I was being smothered.

That was the only thing that registered- or, frankly, that I cared about- as I was startled out of my sleep, my body shocked in alertness. I couldn't breath. Something was covering my mouth and pressing down on my chest, a dark figure looming over my bedside. A thousand thoughts rushed through my mind as my instincts kicked in, ordering my limbs to thrash against the black form while I gripped at the hand.

I couldn't, though. I was pinned, the hand over my mouth silencing my shouts as my chest heaved. A cold sweat glossed my skin. My fingernails dug into the strained ligaments of the hand's back, but he didn't flinch. He never did. "Shh, shh," a voice coaxed. While it was meant to be endearing and soft, the words sparked goosebumps instead. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, my heart beating in overtime. "Just relax."

Moonlight spilled over my sheets, making them an eerie, ghostly white while the blade of the scalpel glimmered like death's scythe. He curled the surgical instrument in his free hand, back and forth. I shrank back in fear, my eyes flickering from it to the shadow. Darkness struck his features at glaring angles, his jade eyes cutting through the black miasma, locking with my gaze. Nausea swelled in me. The right side of his face was deformed. Burned. Like he'd finally taken on his monster form, inside and out- all because of me. "Now," Victor said, his sweetly sick breath on my skin as the poised blade crept closer, blood pricking wherever it touched. "Where were we?"

As the blade sunk into my flesh, eliciting a muffled cry from me, it suddenly stopped. Everything stopped. Then, like a tape, the scene rewound, the scalpel, Victor, and sea of white vanishing as I fell into darkness and closed my eyes.

It wasn't long until I opened them again.

I broke out of the nightmare like ice water, my eyes snapping open. Gasping, I shot upright and recoiled my knees, Victor and images of a red-stained scalpel vanishing. The walls bounced with my loud gasps, ringing in my ears in the deathly silence. It was the only thing I could hear.

I was alone again, in my apartment.

Still, shadows and I didn't have a kindling relationship. Shoving away those ghostly white sheets, I grabbed my gun and was out of bed in a flash, threatening every corner of my bedroom with the bullet-filled glock. Adrenaline does a lot to banish bleariness. I was on full alert as my eyes swept over the dancing, laughing shadows.

It was true, nightmares were a part of my daily routine. This was different, though. It felt real. Way too real to be just a dream. There was only one other time I'd had that kind of powerful dream, and that was when Victor had hunted me, informing me all about why I'd been his target. Still, that hadn't been physical. That hadn't sparked the cold, empty pit in my gut like it did tonight.

Something was wrong. Something had changed.

Pushing ahead, I tiptoed carefully along the creaking floorboards, trying to make as minimal noise as possible. It was hard, considering my heartbeat was twice its normal rate and Dashkov's ghost flickered in and out of my peripheral, a wicked illusion courtesy of my pulsating fear. I couldn't control it. The dream was bad enough, but walking around on eggshells in the middle of the night like this served as a heavy dose of deja vu from my being-hunted days in the fall. The only thing that was missing was a Russian God napping on my sofa. That actually would have been preferable at this point. It was good to have another set of eyes. And another set of arms to fall into after the homicide mess was done for the day. So not the time, Rose, I mentally scolded while my eyes flickered around. Dimitri didn't even have to be in the room and I was concocting weird scenarios with him. Thank God I had a good poker face most days on the job.

I surveyed every nook and cranny of my apartment- twice to make up for my FBI agent's absence. 15 minutes into it, I wound up in my living room, empty-handed from my search, save for the gun I started with. I exhaled and lowered it, raking a hand through my hair. Even a quarter of an hour later, my heart was still beating like crazy. Not to mention that "natural intuition" in my gut was acting up again. While my eyes and the evidence at hand insisted the flat was bare, some part of me severely disagreed. I felt like I was missing something. What that was, I had no idea. "Maybe I'm looking too much into this," I grumbled to myself. Or I was extremely tired and running on close to no sleep, thanks to my nightmares and so-called "gut feeling". Yeah. That could be playing some major role.

I sighed and checked the hallway and under my door just to soothe my paranoia. As expected, there was nothing. No letters, or chess pieces. No boogie men or serial killers ready to knock on my door at 3:32 AM. "Maybe Liss can get me one of those REM sleep cycle machines," I mumbled under my breath, straightening and wandering back over to the west side. Fresh air was what I needed. Fresh air and a sample of normality. I cracked open the window and leaned out, the cool, April breeze ruffling through my shirt and hair. I took a long, much-needed breath. This side of the building was partially blocked by the neighboring building's alleyway, the other half displaying one of the many curved, city roads.

I barely had time to admire the Boston landscape, though. About 20 seconds into my mini-meditation session, the low growl of a cat registered with me. You had to be joking. The one time I wanted to meditate, and a 6-ounce feline had to interrupt. I opened my eyes and scanned the darkness. I couldn't make out the fur ball, but he made his presence pretty well known. Alley cats weren't uncommon, but they usually didn't make much sound.

That hissing-and-meowing sound wouldn't stop tonight. "Hey, I'm not having such a hot night up here either," I whispered to it, hoping my input would shut it up. It didn't. If anything, it intensified. I groaned and was about to slam the window down on its whining when something else registered me. I still couldn't see worth a damn, but wind doesn't just carry noise. It also carries smell.

And just then, I sensed something totally out of place. It was faint, but it was a burning smell, like a fueled candle suddenly out of wax. My frown deepened before some parts of the scene pieced together. That's what the cat was complaining about. The aroma. And that smell was coming around the corner, at the front of my building.

That was all the push I needed. It's one thing to have a hunch; it's another for an animal to confirm something was up. I grabbed my gun again and postponed my zen session to thunder down the indoor, padded stairs of my building. I was on the fourth floor and knew I should be more gentle going downstairs at such a late hour at the risk of waking my neighbors. Urgency tends to diminish normal courtesy, though. If anything, I could blame the cat later.

I thanked my rare fortune that the front desk was empty and pushed out the front door. That's when I caught sight of the burning source, laying on the pavement of the complex's sidewalk. I stopped. My foots barely carried me two, dragging steps forward, enough to keep me out of the range of the swinging door as it closed behind me. I stared at it for a heartbeat longer before glancing around and poising my gun, threatening any onlookers to make a noise. But I heard nothing. Nothing I could justify firing at, anyway.

Warily, I walked down the last two steps. The red stick continued to burn, filling the air with ash and an acrid, bitter perfume. It was a flare. A mirror of the one I'd used in my escape from Dashkov, subsequently burning half his face.

Or, to put it simply, it was another message for me.

I went on high alert and poised my gun again, slowly backing up. I would retrieve the flare later, but not now. Not yet. Not when the person who had dropped this off could still be watching me. Never prying my gaze away from my surroundings, I covertly slipped back inside and tried to ignore the pungent aroma that had scorched my throat and made my palms, marked with Dashkov's signature, ache.


Needless to say, I skipped to Plan B. The instant I saw the flare, I'd recognized the cue for trouble and that I probably couldn't take on anyone that decided to jump out of the bushes, so long as I was still in my dead-tired, half-comatose state. So, I called him. He was the only one I knew would happily respond at this hour.

He didn't disappoint.

Less than 30 minutes later, despite either being asleep, in the middle of an FBI rendezvous, or near the end of a bad western novel, I opened my door to find Dimitri on the other side. I hadn't told him why I needed him- but then again, I didn't have to. He had made it abundantly clear he would always be there for me. By his pensive, guarded demeanor and the way his dark eyes worriedly swept over me, caring only that I was safe and sound, he stuck by his claims.

"Are you alright?" he demanded softly. I nodded slightly, not trusting my voice. "Are you hurt?" I shook my head, but cracked the door open wider and wrapped my arms around myself, betraying my "everything's dandy" visage. The 4AM phone call had already taken the liberty of killing that aura. He took the invite without hesitation.

5 minutes later, I wound up curled on the sofa, Dimitri beside me. While he hovered close enough for me to feel his body warmth and detect his discrete, pine-like scent, his attention was diverted. That was my handiwork. On the coffee table in front of us, evidence spilled over every inch of the mahogany surface. He might have joked about calling me General- a default of nicknaming him Comrade- but I liked to live up to my reputations and set up camp. Papers about the Strigoi, Victory Dashkov, and Avery Dragomir's killer were aligned, the various pieces of this puzzle jumbled on the playing field. On the corner was the anonymous letter from this morning I'd haplessly set aside. In Dimitri's hands was the flare. I'd cautiously retrieved it, snuffed out the flame, and bagged it before he got here. I didn't want him to find it on my doorstep and order a portable SWAT team. Plus, that cat wouldn't shut up about it.

"You found this on your building's doorstep?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah. No one was around, though."

"But you think this has to do with Victor Dashkov."

It wasn't so much a question as a statement. I stayed quiet at first, not disagreeing. It was hard to dispute. People didn't casually leave behind lit flares on the pavement at 4 o'clock in the morning. "I don't know. I know he's locked up, believe me, I do, but it seems like a pretty obvious message for me, right? Maybe it's a hint, or a warning. Maybe he has another apprentice. I wouldn't put it past him. All I know is someone's trying to scare me."

"And maybe that's all this is," he said sagely, trying to soothe me and my rampant, wild theories. "A scare tactic."

"Maybe," I mumbled. "You can't blame me for jumping to the Dashkov conclusion."

"No. I don't blame you for that at all, Roza."

Dimitri continued to cautiously examine the data and papers. We exchanged different ideas and stuck to business, but he did a lot of comforting on his end throughout it. Just talking to another human being and ensuring I wasn't crazy was a dose of positivity in my book. As he rummaged through some files, he noticed the letter sitting precariously on the outskirts. He picked it up. Wwith everything else, I'd completely forgotten about it. "What's this?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure," I said. "Someone left it at my door earlier. I figured it was just some nut off the street."

Dimitri frowned, reading the same printed question I had this morning. Despite my flippant response, we both knew it was more than that. That was the main rule he'd nailed into me at FBI training: never dismiss evidence or take the smallest detail for granted. The fact I'd gotten one anonymous clue right before the flare added an extra punch. "And when did you get it?"

I had to rack my brain for that answer, rewinding the last 20 hours. "This morning. Or, well, whatever counts as less than 24 hours ago. It wasn't here when I got home last night."

"And then you got this flare," he said quietly to himself. He was trying to piece it all together. His eyebrows suddenly knitted together after that, uncovering another fragment. "Weren't you at Lissa's up until a couple nights ago?"

"Yeah. Small plumbing issues around here, I think the manager's fixed it by now though." I watched as his frown deepened. "Why? Is that important?"

"No, it's nothing, really," he said. His tone contradicted him, and gave him away before he could follow-up with, "It's just the way this is lining up. The timing seems convenient."

I frowned too, able to put two and two together. "You think someone knows what I've been up to? Like... someone's watching me?"

"No," he said quickly. "These could be two totally different things." Even as he said that though, I wasn't convinced. He wasn't either. Dimitri rolled it around in his head a bit long before flipping the letter over. For being the phlegmatic poster boy of calm, cool, and collected, I noticed instantly as his expression transformed into surprise, taken aback.

Always in sync with him, my body tensed and I came closer, peeking at the letter "What? What's..." My words died off, seeing what he had. I stared, starstruck. It didn't take long for that shock to melt into self-deprecation. You idiot, I swore in my mind, berating myself, how did you miss this?

I knew how, though. Mia's call from this morning had interrupted me before I could investigate further. It had distracted me from turning the page. And it had distracted me from seeing a map of Boston printed across the back canvas, thin, precise lines dividing the paper into perfect squares. "It... it looks like..."

"A chessboard," Dimitri finished quietly. I looked up at him. Our gazes locked, and the fragments fell together, beautiful but sanguine. The letter wasn't tied to Victor or the Strigoi. This was the handiwork of Avery's killer. All of it was. The chess pieces. The letter. The taunting "care to play?" inquiry. I didn't know about the flare, or what part if played a part of yet, but I had to block it out of the equation for now. There was one, simple truth laid out in all of this: this had become a game.

"This is about our new case and these killings aren't a pattern. It might have been before, but now... now he's playing a game." Another revelation hit me. "He's going to kill again. Oh God, I have to tell Lissa-"

As I started to unwind myself and get up, Dimitri stopped me, his fingers lightly gripping my wrist. "Rose, you can't go alert her now. It's too late, you can tell her in the morning or-"

"No, don't you get it? I have to relay this to her now. It can't wait."

"Why? Why is this so urgent?"

"What are you-" I stopped and looked back at him. Genuine confusion was plastered on his face, not understanding why my nerves were so frayed and how Lissa took precedence over my partners in this case. "You don't know?" I whispered.

No. He didn't know about Avery, I realized. He couldn't have. 5 years ago, I left the FBI academy for 3 reasons: a note that threatened to expose our relationship and destroy his career, the sudden appearance of a blue-eyed beauty I later found out was Tasha and only a Belikov family friend, and my best friend's murder back in Massachusetts. All of it had forced me to pry away from him, and he knew none of it. This morning, I'd been so distracted by Lissa and her safety I forget to put him in the loop. Better late than never, Rose. I hesitated again before slowly sitting back down. For not knowing much, he had a good point that I shouldn't run to Lissa's side now, especially when the chance of her and Christian getting cozy in the lab was a stronger one than I liked to think about. I cleared my throat before explaining, "5 years ago, near when I left the academy, Lissa's sister was murdered."

Understanding crossed his features. "...And that's the murder from half a decade ago we were discussing in the tech room." I nodded. There was a pause. His fingers still caressed my wrist. "Rose, if this happened back when you were still in training, why didn't you tell me earlier?"

Honestly, if I was him, I would have wondered the same. He didn't know the full story, though. Along with the phone call, the memory of the letter flashed through my mind's eye. Not this letter from Avery's killer, but the one that threatened to expose our relationship to the FBI community. And to a 22-year old girl trying not to get caught with her instructor, it had packed a pivotal punch. If Dimitri had known about Avery back then, he would have tagged along. Our relationship would be all but exposed in bold lettering and neon arrows. "I don't know," I lied quietly. "Back then, I was caught up in other things. When you came back, I was a distracted by my own boogie man."

"So we're dealing with another personal killer."

"Yeah, you could say that."

We sat like in silence for a few minutes. A blanket of serene apprehension settled over us. While we took comfort in each other no matter what, that peace was sobered by the murderous spectrum of our career choice. He wasn't the only one trying to take new information in. The mindset of our killer and the sudden flare, a gift with no ribbon or post card, haunted me. And I had a lot of things haunting me as phantoms already. Dimitri had slipped his hand away from mine, but the warmth lingered as I curled up again. He went back to brooding over the evidence table. I studied him covertly, mesmerized as always by his silk hair brushing his collar bone and his appraising, dark eyes. Adrian Ivashkov wasn't the only guy that could pass for a GQ model. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing really," he answered. He glimpsed at me. My exhaustion must have been evident as he said, "Just that it's not going to do us much good investigating at this hour. You should get some sleep, Roza."

"What about you?"

"I'll stay," he assured me."It's not safe for you to be alone right now until we figure this out. Get some sleep. You deserve it."

"I'm not that tired. We can still go over the case and look for-"

"No. Sleep first."

There was an unspoken 'don't protest' message imbedded in his words. Damn. He knew me too well. I sighed, crossing my arms over sofa's arm rest and laying my head down. It was true, I still wanted to stick to my general nickname and charge on the front lines to figure this mess out, but my exhaustion was winning out with my fear calmed, threatening to K.O. me. Even without this middle-of-the-night chatting session, I had been skating on close to zero sleep for the past 6 months. It was raw in my bones and weighed me down like a boulder. "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing much."

"That means you're going to be scoping around like a Doberman, right?" He didn't reply. His silence answered for him. "You should sleep, too. Especially considering I roused you out of bed to begin with."

"I don't mind."

"You're avoiding the point."

He didn't answer. I wanted to protest more on that, but my eyelids were growing heavy, that invisible weight taking its toll. Internally, I sighed. "Don't say I didn't try," I murmured. With Dimitri's presence my comfort, I began to give into my needs and drift off. Well, I tried to. It didn't last long. Before I could even fall into sleep and a nightmare, another terrible, blood-rusted vision of Victor flashed through my mind's eye, the blinding glint of a scalpel illuminating the dark. I tensed and my eyes snapped open, sucking in a short gulp of air. My heart rate had jumped again, but I tried to hide the spike of terror.

That was no use. Not when Dimitri was on full alert. He stiffened, demanding softly but firmly, "What's wrong?"

It took a few moments for me to recompose myself. Normally I would have brushed it off. And man I wish I could. But I couldn't. Not when Dimitri was like this. "I don't know," I said quietly, telling a white lie. "Just fear, I guess."

"You don't have to be afraid." It was my turn to not answer. I didn't want to. I always wanted to look like an invincible warrior around Dimitri, and these nightly terrors were really tearing that image down. He seemed to pick up on that with his crazy telepathic sensory, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "It's alright to be afraid, but you don't have to be. I'm right here."

"You're never afraid," I pointed out wearily.

"I am."

"Liar," I mumbled, my eyelids overpowering me again. I could feel my heart rate slow into a steady tempo, lulling me toward exhaustion. There was a gap of silence for a few heartbeats.

"No," he finally said, quietly, as if I was supposed to hear. If it wasn't for the faint breeze wafting through the window, carrying the faint perfume of sulfur, Dimitri's pine-like scent, and his soft, velvety voice, I wouldn't have caught it at all. "I'm afraid of you." For a second, the chill plaguing me ebbed away. It might have been exhaustion or a mesh of dreams deluding me, but I swore I felt something soft press against my forehead, kissing me goodnight. I didn't have long to ponder on it. Almost instantly, sleep overcame me and I fell into sweet, simple nothingness.


I like to think I had a good dream that night. I don't remember much, the connection breaking and distorting my memory, but it momentarily banished the cold and enveloped me in an intoxicating high. I don't know how long I slept before my body's alarm clock roused me awake, but eventually I felt myself falling off that elation, unraveling like a blanket to threads.

Bands of light glimmered through the window blinds. That was the first thing I saw when I woke up, gazing through half-closed eyelids. Slowly, the banal elements of my living room came into focus.

Well. It was better than falling asleep at my desk.

Suppressing a yawn, I stiffly sat up, my back complaining at the motion. Outside, birds mutely chirped. I could also hear the pitter-patter of water and my shower running down the hallway. Guess the building manager had managed to cure that dilemma after all. I didn't think much of it; like Lissa, people here and there tended to crash at my place, and I was too hung up on my rare, blissful hours of sleep to dive back into reality just yet.

Stretching, I got up, noting that the coffee table was spotlessly clear and someone had thrown a quilt over me, before wandering toward the hall. Again, I wrote it off. It's hard to pry into those small details with deep Sherlock reasoning when your body's sore and in need of a 6-hour massage. "Lissa?" I called, voice muffled with sleep while I squinted. "That you in there?"

It was the first and only person I could think of in this situation, but I got no response regardless. The water kept running. Huh. Guess she hadn't heard me. I ran a hand through my hair and wandered to the door over and into my bedroom, checking my cell that was still at my bedside. Surprisingly, my gun wasn't beside it. The glowing screen distracted me from that small lapse in normalcy. It probably wasn't healthy according to any therapist to sleep with your pistol under your pillow like a teddy bear anyway. Out of my texts, there were a few new messages, one being from Janine Hathaway. I simpered slightly at that. Among the other relationships I'd recently patched up, my mother was one of the more staggering ones. We were still on some bumpy rocks, but it was a vast improvement from the snow-peaked, jagged mountains we were on before. The text was simple and straight-forward, making some dry crack about a report from David Letterman. I suppose everyone has to get their humor from somewhere. The other messages were from Mason, and weren't so light-hearted. It revolved around our cases, one a recount of lab work, confirming no prints were on Elena, and the other confirming that Adrian Ivashkov had an alibi and was dead-on about our victim's identity. Natalie's parents had claimed her and were planning a funeral for Saturday.

As sad and semi-frustrating as those texts were, they were enough of a stimuli for reality to tumble in– and remember some fragments of the incident last night. The nightmare. The flare. The real meaning of the letter, and the discovering into our killer's psychology. "Shit," I exclaimed, changing plans and direction. I barely stopped to shove on a blazer before racing out the door. My urgency from last night rerturned and doubled. I had to tell Lissa. If this was guy was going to kill again, she was the first person I had to alert. I had to-

Umph.

Before I could take 10 steps, I ran into someone. I'd been so distracted I hadn't noticed the water had turned off, or that their was someone else in the hallway, their arms steadying me. The first thing I really noticed after that was that Lissa had somehow adopted the figure of an NFL quarterback overnight. I never realized 6 inches of leopard heels could strengthen calves and upper body.

Then I blinked, and my vision focused, long enough to realize the chest I'd slammed into was all male and muscle. That was pretty obvious when you factor out the common visual of a T-shirt and duster. He was all bare from the waist up. Rooted in place, the last piece of my memory from last night involving Dimitri making a late appearance, I robotically looked up at him. To be fair, he looked perplexed, and I didn't blame him after screaming with a sailor mouth and slamming into him at full speed. I also noticed other things. Like his wet, almost-black hair clinging to his neck. And his pondering, dark eyes. And the fact he was only in pants and still holding my forearms in an attempt to keep me upright.

"Are you alright? I heard you yell."

"...Just dandy, comrade." I wish I had a more clever retort on hand, but admittedly, my mind wasn't fully there. Okay: none of it was there. Half was having flashbacks of our night at the academy, and the other half was reminiscing my earlier wishes of a hot sex shower scene.

So. Someone had been listening to those prayers after all. I just didn't know whether to count that as a blessing or another score for the universe's sick sense of humor.


On account of fevers, college visits, and other plagues, I had to postpone this chapter. On account of numerous reviews and messages, however, I postponed long enough to throw in some requested Dimitri and Rose spice. Forgive the cliff hanger. Shirtless Dimitri will make up for it.

Every Review/Favorite/Follow is appreciated.