"Ahh..." I moaned. In my mind's eye, the events from the accident replayed in my mind. The car, wrapping it's self around whatever we hit. The metal twisting, bending in an unnatural way. Their bodies, still and unmoving. Rose. Me, crawling over to her, begging her to wake up. My mother and father's face's, blank, uncaring. My beloved brother, a piece of metal stuck, in the middle of his head. "Andre, oh God." I moaned again, kicking my legs as if it would help bring him back somehow.

"Liss," Rose's voice said from far away. "You aren't there anymore. Wake up."

After a few moments I managed to force my eyelids open, and I tried to slow my breathing, leaning into Rose for support. She put her arm around me, calming me further. "It's okay. Everything's okay." She told me, and I believed her, as impossible as it seemed. "I had that dream." I told her.

"Yeah. I know." She said, reminding me of the bond. I felt guilty about it, every time it happened to me, it happened to her. And every time she ignored the hurt it caused her, to deal with me. I have the best friend in the entire world. I felt better, thinking about the first time we'd met. We were thrown together in writing class, and were forced to spell Vasilissa Dragomir and Rosemarie Hathaway, even though we were so young. Rose acted upon it calling her a bad name that I hadn't known the meaning of, and thrown her book at her. Back in the present she reached forwards and turned on the light between our beds. I didn't need the light, I could see well without it, but it made me feel safer somehow. Oscar, our neighbour Lacey's cat, jumped up onto the window sill and onto the bed, avoiding Rose as if she were a bad smell. He came and let me scratch under his chin, just where he liked it. I almost smiled.

"When did we last do a feeding?" Rose asked, making me look up from the cat's beautiful eyes. I felt her studying me, and I thought about it. Three days?

"It's been, like, more than two days, hasn't it? Three? Why didn't you say anything?" She asked, as if she couldn't tell. I answered anyway.

"You were busy," I said, defending myself. "I didn't want to-" she cut me off.

"Screw that." She said, shifting in a better position for me. Oscar, not liking how close Rose was (Animals don't like dhampir's, for some weird reason, yet they don't mind Moroi.) got down and went to the sill. "Come on, let's do this." She said.

"Rose-"

"Come on. It'll make you feel better." She said, tilting her head back so that her neck was exposed to me. I hesitated. I'd have to feed soon any way... and... The decision made, I parted my lips, revealing my sharp fangs that I worked to keep hidden when I was around humans, which was most of the time. I leant forward, and bit her neck, wincing at the cry of pain. The feeding took less than a minute, I made sure of it; I didn't want to come anywhere close to enough to drain her, and pulled back, wiping my hand across my mouth. "You okay?" I asked her, worried about her health. I knew feeders did it every day, and that she wouldn't get ill from it, but I had to worry. It was my thing. "I yeah..." she said, laying back on the bed, a high expression on her face. " I just need to sleep it off, I'm fine." She said. I watched her, concerned. I rose,

"I'm getting you something to eat." I told her, leaving before she could tell me not to. I headed down the stairs and into the kitchen, where I found our house mate, Jeremy. Then I remembered that I was in my pyjamas, which consisted of shorts and a t-shirt. Great. It was times like this that I missed St Vladimir's. Where it didn't really matter, and I wouldn't have to feed of my best friends blood, which could make her addicted, and if anyone found out extremely embarrassed. I nodded to him, exchanging a few quiet words. I was looking through the fridge when he asked me for a hand. "What's the quadratic formula?" he asked in a hushed sound. I answered him in the same tone, smiling at him before turning to look through the chips cabinet. Sugar was good for blood loss. I needed something sugary. I continued my rummaging. A few seconds later, I heard footsteps, and I looked up surprised to find Rose there. "You shouldn't be up." I scolded.

"We have to go. Now" The tone of her voice scared me. I gulped. What could she be talking abo- oh.

"Are you... really? Are you sure?" She nodded, I mentally sighed. I hated this! I hated having to run from the people I loved and had grown up with, I hated that I couldn't feel safe with them. But I also had to accept it.

"What's wrong?" Jeremy said, looking up.

"Liss get his car keys." Rose ordered me.

"What are you-" I walked over to him, reminding myself that this had to be done. Everything I seemed to do had to be done. But it was true, and I trusted that Rose would take care of me. I smiled and gazed into his eyes. Compulsion was scarily easy for me. His eyes glazed over, and he looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing walking the earth, which made me confident that it had worked, because Rose was in the room, and he should be staring at her like that. I'm too skinny. "We need to borrow your car, where are your keys?" I asked, compelling him to reach into his pocket, and pull them out. "Thank you." I said, remaining polite. I was about to release him, before I realized we had no idea where it was. I asked, "Down the street." He muttered, "At the corner. By Brown."

"Thank you." I said, backing away from him, away from the shame of doing this to him. Following the usual procedure, I told- no made him forget about this. He nodded. "Come on, we've got to move." Rose said, and I followed her outside, cringing at the cold on my bare feet. I looked down, realising she had shoes. My fear made me not laugh, and I gulped, having to ask. "Rose...what are we going to do if they catch us?" I whispered, feeling like we were being watched. We probably were. Did they have the hounds again? I hoped not.

"They won't. I won't let them." She said fiercely, as she always did.

"But if they've found us-"

"They found us before." She reminded me. She told me the plan, it was simple, and I felt slightly better. We've escaped before, we'd do it again. Okay. Simple. I felt better, until I heard something, something really quite. "Did you hear that?" I asked her, my panic obvious in my voice. She grabbed my arm.

"We've got to run for it." She said, and my muscles braced themselves without me consciously ordering them to. "But you can't-"

"Run." Was all she said, and it was enough to scare me into running. She barely ever used that voice, the one that meant she was scared and this was what we had to do. It scared me more than I let on. We ran, and I did my best but I knew we were going slowly. But it wasn't because I was slowing her down, she was just really weak. She was using my arm more than was comfortable for me, but I didn't mind. The footfalls behind us continued. Ten feet from the car, a man stepped into our path. He was tall, really tall. Like, 6'6 or 6'7. Rose came to a halt, jerking me back with and behind her. HE was older, around 25, long dark hair in a ponytail. He was wearing this really long coat. Rose pushed up against me, so that I was away from the tall guy and behind her. "Leave her alone. Don't touch her." she growled. Her voice was scary, another tone I didn't want to hear again. He held up his hands like you would do to a rabid dog in a peace gesture. "I'm not going to-" He started. His voice was laced with a Russian accent. He took a step forward, and so did Rose, throwing herself forwards in a move that looked aggressive. In a second the Russian pushed her away as if swatting a fly, and she was falling to the ground. I reached forwards- maybe I could catch her?- but it was okay. The guy caught her as fast as he had hit her, and they both froze. After a minute, Rose moved her head so her hair swished around her face. She pulled away from him, and returned to me, legs wide and balanced. But I caught her hand. "Rose don't. " I whispered, sending my thoughts to her. They were unnaturally calm, and I hoped she'd listen. I felt confident that fighting was stupid, and that this guy could and would just knock her out or worse; kill her. I tried to send that to her, telling her this was our only option. I wasn't compelling her though, I'd never do that. After a minute, she sagged forward in obvious defeat. The Russian turned to me. He bowed at me, reminding me of all the formalities of the royals. "My name is Dimitri Belikov." Definitely Russian, "I've come to take you back to St. Vladimir's Academy, princess."