Chapter Four

I made the first move; I stepped back and grabbed the person behind me. I slammed him against the wall, and they all came at me. This is all I know, and I know how to do it pretty damn well, too bad they don't know that. I lash out, they tried to hurt Karolina, I'm going to kill them all. But five thirty some year old guys all trying to kill you is a bit of a challenge.

Two guys come up behind me and grab my arms, holding me back, while someone tries to punch me in the gut, not cool, bro. So unfair. He throws a punch and I make my move. I use my upper body strength to lift my legs up and kick him in the throat. I swing my body, making one of my captors lose his grip on my arm, and flip over the guy behind me, kick behind his knees, and snap his neck. One down, four to go. One of the men reached behind him, grabbed his gun, and shot. He shot four times, I dodged, moving left and right. Once I got up to him I grabbed his wrist and broke his arm. He went down to his knee with a painful cry. I put my hands on either sides of his neck and snapped it. Only three more, Kris. The man I slammed to the wall before I got held down, is now up on his feet, and starts swinging at me. He catches me off guard and gets two hits on me, one on my jaw, and one in my ribs. I block his next hit and punch him in the face a few times, but the two other men join in on the fight. I can barely remember what happened, I felt a pain in my right shoulder, and whenever I threw a punch, it hurt a hell of a lot more than it usually does. All I know is, about a minute later, I had killed two of the three, but the last one, something was different, wrong. He was easily blocking, his punches and kicks hurt a lot worse than they did in the Academy when I fought my teachers. The realization hit me like a brick. He isn't human.

He's a strigoi. And he's going easy on me, shitballs, this can't be good…

I would love to rub it in the Guardian's faces that I thought to melt a few stakes and formed bullets with them. Shoot strigoi in the heart with them and they're dead, easy as hell. Guardians may have the moves but most of them don't have brains, I mean how simple is the idea of melting a stake to turn it into bullets?

The strigoi sensed my realization, so he picked me up, threw me down to the ground, and started beating the holy shit out of me. Kicks and punches to my face, ribs, and gut. Pain overtook my body, almost to the point where I couldn't take it all. It took all my power and energy to reach behind me and grab my gun. One, two, three, four shots. I lift my head up to see where the shots hit him. One in the shoulder, two in the heart, one into his rib cage. He's dead; they all are, and I feel like I got hit by a damn bus. Repeatedly. Karolina, she's okay. I protected her, I saved her. I smiled, but it quickly dropped. It hurt to smile. I need a hospital.

"Karolina, it's okay. Come here now, I need some help." My voice sounded low, rough, and kind of gravelly.

I hear a door open and the light turns on, I groan loudly. The light hurts pretty freakin' bad.

"Oh my god, Kris!" I have my eyes closed, but I hear her drop to her knees right beside me. "Krissy, can you hear me? Open your eyes?" I try to open my eyes, but quickly shut them, Again, the light hurts. I try to respond to her though.

"Ho… spital… K…" I can't finish my sentence, or even stay awake.

"Ok, hospital. Right now Krissy. Don't worry girlie, I'm right here for you." And that was the last thing I heard before everything went black.

"I know… I know… I get it Dimka but—yes, I know and I'm sorry but I need your help. Please, I haven't seen a damn hospital for miles, and Lissa can heal her." I try to open my eyes, but it still hurts, in fact everything hurts a hell of a lot more that it used to before. I hear a pause while Karolina talks to, I presume, someone on the phone. Her brother, I think. She's talked about him before. His name is Dimitri and his girlfriend is the queen's Guardian, Rose Hathaway.

"Please? Really? Oh my god, thank you! She's about ready to die with the beat-down he gave her. I know, and I'll explain when you get there." There's another pause while she waits for him to answer her. "I love you, too. Ok, I'll see you in an hour. Bye Dimka." She put her phone down and called for me. "Krissy, girlie, are you awake yet?" I answer her with a slight nod and a mumbled "uh-huh." I opened my eyes, ignoring the pain shooting through me.

"Ok, good. We're almost out of New York, and we're heading to Court in Pennsylvania. And don't worry, a spirit user is going to heal you and then you can leave. I know you don't like being around all those Guardians and Moroi. I'll get you out of there when I can, girlie." I grant her a small smile because she's right. Guardians look down on me because I dropped out for my own selfish reasons. I hate seeing their judgmental faces, and small jabs. It makes me feel like a selfish bastard. I'm not, though. I just couldn't make it through life without my best friend; my mother. I didn't like her not telling my father about me, but I kind of get it, my father is a Moroi, they don't usually take care of us dhampirs and she didn't want to weigh that on him, though it's slightly unfair to whoever he is.

"Thank… you, K…"

I'm beaten to hell, in more pain than I've ever been in, and I'm going to the last place I want to be on Earth to get the Moroi queen, who's little sister's disappearance, is my current job, to get healed by her. This is literally one of the weirdest, unreal, ironic days of my life. Well Krissy, this should be fun…