All right who did it? Come on fess up! Oh so your saying that it was just a coincidence that I just happened to be taking a long time to update when I find what I thought was a snake under my bed! Well it turned out to be a blue tongue lizard, but I'm from Australia! Snakes are to be assumed! So I want whoever did it to come clean or I won't update again until I finish the book that I'm reading! Ha how do you like em applies?"

I headed back to the hole in the fence and got my bag before crawling out. I looked up at the sky and cursed, I was going to have to get indoors before the sun went down because I did not have a good track record with those caves and the dark. But once it was daylight again I was going to sneak in and check those caves out. Hopefully that was where Tasha decided to hold Rose.

Hold on Roza, I'm coming for you.

RPOV

Buzz Buzz Buzz

That was the only sound I have heard for the last...I don't know how long. The cell that I was kept in was underground so I didn't have a window. And the only light that was down here was a yellow light bulb that was flickering on and off all of the time and making an annoying buzzing sound that was driving me CRAZY! I wondered, not for the first time, if that was the first kind of torture that Tasha had planned out of me. That she was starting off slowly and building up to nail pulling and recording of screaming babies. I had seen that on a YouTube clip once about the training that they put you through in the army and it didn't look fun.

I think that I was about a week in by this point based on the food that they were bringing me, and I think that I was starting to lose it. I had always talked to myself a bit, congratulating myself when I came up with a good comeback or slapping myself mentally when I did something stupid. But now I was doing it out of sheer boredom and I swear that if I kept it up any longer then the little voice in my head was going to start answering me back!

Thinking about when my food was going to come and actually seeing and hearing someone else, even if it was a Strigoi, was something that I actually looked forward to. And wasn't that just a little sad?

There wasn't much variety with my food to go on, but enough for me to tell breakfast, lunch and dinner apart. To be honest, I was surprised that Tasha was actually feeding me so well. After all she wanted to torture me and she knew how much I loved food, but she had been giving me enough for at least two people lately.

But that could just be because she knew that I was allergic to half of it. Sure it smelt good and I eat it like I was starving. But more often then not, I would end up throwing half of it back up again. I mean I knew that I have been sick lately, and was throwing up even before I was kidnapped, but this really was taking it to a new level!

But having the food, even though it made me sick, was still better than not having it, I needed my head on straight to figure out a way out of this place. I was still in my angry and moving about phase of my plan so I had lots of opportunities to test my cell for weaknesses. There were none. The bars were as solid as in any other cell, if not more so; the lock on the door was definitely unpickable without much better tools than I had on me; the floor and walls were all solid cement; and like I said, there was no window to crawl out of. So that left distracting or disabling the guard enough to either get the keys without him noticing or getting the keys and locking him in here instead so he couldn't warn anyone of my escape.

And that wasn't going to be easy, they were very carful with giving me my food. There was a small slit at the bottom of the cell door that they unlocked and slid my food threw when it was time. They were always carful to have two people with them at all times and the one that had the keys would always stand furthest away from the door while the other gave me my food. I could try to act sick, which wouldn't be to hard considering that I was sure that they had noticed me throwing up, and just pretend that it was getting much worse until one of them caved and work from there. But without a weapon, fighting two Strigoi didn't sound like too much fun.

Strigoi responded to power, well I could try and cut a deal with one of-

The sound of footsteps broke my train of thought and I sat up in my bed. It was too early for lunch, I had only just eaten breakfast a little while ago. But then I saw who the footsteps belonged to and it wasn't my food delivery service. It was Tasha.

She looked just as proud and cocky about having me locked up here as she had on the first day.

"Hello Rosemarie," she smiled, knowing how much I hated my full name. "I hope that you have been enjoying your stay with us."

"Oh yes everything has been just fine," I said in a fake cheery voice. "The view is simply divine, but the chlorine from the pool is messing up with my hair," I flicked my hair for dramatic affect. "Do you think you could get me something for that? And maybe some sunscreen? I don't want to ruin my perfect tan with sunburn," I said battering my eye lashes innocently. Tasha didn't like that

"How's isolation going?" she asked with an evil smile.

To be honest, I was taking it hard, I had always been surrounded by people ever since I was four years old and dumped at the Academy. And even when I was on the run with Lissa, we would always go to crowded spots to get lost in the sea of people. But being TOTALLY alone was not agreeing with me at all. I had even tried to make small talk with my captors when they brought me food, but they must have been ordered not to talk to me because no matter what I said, talking, insulting, and threatening, they never spoke back. But I wasn't going to let Tasha know that.

"It's been pretty peaceful actually, I've never had a real holiday before. I may even decide to extend my stay if I like it enough. Tell me when is the karaoke bar opening?"

And that does it for playfully banter. Tasha dropped her nice act.

"Well I'm glad that you enjoyed it so much, because after what I'm about to do to you, you will be begging for isolation."

And with those daunting words, Tasha stepped to the side and a group of Strigoi unlocked my cell and walked in. My first instinct was to run and try and break out of here, but I was ridiculously outnumbered and wouldn't stand a chance so I didn't bother trying anything.

But when I saw the chains that the Strigoi were carrying, I almost changed my mind and went for it. Tasha must have seen the look in my face because she smiled like the Cheshire cat.

"Not so cocky now are you Rosemarie. Do you know what all of this is?" she asked as some kind of weird device with a bunch of tubes and a funnel looking thing of top of it was brought in by more Strigoi.

"You're going to give me an artificial tan because I can't go outside?" I asked on auto pilot. I had no idea what Tasha was going to do to me and I was to afraid to ask. Yes, the famous Rose Hathaway was scared. Well you would be too if this was happening to you right now!

Tasha laughed and it was a sick cold sound now that she was a Strigoi. "Not exactly, let me explain. Have you ever heard of Chinese water torture?" she asked and watched my face for my reaction.

I had. It was where you were chained to a rack and a single drop of water was dropped on your head every second or so and it was meant to drive you slowly insane. And make you feel so helpless that you couldn't even stop a drop of water. I hadn't ever encountered it, but I saw this Mythbusters episode where they had done it and it didn't look pretty (I actually googled that and watched it for inspiration! It was scary!) Tasha must have seen the slightly nervous look on m face.

"Aaaa I see that you have. Good. Now since I want to space this out so that I can enjoy it more, today we will start with just two hours, nothing that you can't handle I'm sure," Tasha said in a condescending tone of voice.

Ok it's just water, it's just a drop of water and some chance, I can handle this. I thought to myself as I was grabbed by my arms and laid down on my bed and chained. A restraint was put on my head so that I couldn't turn it away and I flinched when I felt one if the Strigoi breath on my neck. They turned the device on and poured in a bucket of water.

And just like that my new torture had started. I didn't know if this had ever been tried on a Dhampir before so I didn't know how well I was going to hold up, but with how stubborn I was I bet I could break the record.

"Now be sure to tell me of you feel any discomfort, I'd hate to miss it," Tasha said and I swear that she just quoted a line out of an old movie. I guess that she just wasn't imaginative enough to come up with her own material.

One hour later and the dripping was a little annoying but nothing worse than sitting through one of Stan's classes. In fact, I was seriously contemplating falling asleep. But that might make Tasha come up with an actually bad torture and I didn't want that.

When the two hour mark came, I was more than glad to get out of the restraints but tried to hide it. I looked over at Tasha and felt a little satisfied that she wasn't smiling, but didn't rub it in her face. I really didn't want her increasing the time line any faster than she had planned. The Strigoi that had been standing around packed up the torture stuff and left without saying a word. Tahsa got up after them and locked the door behind her.

"Well that was a nice little experiment wasn't it Rosemarie?" Tasha said with a big smile apparently not as down as I thought she was at me not going nuts. "We will try this again tomorrow I think." And with that she was gone.

I leaned against a wall and slowly sunk done onto the ground. Ok, that really hadn't been that bad, it actually made me kind of sleepy. But if it kept getting longer it was going to start annoying me, and that was when I was going to get angry and hit things. So if I could find a way out of here before that happened then that would just be great!

I actually did end up falling asleep, but I didn't realize it until I was pulled into a spirit dream.

I was back home, in Lissa's thrown room, just lying on her couch like I had done a hundred times before, only this time it was actually comfortable.

"Adrian!" I cried and threw my arms around him when he appeared sitting next to me.

"Little Dhampir you're alright!" Adrian said and hugged me a little tighter. "You know that all of your little fan club members back at Court are pretty worried about you," he said and pulled back enough so that he could look at me properly.

"What and you're not?" I asked smiling at both being able to talk to someone again, not to mention someone that I actually liked, and someone who always made me smile.

"Me? Naaah," he said waving his hands in a forget about it gesture. "I've got fifty bucks that you'll not only come out of this unscathed but somehow end up saving the day while you're at it."

I laughed and lightly punched him on the shoulder. He laughed along with me for a minute and then suddenly became more serious.

"Are you ok? Has that zombie queen hurt you?" Adrian asked with concern in his voice and eyes.

"She kept me in isolation for...how long have I been gone?" I asked because I really had no idea how long I was unconscious for before I woke up in that cell.

"About six days. Cradle Robber went nuts after just two and took off to hunt you and Tasha down."

"He did what?" Dimitri gone rogue?! Mister guardian of the decade going against a direct order and abandoning his station! Man I really am bad influence.

"Yep, he sometimes answers his phone, mostly to Lissa, so we've been able to trade information. So far he's on the trail but had limited success. You wouldn't happen to know where you're being held would you?" Adrian asked not sounding hopeful. I shook my head.

"Sadly no. I'm in a prison cell that's underground but that's about it," I said still thinking about Dimitri. I mean I knew that I would do the same if I were in his shoes, but I was always the reckless one! I didn't expect this from him at all. I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to be with him right now, not that I hadn't in the past week of course, but I had been trying not to think about it to much. But now being this far away from him physically hurt! I'd give just about anything to be with him right now.

"Hey! Don't think that you've gotten out of telling me about Tasha's torture, you're father would castrate me if I didn't make sure that you were ok before I left. So you were saying isolation..."

"Yep, she locked me in my cell and nobody was allowed to talk to me. It was getting pretty annoying and I was starting to talk to myself a bit too much by the end if it."

"So what's she doing now?" Adrian asked not looking happy but glad that I wasn't hurt yet.

"Chinese water torture," I said with a frown remembering it. But Adrian's reaction was much worse.

"What! That's horrible! Are you ok? Is she going to do it again? Man I wish this dream walking came with a GPS mode," he muttered that last bit to himself but I still heard it and laughed.

"It's not that bad yet, it actually made me sleepy, and I've been having trouble with that lately," I added but I didn't think that he heard me.

"Don't worry Rose, we're all trying our best! We're going to get you out of here I promise!"

"Thanks Adrian. What would really help is if you could just stay here with me until someone wakes you up. I really didn't handle isolation very well."

Adrian just gave me one of his million dollar smiles. "Sure thing little Dhampir."

I ended up getting a few hours with him. He filled me in on what everyone was doing and what the latest scandal was and for a while everything felt almost normal. Until I had to wake up that is.

Lissa's POV

I had always wondered why Dimitri, and later on Rose, had always felt the need to learn how to make and keep up a guardian mask. I mean just because they were meant to be professional and act like responsible Guardians didn't mean that they had to shut out all emotion all together right?

But after a whole week without Rose, I was starting to understand. Sometimes things in life happen that you just can't deal with and still function like a human... or what passed for one in our world. So you had to put on a mask and pretend like it didn't matter so that the world didn't see that you were falling apart on the inside.

Even though I was worried sick about Rose and wanted nothing more than to spend every waking hour looking for her, I was still the Queen. And by being Queen, I had a lot of other responsibilities to deal with. So that meant that now I too had a guardian mask that I put on to hide my emotions. I simply couldn't make myself get up out of bed in the morning if I kept thinking about Rose being held captive in whatever awful place that Tasha had her in. I couldn't simply stop running the kingdom just because I was worried about my best friend.

So I got up, went to meetings, talked politics and tried to stop myself from screaming. That was, until I walked into my meeting room that was held every day to talk about the progress that we had made in hunting down Tasha and finding Rose. That was the only time besides when I was alone with Christian that I could actually show my worry and sorrow about loosing Rose.

I sat down on my chair and looked around at the people in the room with me. Everyone besides Adrian was here, but since he was probably busy dream walking, I didn't bother to wait for him and started the meeting off informally with, "What do we have?" I had asked no one in particular but of course it was Hans that answered.

"We now know for a fact that when Guardian Hathaway was taken they went north. But it's unclear where they went after that because my men didn't find anything at the area when the tracker stopped transmitting. As Guardian Hathaway senior suggested," Hans said gesturing to Janine who was sitting across from him. "We have gridded up the map and are currently searching every piece of it, but with resources stretched so thin it will likely take some time."

"Is that everything that you have?" I asked trying not to sound rude, but that's all the progress that he's made in a week? I should have jumped ship with Dimitri when I had the chance! I probably would be better off by now!

Hans looked slightly embarrassed at his lack of achievement but nodded and stayed quiet insted of offering excuses.

"Fine. Next?" I asked and saw Rose's father standing up with Janine by his side and was braced myself for his usual mob boss tactic of blackmail and threats. Which, by this point would most likely get us better results, and if that meant finding Rose quicker then you weren't going to hear me complaining.

But what I wasn't expecting was for none other then Ivan to come bursting threw my door with a bunch of my door Guardians trailing behind him!

"Is it true!" he asked looking around the room franticly like he was looking for something.

"Ivan? What are you here?" I asked standing up and moving closer to him. By this point, Violet had run in after him and was also being trailed by Guardians. But while they were hesitant to hurt Ivan because of his reinstated royal status, that had no such compulsions about Violet, even though she had married Ivan and as such had gained his title. It had been illegal but with all that the two had been through, I had no problems in making an exception.

"Sorry about this your majesty!" one of the Guardians said as he cast Ivan a dirty look. "He just came out of no where and demanded to see you, and once we told him that you were busy this human," he said the word human like it was a dirty thing and grabbed Violet by the arm roughly, "caused a distraction by knocking over a vase and screaming and- AAAH," he screamed.

While he was busy talking, Violet took the opportunity to bite him in an attempt to make him let go of her.

"Why you dirty little blood whore!"

"Let her GO!" Ivan yelled and with almost Dhampir speed stepped close to the Guardian and pushed him away from Violet. And then through a punch to his face for what he called Violet. The Guardian and his friends were about to retaliate when Hans called out.

"STAND DOWN!" Hans roared and instantly all of the Guardians that had been trying to get ahold of both Ivan and Violet took a step back. Hans then took charge of the situation and asked the question that we had all been thinking.

"Now what are you two doing here?" Hans asked as Ivan pulled Violet to his side and made sure that she was ok.

"I'm here because I've heard some disturbing rumors! First that Strigoi had started appearing again, then that Rose had been taken, and now that Dimitri has gone AWOL! I tried to call and figure out what the hell was going on but with the recent tropical storms, I couldn't get through so Violet and I decided to cut our honeymoon short and come back and see what was gong on."

Ivan and Violet had gone to the Caribbean Islands for their honeymoon and none of us had felt the need to worry them about the Tasha problem until they got back, thinking that they needed some time and space to settle after what had happened only about six months ago.

And apparently no one had thought to contact them about the attack at Court or Rose being taken ether.

"So tell me, how much of what I've heard is true?" Ivan asked with a hard look in his eyes.

"I'm afraid all of it is," I said and then gave him a quick run down on what has been happening since he and Violet left. By the time I was finished, Ivan and Violet looked both angry and devastated.

*WARNING SILLINESS AHEAD*!

"How could this have happened! We wiped out all of the Strigoi in the world for heavens sake! How could you have managed to let one loose! We might as well be starting from scratch now!" Ivan said looking more angry now than sad. I guess it was because he knew personally how blood thirsty Strigoi were.

Then suddenly Ivan got a stupid smile on his face.

"You know what? It doesn't matter anyway because the auther of this fan fic is too tired right now to continue so it's good night for now and would anyone like some hot chocolate that I brought back from the Caribbean? I'm not sure why because I don't think that the Caribbean Islands are famous for their hot chocolate but it sounded like a good idea at the time."

Everyone said yes and even Rose and Dimitri took time out if their busy schedules of being held prisoner and franticly hunting down the other one to stop bye and say hi. But of course they were both to busy making out with each other before the story started again and they had to go back to being separated to be of much good conversation. But the break in all of this drama was still nice while it lasted.

(Lol sorry guys I was tired and just decided to write whatever came to mind ;)

Told you it was silly;) Now I ment what I said! No more updates untill I know who put the almost snake under my bed!

And on a serious note. What did you guys and dolls think of the torture seen? More or less detail? To scary? Not originals enough? Let me know:)

And be on the look out for my Easter update on my JLOT holiday special:)