in her hair, refusing to let her escape from my lips. I could feel her sticky lipstick smearing across my face and heard the wet smack of shared saliva. My hands moved down, groping at her small breasts harshly and feeling the curve of her waist before finally letting them rest on her a*s.

Brigitte let me fondle her for a minute before doing anything in return. Her fingers traced down my chest, undid my belt buckle and entered my pants. I groaned at the feeling and kissed down her throat, sucking in hard on her neck.

That was when it went horribly wrong.

At first I was just confused. Why was she suddenly so flat and hard against me?

I opened my eyes. Why was her skin so tan?

I moved my hands up to her face. Why was her hair so dark and curly?

I lifted my eyes and gazed in horror at the face staring looking intensely back at me. There was no trace of Brigitte left in the person I was kissing. Instead, I was gazing back at the green-eyed stare of…

“Gabe!”

I must have shot ten feet up in the air. I jolted awake so hard the whole room shook. I whacked my head on the ceiling and spilled my whiskey. The light came on and, without even thinking about where it had come from, I rushed to cover my massive erection.

“Amery, what the hell?”

I looked up to see all three of them staring at me. Hersch was squinting at me icily, Jim looked half conscious, and Gabe had a chicken cutlet clinging to his face.

I scrambled with a lie, not even bothering to consider just how bad the truth was. “It’s my turn!” I said hastily. “Ah… uh… waking Gabe up. It’s-it’s my shift,” I babbled.

Hersch furrowed his brow. “Amery, it’s only been twenty minutes.”

S**t. Bad lie. I felt my face turning red. “Right… okay… then I guess, ah… nightmare!” I sounded like an idiot. I was talking at the speed of a runaway train. “I-I-I had a nightmare!” That much was true. I watched as the chicken slid down Gabe’s face, leaving a greasy streak over his eye. The erection did not go away. “Really bad dream. Nothing to worry about, ah… back to bed, then. Wake Gabe up at midnight? Right then, uh, good night.”

I flipped back over in bed before any of them could say anything. I couldn’t talk to anyone right now. When the light finally went off again, I started screaming at myself in my head. The voice in my mind was angrier than I had ever been in my entire life. I was angrier than I had ever been in my entire life.

I wouldn’t sleep a second that night, just waited for the ache between my legs to dull and gave myself over to the yelling in my head. Sometimes I heard my dad’s voice, screaming at me in German the same words I had heard the night of the air raid. Sometimes I heard Davis, just the one word: cocksucker. Sometimes it was just me, telling myself over and over again that it meant nothing, just a stupid dream, reminding me how much I liked f*****g girls.

But over it all, the same phrase played on a continuous loop, driving me crazy all night.

What the hell just happened?

Author's Note

I would love some feedback on what y'all think of the developments between Erich and Gabe!

Reviews

[Short.Nerd]

Wow I loved the whole book. I would have reviewed every chapter but was so into the book I didn't want to stop reading. Gabe is one of my favorite characters since the beginning. I liked how him and Erich slowly bonded together forming their own special friendship and I liked how Erich was the one to defend Gabe :D I loved every peice of this and I'm amazed at how well all the POV's turned out!

[Arianna]

FINALY! i mean seriously ive been waiting this whole time for something like this to happen
i love it, :) they are...odd. but it makes them perfect.
im amazed at how well you manege to pull off the guy perspective, let alone 4 different guys with 4 totaly different personalitys! great job:)
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.display. .ana.016.
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[trish420]

FINALLY! I've been waiting for soemthing like this! NEVER dreamed it would be in the room with all four of tehm though, amzing they didn;t give him any more s**t than they did, though, I suppose he is a pretty intimidating character lol CANNOT wait for more!!! (and never apologize that a chapter is too LONG of all things LOL) Overall, GREAT chapter, things are definitely starting to pick up, can't wait to "hear" Gabe's side of that story!