At the beginning I had tried to find balance, any sort of balance to keep myself from this abominable hell hole. When I felt the anger begin to rush through me; that desire for pain, suffering and death coursing through my veins...I shut myself off from the world. I was like stone, nothing could touch me; no emotions could penetrate through my heart. It was difficult, because memories of Dimitri would flash in my mind and I'd be suddenly sucked into Lissa's mind when I unconsciously thought of her. She was sad. She missed me. Heck she knew Dimitri missed me. Seeing him through her eyes was agony to me, it made me want to scream and rip my heart out. He didn't deserve to miss me and suffer the way he was; I didn't deserve his love. I'd nearly killed him...

The days passed, uneventful, agonizing, boring. There was a new girl, a human. The asylum didn't discriminate -as far as they could tell, human or not, crazy was crazy- she wasn't short but neither was she tall. She had an athletic, curvy body swathed in black clothing, black jeans, v-neck, cardigan, and combat boots...all in black. Even her hair was black, it was long, thick and wavy reaching to her waist and streaked with a purple dye. All the black blended well with her lightly tanned flawless skin, and clear greenish gold eyes. She sat at the end of my empty table in the asylum's cafeteria, and picked at the food. Occasionally she would glance around, watching everyone.

"I'm Liana," she finally said though more to her plate than to me. When I didn't respond she sighed, got up, and walked away. Talk about weird, tough I shouldn't be one to talk since I was in here for a totally different and inexplicable reason than she was. Later that night I overheard two of the nurses talking about her.

"She needs to be watched closely." a skinny woman with too much makeup had said. The other nodded in agreement.

"Poor thing thing. Broke out of the last institution she was in. Nearly died doing it too." Their voices fading as they continued down the hall. I ran to my room, shoved my essentials into my bag, grabbed a sweater and searched for her. She wasn't as hard to find as I thought she'd be, her room was just around the corner at the end of the hall. The door was slightly open, and me being me I let myself in. She was lying on the bed, wearing pijama pants, tank-top and an iPod in hand (all of them black.) Thanks to my half vampire genes I could easily hear the music blaring out of the earphones -loud, screaming, vicious sounding music.- (The kind that usually has sane parents thinking their children are being influenced by some kind of satanic demon.) It took her a few seconds to notice my presence and when she did she sat up slowly and yanked the earphones off while simultaneously turning the iPod off.

"Can I help you?" she asked as I leaned against the wall.

"My name's Rose. I heard you're an expert on getting out of places like this." Liana smirked.

"Why do you need my help? You seem like you have what it takes to do it by yourself." I tried not to smile.

"I can...but I don't want to end up killing anyone." she raised an eyebrow at me.

"Is that why you're in here? Some kind of psychopath killer?"

"Something like that." I shrugged. I was I could trust her to get out of her without a bloodshed but I didn't trust her enough to tell her the truth of why I wanted to get out. She got up and got dressed as she spoke to me.

"Well who am I to judge? I'm here for my own reasons too. Besides, I was gonna break out anyways; might as well do it sooner than later." She grabbed the already packed bag and nodded. "Lets go."

Breaking out Liana-style surprisingly easy compared to the Rose-way which would have been to cause a scene and fight till the end whether I escaped or not. She simply reached into her bag, took out a golf-sized ball and threw it in the bathroom. Seconds later, water was flooding out into the hallway.

"Silent bomb." she said when she noticed my puzzled expression. The nurses arrived after I had told them about the bathroom exploding to distract them as Liana grabbed the pass keys for the exits and then we pretended to head back to our rooms. Once we were out of sight we bolted towards the exit. The pass keys shut down the alarms within seconds; soon we were rounding a street corner blocks away laughing. No one, and I mean no one had noticed we had left or even chased after us.

"So where to?" she asked me after we catched out breaths. I shrugged, now realizing I hadn't really given thought to what I would do once I was free. I dug into my jeans pocket and noticed I only had thirty bucks. Talk about unprepared! Fortunately I also had my cell phone (Liana had grabbed it along with the keys after I told her I needed it.) I wanted to call Dimitri and Lissa and tell them I was okay and to come get me...but would they really fly all the way here to LA and get me? I suppressed a laugh as the answer quickly came to my mind, of course they would but I couldn't risk them if I lost control and seriously injure them...again.

"Rose? Hellooo?" Liana said, snapping her fingers at me and returning me back to the present.

"Huh?" she waved a credit card at me with a smirk on her lips.

"Wanna stay at a hotel?"

The nearest hotel I knew was blocks away but I nodded all the same. For some reason, as we kept walking I couldn't help but keep glancing behind me every now and then. It was nearly sunset and that meant if there were any Strigoi near by we'd be in alot of trouble. We passed a park and a couple of guys -cholos- by the looks of it whistled annoyingly at us. Liana immediately began to walk faster as I rolled my eyes. A few minutes later a car pulled up and the same guys from the park began making crude comments towards us. I felt the anger burning inside me as they continued their comments with the car matching our speed and before I could control myself I slammed my fist onto the hood of the car.

"Say one more word and I swear I'll make it your last." I growled. The all laughed at me and the driver said.

"I like them fiery." That did it. I walked up to the window shield and punched it, making it shatter. They were scared now but not enough for them to back down. The ones sitting in the backseat got out, pulling out the guns. With one swift kick I knocked them to the ground; Liana quickly picked up the guns and stashed them in her bag before pulling the guy in the passenger seat out and threw him on the ground. He tried to grab her but Liana moved out of reach before kicking him in the stomach. The driver didn't move, he didn't even try to fight; he was so afraid he was actually trembling. Liana laughed.

"This is too easy." The cholos guys who had been on the ground immediately got up as another guy came out from behind a tree. I gasped. He was a dhampir...and very cute. He was muscled, with messy dark brown hair and brown eyes. Right now he was looking at me, and my shock was mirrored on his face.

"Who the hell are you?" I managed to choke out. He looked from me to Liana.

"You passed this test with...help from...?" she laughed.

"Her name is Rose. She was at the asylum too." I didn't like being kept in the dark so it was normal for me to interrupt them.

"Hey what the heck is going on?" Liana turned to me.

"I'm a human, but I'm training to become a guardian. This is Erik...he's a dhampir, like you."