Rose POV

Johnathon dropped the knife and ran to me. I grabbed him as soon as he was close enough to touch, and pulled him to me.

I almost lost him.

"Rose, we need to get you both back to the academy." Dimitri spoke up. Johnathon started to pull me up from where I fell, and I let him. He's always trying to protect me.

"Sissy, don't fight them. We really need to go back to the academy." Johnathon whispered, gripping to my waist. I bent over to inspect him. He had a broken hand, two black eyes, and a busted lip.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered. "It's my fault. I didn't protect you." I cried "I won't let anyone hurt you again." I promised

"Rose, I-"

"Don't, Dimitri." I cut him off.

Johnathon, Dimitri, and I were in a standard academy SUV by ourselves. I was in the passenger side holding my sleeping 8 year old brother in my arms with Dimitri next to me driving.

"Rose, please." He begged. Seeing that I didn't reply, he spoke again.

"Lissa is still caring for the baby." My baby. Chelsea, my baby sister, is only three months old. I started to raise her as mine before I left. Lissa knew I needed to leave. Take Johnathon away for a little while. But she wouldn't let me take my baby.

"Chelsea." I whispered.

"She looks so much like you Roza. She's beautiful. She's always screaming at the top of her lungs." He smiled, and let out a little laugh. "Lissa likes to think that she's always screaming for you to come and pick her up, and laugh with her, and smile when she does something adorable. But you never do. Why did you leave her Rose? I know you love her to much to leave her without a reason." He looked over at me crying. "Rose, why did you leave?"

"I-I had to get away." I stammered. I looked over at him and I could see the pain in his eyes. "I'm sorry."

He was going to say something else, but Johnathon started waking up.

"Where are we?" He asked.

"We're going to stay at the hotel you were last at. The others already went back to the academy." Dimitri told him.

"When do we go back to the academy?" Johnathon asked.

"A few days." Dimitri smiled.

"Since you're awake climb into the back you're killing my legs." I joked. So he did.

Twenty minutes later we were back at the hotel room. Since we're not at the academy we stayed awake during the day. So it's night for the moroi and dhampirs at the academy.

"Can we go to the pool?" Johnathon asked.

"I don't know. It's really hot outside." I said. But in all acutality I just didn't want Dimitri to see me in my bikini.

"Please?" He begged. God I hate when he does that. Now I know how Dimitri feels when I beg.

"Fine. Let me change." I grabbed my bikini and went into the bathroom.

Before I left the bathroom, I looked into the full length mirror to make sure I looked ok. I was wearing my royal blue strapless bikini top and matching bottoms that tied on the sides. Since Dimitri was gone to see if we could keep the room a little longer, I left a note. I wasn't worried about the bite marks Chris left when he drank from me because the guardians had brought Adrian Ivashkov, a spirit user like Lissa, to heal any injury that may have occurred.

"Sissy, hurry up." Johnathon chastised.

"Ok, ok." I smiled.

Then we were off to the pool.