I looked lovingly at him, he smiled at me and I leaned towards him. Christian, Christian, Christian, that's all I could think about. Rose was locked up and I was stressed and all I knew was that I had to take my mind of everything and this was definitely a way I could do that. I leaned in to kiss him and-

ugh! Not again… I quickly sat up in my bed and in doing so hit my head on the low ceiling of my stupid cell. Lissa and Christian's late night rendezvous were really not helping with the lack of sleep I was getting on this stupid bed. Rubbing my head I gave up on my attempt at sleep and sat up. There was not much to do in there so I pulled my legs towards me and wrapped my arms around them.

Times like this were the loneliest, the damphirs shifted to guard me at this time were always not in the mood to talk and I couldn't look into Lissa's head because she was always either getting hot and heavy with Christian or sleeping. So I just sat there thinking.

I must have dosed off because the next thing I knew, I was being woken by the smell of my breakfast. It was not exactly world class and there were a few things in there that I couldn't identify, but I was so hungry that I don't think that I would have refused it if they had given me a rubber tyre to eat!

"sleeping beauty awakes"
I turned to see my father slash lawyer giving me a wide toothy grin from the other side of the bars on my cell. "Hello Zmey" I called back between hungry mouthful's of my meal. "What brings you here today?"

"I come because of, umm.. buisness" he replied loftily "I uh.. have something for you" he motioned for me to come to him and I did. When I got close to him he slipped something in my pocket for me to no doubt read later and I mouthed a thankyou to him. He winked and turned to go.

As I watched my father walk away I noticed that he had looked really tired. My imprisonment was definitely having an effect on everyone else too.

I let out a sigh as I thought that last part. I had changed my original list that let no one in and crossed of Lissa. She was my best friend and as much as I was ashamed of what I looked like, I had swallowed my pride and let her come down. Every day though she would plead everyone else's case, always the same people, Adrian, my Mum, Mia, Eddie… Dimitri.

Oh Dimitri, now it was my turn to swoon. He broke my heart and maybe on the surface I didn't want to see him, but I knew that deep down I would never stop loving him. But I also knew that Dimitri didn't love me anymore love fades, Mine has. Just thinking those words caused me to let out an involuntary strangled kind of sob. The guards turned in my direction but, satisfied I was okay, they turned back to whatever they were doing.

No longer hungry, I pushed the tray of food away from me and curled back up into a ball on the bed. Then I remembered Abe's note. Ever so carefully, so that the guards would not see, I got it out of my pocket and started to read

Rose,

the trial is fast approaching and that means that our time is running out.
I have looked into every source I can possibly think of to help you in your search for the Dragomir girl or boy, unfortunately nothing has turned up so far. Although this is important, it is not the top priority now. My top priority is to get you out of there before they kill you for a crime you definitely did not commit!

The fact that my father, who I had only know for a few months, already believed in me so strongly, made me smile in spite of myself.

Nevertheless, I am working out a plan, I would appreciate it if you could put some thought in to it too. Please try and think of anyway we can get out of this, I have nearly run out of ideas! Destroy this letter after you read it, for your own safety as well as mine.

'Zmey'

That last part made me smile, I also realised though that it would give my father added protection because not everyone knew who Zmey was.

I couldn't exactly set the note on fire and if I ripped the note up into little pieces, what was I going to do with them. Then I had a brainwave.

"umm, Michael.." I think that was one of the guards names "I need to, uh.. go to the bathroom"
"Okay, Lena, you go with her"

Typical, they didn't trust me enough to go to the bathroom on my own. I had to leave my cell to go though so I suppose it was reasonable, and seeing as I was actually up to no good, I probably shouldn't have been complaining.

We got to the bathroom and I assured her I would be quick, she in turn assured me that she would come in if I took too long and if she thought it was necessary. I simply nodded and went in. I locked the door and went to the toilet, I quickly fished the note out of the pocket of my filthy jeans ( I am so not going to get into how filthy I was at the moment)and proceeded to tear it in half and then into quarters and then eighths. I then dumped it all in the toilet along with some toilet paper to help flush it down and then just as I was about to press flush, I remembered what Abe's note had asked me to do.

I quickly assessed the room, finally thankful for all the lessons on this at Saint Vladimir's, to see if there way I could get out. There was a window, though it was about two and a half metres of the ground and to top it off had bars on it, not possible. I looked around the rest of the room and quickly concluded that it was useless.

Helplessly I leaned against the wall and sank down to the floor, i put my head in my hands and let out a low strangled sob, it wasn't loud enough for Lena to hear though so I was not in danger of drawing attention to myself.

I looked up at the window and saw the faint remainders of sunset, it was earlier in the vampiric day than I thought, I missed that so much – just being able to see the sky in general was good. I sighed as I thought, only a few layers of brick were separating me from freedom…

Wait a second, freedom. I quickly got up and flushed the toilet, saying goodbye to the note forever and as I was watching the note spin around and around in the toilet, I started to formulate a plan. I quickly checked out the room once more and paid special attention to behind the toilet, then I unlocked the door and stepped back into the dark hallway.

"lucky, I was about to come in" said Lena.

"sorry I uh had buisnes to take care of" I quickly replied. I decided to keep up my act of being miserable and in reality, I was. But if, at that moment, you were to look into my eyes, you would not see the despair in my eyes that was evident in the rest of my body. There was a slight sparkle to them which I saw as we passed a deeply tinted window in one of the main and most heavily guarded parts of the building, maybe it was a trick of the light, or maybe, just maybe, there was some hope.