Janine sends Abe photos of baby Rose

Disclaimer: Richelle Mead owns Vampire Academy, its characters and plots. Everything else is mine.

The wind howled in rage, whipping tree branches about and trying to strip away their leaves. The rain lashed at the dark windows of empty houses; tears running down empty faces. The world had been reduced to ghostly shadows and variegated grays. A young man walking briskly down the deserted sidewalk shivered and pulled the collar of his jacket closer about his neck. It was an empty gesture - the wind and rain had penetrated every layer he wore, buried beneath his flesh, and were currently freezing his bones. He glanced apprehensively around him – just a few more feet…there. He stopped, looked surreptitiously about for unseen observers, then hurried up the deserted walk to a nondescript house indistinguishable from any of the others on that forgotten street. He pulled a small, unmarked envelope from under his jacket - not too wet, thankfully - she'd have his head if it had been damaged - and slipped it under the door. He pressed the buzzer once, starting at the way the hollow buzzing echoed up and down that forsaken street, then slipped around the side of the house and was gone.