The bond, it was tugging at me, telling me to check on Lissa as a blinding anger lapsed over me from it. Instinct that I thought died from my few weeks of being in the hell hole kicked in and I was sucked into Lissa's head.
She was screaming at the guard that was at the door to jail where I currently was.
"What do you mean she doesn't want to see me! Of course she does, now let me in!" She bellowed as Spirit's affect started to boil over.
"Princess, please, calm down," The guardian tried to calm her down.
"What's going on here?" An accented voice asked from behind her. She turned, only to be met by Dimitri's deep brown eyes.
"This man is saying that Rose doesn't want to see me, that's impossible, right?" She cried as she whipped around and looked the guardian in the eye. "You will-"She started as the guardian's eye glazed over heavily.
"Let it go," I whispered as I pulled back into my head. The ten guards that surrounded my cell turned to look at me. I stood up from my spot on the floor and leaned against the wall and looked up before reaching into the bond and taking all of her darkness and bringing it into myself.
The bond rippled and twisted and all the anger, sadness and pain came into me, it was crippling.
A loud painful scream forced its way out of my throat in a vain attempt to get the pain out, it didn't work. I felt the maddening rage take over but it felt like I was a puppet and my master just cut all my strings and I was falling and falling and falling, never endingly into the darkness. It was like I was on the edge of a cliff and I finally jumped.
My head felt like it was about to split in half as suddenly ghosts started to appear around me, reaching toward me. I slid back down the wall, pulling my legs as far as I could into my chest, I put my head on my knees and I curled my fingers into my hair as I closed my eyes and began to rock.
Nothing made any sense, and I felt nothing but emptiness. I was pulled into Lissa's head one more time just in time for her to stumble back into Dimitri as her thoughts cleared and she felt much better.
"What happened?" She asked looking around.
"Spirit was taking over and suddenly you calmed down and now…," Dimitri said.
A voice was saying something in the back of her mind and when she listened it was my voice.
"Just let it go Liss, give it to me…," My voice whispered and just like that she gasped.
"ROSE!" She cried out much too every ones confusion. "Why, why, why would you do that, no, please, no!" She cried and tried to find a way to get in contact with me. I was pulled out of her head and back into the nothingness where I knew no one and nothing and I was comfortable within the dark and silence.
Time meant nothing to me any longer, it could have been a second or even a year and I wouldn't have noticed. Food no longer had any appeal, I was some where between my conscious and unconscious mind and I didn't want to leave. I was content.
Dimitri's POV
It's been almost a month since the scene in front of the "jail" door, almost a month since Rose took Lissa's darkness away and a month since the rumors started.
They said that when everything was going on that Rose had stood up and said "Let it go," before looking up and after a moment she let out a bone chilling scream that the guardians said would forever be engraved in their minds till the day they died. After that she just curled up in the cell and she hasn't moved since.
They're saying that she's finally gone crazy. It hurt to know that this was happening to her and that I couldn't help her. My Roza was probably in pain but yet still I couldn't bring myself to love again, my heart was hardened from being a Strigoi and now Rose was paying the price.
Some how I found myself walking to the imprisonment center, I greeted the guardians there and after some encouragement they finally let me in. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs where two more guardians were stationed.
"How has she been?" I asked softly, Guardian Tanner turned and looked at me before sharply turning away.
"She doesn't sleep, she only eats when we force her to, and I mean we literally had to pin her down and put food in her mouth and made her swallow, she has marks on her arms from where she's dug her nail into her skin and she's pulled on her hair to the point she might end up pulling it out. Every time some gets near her she starts growling and is she's touch she starts throwing fists, all of this and I don't think she even knows what's going on." He sighed and I flinched and continued to walk to where I assumed her cell was.
She was in the same cell that I had been in not even three months ago. She was curled up on the wall and she showed no sign of knowing I was here.
"Rose?" I asked softly, suddenly afraid she might freak out, but instead she did nothing. "Rose," I said, she stopped rocking.
"Belikov, you might as well give up, she's not going to respond, and all she says is 'make them leave'." Kyle, a man I've known for a while said.
"Can you give us some privacy," I choked out to the eight guards that surrounded the cell, she had more guardians around her then I did.
"I don't know-"
"Please…," My voice broke; they all looked at each other before nodding and going just out of hearing range. I could tell from the concerned looks on their faces that they all thought and knew that she was innocent.
The silence was thick as I walked to the bars of the cell and pressed myself to them. I could see the old Rose, the one I loved pressed up to these very same bars, yelling at me not to long ago. I remember her rejected look on her face when I told I didn't love her any more.
"Roza, please," I begged. "Please just look at me!"
"Just go away," Her voice was dry and cracked.
"Rose?" I asked, she didn't look up; she just held her head tighter. "Fight this, you have to fight!" I whispered trying to reach her.
"Make them leave," She breathed
"Rose, please, I love you, you have to fight this, and you have to come back to us, to me, please!" I cried out as she flinched.
"Love fades," She murmured softly, she lifted her head up and looked up at me, I almost cried right then, her eyes were empty and emotionless and purple bruises were under her eyes while her face was slightly sunken in. "Mine has," she finished.
She leaned her head back against the wall and continued to rock. She closed her eyes as crippling pains seem to over take her beautiful features.
"Roza-"
"Just leave Guardian Belikov," She snapped turned her eyes on me. There was a fierce look in her eye that soon dimmed then vanished, pain, sadness, contentment, and something else that I couldn't place filled her eyes.
She looked around and when her eyes went just over my shoulder a whimper escaped her lips as she shrunk back and continued to rock but I saw the scars on her arms but what scared me what how hard she was clutching her forearms. Finally her nails seeped into her arms and blood came out.
"Hey what are you doing? Stop that!" I yelled as she dragged her nails up, creating cuts. "HELP!" I shouted out. "Help, please, she's bleeding!"
The guardians appeared and unlock the cell and rush in. She starts yelling at them once they take a hold of her.
"Do you see what you've done? Are you happy? You caused this; you're the one who made me leave the chapel that day! I was in my room crying because of you! I did everything for you, I left my best friend at the academy, almost got killed, went through hell, got into more trouble, went to Vegas, almost got Lissa killed, and had to track you down because you kidnapped Lissa and Christian and killed countless guardians! All of that and I still loved you! All of that and you looked at Lissa like she was some sort of goddess! This is bull shit! I hate you, dammit, it would all be better if I was just dead," Her voice took a darker tinge as I stumbled back into the wall at the weight of her words.
I felt like my heart stopped beating as she fought against the guards, screaming curses and kicking the guards with a strength we all though she didn't still possess. Finally a guardian ran in with a needle and stuck it in her arm. After a few seconds her body went slack and into guardian Tanners arms.
He was murmuring to her quietly as one would a child as somebody came with gauzes and wrapped her arms.
Somehow I managed to get up and stumble out of there, her words spun around my head as I walked across court.
"Dimitri?" The voice of my soul's savior asked. I turned around and tried to bring up my guardian mask but I must have failed when she saw the look on my face.
"Yes princess," I asked softly as I felt some one punch a whole where my heart should be.
"What happened?" She asked. After I finally gave in I explained everything to her and she eventually broke down crying.
"Oh God…," She whispered.
Mikhail's Pov
I sat on the bed with Rose in my arms, I don't know why but I felt so protective over her, not in a romantic way, no, never after my Sonya, but in a brotherly way.
After we had gotten her sedated she had started crying saying that she was hurting and why couldn't we see it, she eventually went to sleep but she wouldn't let me leave so I've been staying with her against every ones protests.
It's been almost a week since Belikov came to see her and since then I've been by her side. Every day her eyes get glossy and then she goes into a fit of rage: screaming, yelling, punching the wall a couple of times, then she starts crying for a few hours, I mange to get her to eat and take a shower, then some times she just sits there and doesn't talk she just looks around like there's some one around us, then she slips into her dead looking stage and about an hour or two before she falls asleep she comes out of it and freaks out 'cause she can't remember any one but herself and me but she remembers the bare minimum.
She sleeps for about two hours and that's when I leave, shower, change and come back to sleep for about an hour and then we start all over.
I was actually kinda shocked that Christian Ozera came down about two days after Belikov, and he just sat about a foot away from the cell and talked with Rose while she had eaten lunch, even if she hadn't wanted to at first. He came everyday at different times so he's seen her in practically every state, even her forgetful one and surprisingly she remembers him.
We think she just doesn't remember people who have caused her a lot of pain in her life but you never know.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified about what was happening to her, I knew for a fact that she was going insane. I knew the darkness that had driven Sonya to turn Strigoi was driving the girl I called sister crazy.
I didn't want to lose her like this, even if I only just met her a couple of months ago. She was so vulnerable right now, and all the guardians at Court knew she didn't commit the murder some of them were even doing research of their own to prove her innocence.
Right now she just woke up and she's in her glossy eyed stage and I silently brace myself for the on coming rage, except it doesn't come.
"Make her leave…," She whispered so quietly I barely heard her.
"Make who leave sweetheart?" I asked as she curled closer into my chest as she takes hold of my shirt.
"She's here, she can't see me like this, please, please make her go, please…" Her voice is so soft and broken that the guardians at the door all look at us with sadness, regret, patience and sympathy, they've all had to watch this and I knew they were confused but they were becoming angry at the Court and sad for Rose.
"Who ever is coming down, stop them and send then back up." I said to Allen, he nodded and left from his post by the bars.
Distantly I heard him talk to some one and I heard a sob and then a shout.
"She wants to see me! She wants to see us! I know she does!" A female voice shrieked. Suddenly Rose went into her dead like state as she heard the princess's voice.
"Princess, no!" I heard Allen shout, I heard running footsteps until I saw Vasilissa appear on the other side of the bars with Christian behind her. She pressed herself to the bars as she immediately spotted Rose tucked securely into my chest as she stared blankly out from around my arms and her hair.
"What are you doing to her? Rose, please, look at me! I love you, please!" She cried from the bars. Just as suddenly as when she snapped into her faze she snapped out and that confused, scared look reproached her face. She looked at Vasilissa with interest, curiosity but most of all, anger.
"Who are you and how do you know my name?" Rose snapped. All of us guardians looked at each other, shocked, she never went straight to forgetting, much less forgetting and getting angry, oh this'll be just freakin' dandy.
"What do you mean who am I? It's me, Lissa, your best friend, practically your sister!" Lissa cried as Christian placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Sorry, I don't know you." Rose as she straightened herself in my lap so she was actually sitting straight before she finally stood up and gazed around, probably remembering why she was in here, when she looked at me out of the corner of her eye she smiled.
"How… how do you not know me?" Lissa stuttered as tears filled her eyes.
"I don't know you, simple as that." Rose said calmly, crossing her arms across her chest defiantly.
"She skipped the stages?" Christian asked looking at us. We nodded and he took a step to the bars and smirked. "Now, now, shouldn't you be throwing a temper tantrum right now Ms. Psycho?" He joked.
"Fire crotch, what a pleasure to see you," She said with a fake smile of her own. He sighed and planted himself on the floor like he always does, ignoring the fact that his girlfriend was standing there watching the two interact as Rose sat in front of him and I lean against the wall and let my body rest as I watched them.
"Isn't it weird?" Christian asked.
"Yea, I mean I can't remember a lot, just some basics, why I'm here, who they are, who you are and who I am, that's about it." She sighed, shrugging carelessly.
"Rose… you do realize that pretty soon you might…" he dragged off.
"Go insane, I know, trust me I know. But I just want it to end, I can't live like this." She shook her head sadly. "I'm like a caged animal and when I let it out," She looked at her scar cover arms. "It isn't pretty."
Christian put his hand through the bars and rested it on her arm.
"You'll pull through this Rose, you always do." He said softly. Rose jumped up as anger filled her features; I sat up, ready to pounce if needed.
Christian's POV
The anger spread over her face in less then a second as she shot up. I could see the well hidden recognition flash in her eyes as she looked around again.
"I can't pull through this! Don't you see that! All my life I wanted to be a guardian, all my life I wanted to be your guardian." She yelled looking at Lissa before turning back to look at me. "My life it over Christian, I have three choices, go insane and kill myself, get killed for a crime I didn't commit, or get let of here and I still go insane! Everything isn't like I planned. I feel in love, I killed, I lost my love, I'm losing my best friend! It's a lose-lose situation! No matter what I do I'm only gonna hurt you guys!" She yelled.
"Rose! No you won't, we'll get you out of here! I promise, please don't give up!" Lissa cried.
"It's too late." She said softly. "I'm going crazy and pretty soon I'm gonna lose myself all over again. I won't let you be here when that happens." She shook her head slowly her eyes shifting between Lissa and me before her eyes went blank.
"Rose, don't talk like that! Please, I can't lose you!" Lissa wailed, pressing herself to the bars. Rose's eyes focused and unfocused before they settled somewhere in between.
"Give up already! I am sick of your shit! All my life I've been dedicated to you, now what the fuck are you going to do? Heal me! Please it'll make it worse!" She roared throwing herself at the bars so she was almost in Lissa face. I went to move her out the way but something was holding me back. "I've been walking on the brink of insanity since Mason died and time and time again I've taken your darkness, so you can heal who ever the fuck you want! I pay the price, every time I pay the price. Now leave before I do something I regret." She spat as tears ran down Lissa's face.
I managed to move again and I pulled Lissa to my chest and led her out of there.
Rose's POV
Through the bond I felt Christian drag Lissa out of this depressing place. As soon as they were gone I let out a scream that tried to release all pain, sadness and overall emotions that were taking me under.
Mikhail came up behind me and I lashed out at him. I kicked and punched until they opened the cell and took him out of there.
I let out an animalistic growl and I dropped to the floor and smacked my head against the wall.
An unsettling nausea washed over me and I gasped and clutched my stomach.
"Strigoi," I gasped causing the guardians to look at me shock all over their face.
"What?" One of them asked.
"The Court is under attack!" I shouted, they all looked at each other and one of them took out a radio and started asking questions. When my statement was proved correct half the guardians ran upstairs to join the fray. I heard slamming down the corridor and there was shouting as about ten Strigoi made their way down the hall.
My nausea intensified as I couldn't help but press myself into the bars begging them to let me out so I could fight, but they refused. I watched them fight and I watched as they were either killed or knocked out, Mikhail had been knocked out, then they turned on me and smiled.
"Now if it isn't the great Rosemarie Hathaway," A blond female said. She took a step towards the bars so I took a step back.
"Leave me alone," I hissed. She smirked, her red eyes beating into me. One of the buff guys, Strigoi of course, stepped forward and bent the bars as if they were nothing. She stepped through and she stalked around me before her hand grazed my waist and hips then eventually my face and neck. I shuttered and she laughed.
"Now my dear, this'll only hurt a lot." She laughed as she lunged for my neck, faster then a blink of an eye. If felt her teeth tear into my throat and a gurgled scream forced its way out of me.
"ROZA!" Dimitri's yell echoed through me and I barely managed to open my eyes that I didn't even know I closed. Warm liquid flowed down my throat and I realized too late that it was blood, Strigoi blood. I tried to struggle but I was too weak as I slumped helplessly against the Strigoi's body.
I slumped heavily into her as an unusual feeling coursed through my body.
"Dim…itri…," I whispered as I was surrounded in dark.
"Is she awake yet, this is taking way too long!" An impatient voice said.
"Oh shut up, I think she's coming to." Another voice said. I opened my eyes and gasped. It felt like I was blind until now, I could see every detail; I could smell everything and hear anything. It was amazing.
"Ah, she's finally awake, good." The blonde that turned me said.
"Yea so," I snapped.
"Feisty, I like it, don't you Celeste?" The guy asked.
"I sure do Charlie," She laughed. I growled and lowered myself into a crouch.
"Fuck off," I growled. They both turned on me and raised an eye brow. They growled in unison and I growled in return.
"Bring it." They said together and we charged into each other. I was out numbered by one but I fought regardless, all of my skills came to surface and within four minutes they laid headless at my feet. I smirked and laughed before looking around to figure out where I was.
Figuring out I was in a house and that it was night, I made my way into a closet and changed into a mid thigh length black silk dress before heading out and I went in search of food.
I made it into town in record timing; I let my nose lead me to a bar. Walking inside I was immediately assaulted by the over whelming smell of alcohol and blood, fresh, delicious, human blood.
Taking a seat next to an obviously drunk man, I slowly sat down, looking seductive but at ease despite the aching burn in my throat.
"Hey gorgeous, can I get you a drink?" The guy slurred disgustingly, placing a hand on my knee. Looking him in the eye I felt compulsion take it's course and his eyes went blank. I took his hand and gently pulled him towards the exit into an alley.
"Sure you can," I purred bringing his neck to my mouth and I bit in. He moaned as I drained him dry. I left his body there and wiped my mouth as I stalked out of the alley. I should feel guilty but I could honestly care less.
From here, I would get some human followers, leave the U.S., go to Rome or Italy, build up my ranks, then kill the Dragomir Princess.
I still had the bond so that made it not as fun but also it made it slightly easier and not much a challenge but hey I would enjoy it all the same. Great.