Second chapter! Thanks for those 4 reviews, the 4 follows and the 170+ hits this fanfic got overnight! I'm astonished and overwhelmed, thank you so much!

This chapter is on Adrian's POV, and I will try to alternate the POV's between Sydney and Adrian, mainly. I'm not sure how to write Adrian's POV, given that he is a very difficult character to understand, and I don't know if I'm doing it correctly, maybe I'm missing more snarky and sassy comments, ADD moments, spirit induced craziness, etc. I hope I can grow to adapt him better in future chapters, bear with me. :)

I might make .5 chapters in other character's POVs too.

DISCLAIMER: VAMPIRE ACADEMY, BLOODLINES AND YADA-YADA ALL BELONG TO THE LOVELY RICHELLE MEAD. :)


ADRIAN'S POV

We were all called into the room where Eddie was being interrogated by Hans and where a couple of other guardians stood ready to jump into action at any moment. There was a large table, where Lissa sat, and Christian and I stood at her side. All of us were uncomfortable by the situation. Hans was at the other side of the table, with an accusatory look on his face, regarding us as if we were guilty. What was wrong with this guy?

Eddie was sitting at the other side, with two guardians next to him; did they think Eddie was stupid enough to attempt anything? They could at least remove their predatory faces and not regard him as if he was a cold-blooded assassin. He did what he had to do to protect Lissa; after all she was the last of the Dragomir's.

Hans pointed at a picture on the table, and I saw Lissa react to it, he must have been the guy that had attacked her. Pale skin, closed eyes, Moroi complexity.

"You killed a Moroi!" exclaimed Hans. "How is that not a problem? You're trained to protect them!"

"I did," Eddie said. He was so calm and maintained his posture; it painfully reminded me of a certain Russian Dhampir. "I protected her. What difference does it make if the threat's a Moroi or a Strigoi?"

"We have no proof of any of the details of this attack," growled Hans.

I was glancing around the room, and I saw Christian's aura turning darker as he snapped at Hans angrily. "You have three witnesses! Are you saying that our reports are worthless?"

"I'm saying that you're his friends, which makes your reports questionable. I would have liked to have had a guardian around to verify this."

If spirit wasn't bad enough to drive Lissa crazy, this was about to do it. Her aura matched Christian's, dark with anger. "You did! Eddie was there."

"And there was no way you could have protected her without killing him?" asked Hans.

Of course, if Eddie didn't kill him, the Moroi would have killed Eddie or Lissa, and Hans would be in the same place demanding Eddie's answer as to why he didn't protect Lissa and avoid getting her killed. Hans would have said that Eddie shouldn't have taken a risk and that he should have done anything in his power to protect her. Either way, Eddie couldn't win.

Cheers for the great system of judgement that we have in Court.

Eddie didn't answer; he studiously answered Hans as he shook his head. "If I hadn't killed him, he would have killed me."

I was tired, stressed and infinitely sad. I wanted this to end, go to my room and drink a couple of bottles and smoke some cigarettes. I didn't care anymore. I blanked out as the bickering went on and on, until Lissa caught my attention when she mentioned Joe, the Janitor that my mother had bribed. "They'll have a hard time making him talk."

Hans narrowed his eyes and added, "Oh, if he knows something, we'll make him talk." He paused and gestured to the door- one of the Guardians next to Eddie moved towards it. "Find this guy. And send in our 'guests'." Hans told him.

The guardian left.

I was about to ask what guests, but Lissa was faster. "What guests?" she asked.

"Well, it's funny you mention Hathaway. Because we just had a sighting of her." said Hans with a mockery tone.

Lissa, Christian and I stiffened, because we all caught our breaths. They had found Rose- how had they found her? Abe had said to Christian and Lissa that she was safe in West Virginia, and no one else knew she would be there. I knew she wasn't, but I expected her to be safe wherever she was.

"She and Belikov were spotted outside of Detroit, where they kidnapped a girl."

'Little Dhampir,' I thought, 'What are you getting yourself into? Can't you just stay in one place quietly? Of course not, it's you we're talking about, you can't stay still for more than 2 seconds, but why would you kidnap a girl?'

I was growing more confused by the second.

"They'd never—" Lissa stopped just in time. "Did you say Detroit?" I thought she would look at Christian and me, but she didn't, which I was thankful for.

Hans nodded; he probably thought that he was just saying what he had found out- expecting us not to know, which we didn't. But he was also wary, searching for any reaction that might give us away. "They had a few other people with them. Some of them got away, but we caught one."

"Who did they kidnap?" asked Christian. Of course, we couldn't fake how astonished we were by the fact that this wasn't in any part of the plan we had made to keep Rose safe.

"Mastrano," said Hans, "Something Mastrano."

"Jill Mastrano?" exclaimed Lissa.

"Jailbait?" I asked, honestly shocked. What did Rose want with Jailbait that she actually had to kidnap her?

Hans looked at me with a quizzical look on his face. Yeah, I shouldn't have called her Jailbait.

He got distracted when three guardians entered, accompanied by a dark-skinned woman in her mid-forties, and a guy about my age, with brown eyes and brown hair. I did a quick survey over them. I was surprised, however, when a very pretty blonde girl, a bit younger than me, came in with them, dressed in business-like attires. I couldn't take my eyes off the pretty blonde; she had a very interesting aura, yellow, mostly, but sparks of purple in it too. She was intently looking at me, her eyes a very light brown. A very good sight indeed. She looked away from me nervously, and stared at the floor. Yes, she was interesting.

The three of them had a gold, flower tattoo on their cheeks. What did it mean? I studied the pretty blonde again, trying to see the tattoo, or maybe I was just trying to study her. The point was that humans never came to Court, so that meant that they probably weren't normal humans.

"Who are these guys?" Lissa asked; she was thinking the same thing I was.

"Alchemists," said Hans. "You know what that means?"

We nodded as we recalled who the Alchemists were. All Moroi, after we finish our education, are taught who these Alchemists are. They are some sort of human organization that works alongside Moroi to keep our existence hidden from humans, or something in between those terms. I regretted not paying more attention in class, as I glanced at the girl again.

"What do they have to do with Eddie and that guy who attacked me?" Lissa asked.

"Maybe something. Maybe nothing." Hans shrugged. "But I do know that there's something strange going on, something you're all involved in, and I need to figure out what. She,"—Hans pointed at pretty blonde—"was with Hathaway in Detroit, and I still have trouble believing none of you know anything about it."

I crossed my arms and leaned back on the wall. Could this guy be any more of a douche? Accusing us of the most insignificant stuff?

"Keep believing that, but I don't know any of these people. Don't Alchemists hate us? Why are they here?" I said. The pretty blonde probably was with Rose; after all, she wasn't in West Virginia like everyone thought.

"Because we have an escaped murderess to deal with and we needed to question her accomplice in person," was Hans's crisp response.

The older Alchemist jumped in and added, "You have no proof that Miss Sage was an 'accomplice' to your criminal. And I still think it's ridiculous that you wouldn't let us do our own questioning and leave it at that."

Sage, so that was pretty blonde's last name. Her aura seemed to go darker as the Alchemist said she was not an accomplice of Rose.

The bickering between the Alchemist and Hans was driving me crazy, pun most definitely intended- it was almost as bad as spirit crazy. I closed my eyes trying to control the headache growing in me, only my attention was caught when Hans asked pretty blonde—my bad—Sage, if she knew any of us, to which her response was "No."

The interrogation by Hans kept on going, and I kept myself quiet as Sage answered the questions. A bit too convincing, but I knew it was partially lies; her aura gave her away. Suddenly, the Alchemist guy moved in front of Sage—Jean... no, Sean— whatever his name was, and made a comment on how she's innocent. His aura went pink, meaning that he had a crush on pretty blonde. Well, she wasn't a bad sight at all; she was just too uptight. A bit of booze on her and I wondered what kind of things it might make her do.

This dude stood quiet throughout the whole interrogation; however, he called my attention when he reacted slightly when he looked at the picture of the dead Moroi on the table. However, Lissa caught it too, and she stood up as the older Alchemist and Hans stood there bickering, toward Brian and Sage. I heard what Lissa asked them, but my headache was taking its toll on me, I closed my eyes again, and when I opened them, the interrogation was over.

We all moved toward the door, except Eddie, apparently Hans was still going to torture him or something. The bickering continued, but I could only think 'Well, finally fresh air! I can light a cigarette now.'

As we headed to the exit, someone was entering. It was Abe, and he gave a cold smile to Sage. It was only me who saw how her eyes went wide, but she quickly changed her demeanour to the typical uptight one she had throughout the interrogation. The Alchemists parted ways with us, being guarded by a couple of Dhampirs.

When we were a considerable amount of distance away from the Alchemists, Abe's expression changed to one of exasperation, a bit intimidating in my opinion.

"That was Sydney Sage!" said Lissa, "I thought they were all in West Virginia. Why isn't she with Rose?"

"That," added Abe darkly, "Is an excellent question." Abe's expression darkened by the second, it was scary to be honest. What did Sage have to do with him and how did she get involved? I just hope that she didn't have to suffer Abe's wrath. He could probably pull the entire Turkish mafia on her.

"That girl was lying to me," Abe growled, "Every day, all these reports about how quiet and boring it was in West Virginia. I wonder if they even made it to that town. I have to talk to her."

"Good luck," I said to Abe as I finally pulled out a cigarette and lit it up. Rose isn't around, so I guess the promise doesn't apply, right? "I don't think her cronies or the guardians are going to let you near her."

Lissa mentioned how Ian knew about the Moroi, and to everyone's surprise, I added, "Yes, Ian definitely had a reaction. He's also got a crush on that Sydney girl." Why did I sound so sour when I said he had a crush on her? Maybe because it was ridiculous how uptight they were, and that they could in fact push aside their responsibilities and feel emotions and shit. Yeah, it was probably that.

"I saw that too." added Lissa.

"She seems kind of uptight," I said, and I found myself frowning as I said it. "But maybe their kind goes for that kind of thing."

"That crush might actually be useful," Abe mused. "You women don't know the power you wield. Have you seen that guardian your aunt's dating? Ethan Moore?"

"Yes," groaned Christian. "Don't remind me."

"Tasha is pretty hot, though," I noted, mocking Christian, to which he responded, "That is not cool."

They went on and on about Tasha, as I silently smoked my cigarette. Once Abe left, Christian, Lissa and I headed to the testing building.

"Boy is he pissed," I said, stating the obvious.

"Do you blame him? He just lost membership in the evil mastermind club. His brilliant plan fell apart, and now his daughter's missing when he thought she was somewhere safe," stated Christian.

I stayed quiet, watching how Lissa was being cheered on by the Moroi at the entrance of the building. She was then rushed to a room, where the last test was being held, leaving Christian and I standing there.

So much has happened in the last minutes, I just hope this plan turns out well. 'Little Dhampir, be safe.' I thought.


BTW guys, I'm an esl person, meaning "english as second language", my native language is actually spanish, but I've been speaking english most of my life too. :P

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