Chapter 13 : She Came To Me

Rose's POV

Isadora Elena Noelle Badica. Spirit user. Well, the last fact I didn't gain from her birth certificate. It had all the normal stuff like place of birth: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; time of birth: 9:56 a.m. and other requisite stuff. She wasn't six as I had previously believed but seven and a half. Her father is George Badica and her mother, Marcella Badica.

I racked my brain for where I had heard that name before. It seemed very familiar. The memory suddenly popped into my head: An angry woman in an ugly pink dress.

"Don't you know who your betters are?"

The shrill voice echoed in my thoughts and I shivered a little bit. Marcella Badica was the Prince of the Badica family's sister. I had been in Lissa's head that day, and watched as she terrorized - or at least tried to - two Moroi sitting in a seat she wanted.

Of course. Abby and Xander Badica had been schoolmates of mine back at St. Vladimir's and their father had become Prince of the family, shortly before I went off to Russia. Lissa was right. Isadora was their cousin, and the Prince's niece. It would have been easy to help ship Isadora to Tarasov with no interference.

I was eager to share this information with Dimtri. But he was lying on his side, sleeping. It was rare to catch Dimitri asleep and I always marveled at it. Not so much in a creepy, stalker way. But he was so relaxed and peaceful, well, it made me feel peaceful. Like everything was alright.

I smiled to myself and turned back to the notes. Dimitri and I had skimmed through it, but like I said, it was mostly just requisite stuff like her age, height, weight, hair colour... that sort of thing.

But there was one that stood out. Just something vague, that hinted about her abilities. A medical letter of sorts. But the way it read, sounded a lot more like a psychiatric analysis.

Day 1

...Isadora is quite mature for her age and shows signs of almost ingenious proportions. Highly intelligent. But slightly unstable. Will throw tantrums in the presence of certain company. The patient yells and throws things, though I am not entirely sure some of the said objects were thrown by hand...

Day 2

The word knife seems to be her favourite word...very strange behaviour exhibited. Tantrums grow more violent...cannot be controlled...

Day 3

All coherent thought seems to be gone... Weather abnormalities: thunderstorm, followed by heavy rain, then sunny, then more rain...Detainment being considered.

Day 4

Isadora is quiet. So quiet. Everything is normal. She says nothing. Just looks out the window. But her eyes are going a mile a minute. Frantic eye movement. Psychiatric help needed. Detainment approved.

Then there's nothing else. To me it sounded as if Isadora was being assessed for something. Maybe being assessed for Tarasov.

It made sense. They wouldn't lock-up one of the Moroi's most important Royal minors so easily. Or would they?

Marcella Badica was a bitch, if I recalled correctly. I didn't think it would take much to hide Isadora away. She was young and probably with all that spirit, she was very very unstable. Marcella probably couldn't control her and decided to take care of the problem. I couldn't help but wonder how she'd gotten away with it. Surely, Isadora's birth would have been a big event.

Royal children usually had hugely attended christenings and events when they are born to celebrate the continuation of a royal lineage. Even if the lineage, like the Ivashkovs, were in no danger of going extinct anytime soon. Really, it was mostly just an excuse to pop a bottle of champagne, get drunk and exchange gossip, with the added bonus of an insanely cute baby; that would eventually grow up to be another snobby royal whose ass had to be guarded from Strigoi.

Isadora was slightly unstable from what I had seen but she was still just a kid. Sure, she impersonated Strigoi - ok that was not normal by any standards - how does she even know what Strigoi look like anyway?

She was displaying far more use of her powers than I've ever seen in any spirit user, and I've met quite a few. When Lissa was younger, she had shown early signs of spirit, though we hadn't known it. Isadora's was almost experimental like she was hyperaware of what she was capable of.

Like she was practicing her magic. Pushing the boundaries on her powers. It was kind of twisted and creepy. She hadn't known me at all and thought scaring the shit out of me had been 'fun'. That kind of fun was borderline mean.

The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, I suppose.

Dimitri's POV

When I woke up the next morning, Rose wasn't beside me as usual. I tried not to panic, and instead got dressed quickly, grabbed my stake and headed outside.

My first instinct was to just go searching for her; I already had a few ideas of where she might have gone, including to breakfast, to stock up on bacon. But I decided to check with Adrian first. Hopefully, they had patched things up.

I knocked on the door, hoping that for once in his life Adrian was awake at this time of day.

There was no reply, but I decided to try again anyway. I knocked a little harder this time, my stomach twisting at the thought of Rose in danger, while I was here trying to get Adrian up to help me.

I pushed back those images, and tried to think of anything else. Like Rose laughing at me for being worried. She can take care of herself, a little voice reminded me.

I sighed, about to turn away from the door when it abruptly opened, and a disheveled Adrian squinted in the harsh sunlight.

We'd had to maintain a human schedule while here, because that was the schedule the prison ran on.

"It is way too early to go anywhere Belikov. You're going to have make this trip without us," he said and scratched his shoulder.

"Us?" I asked.

I knew Adrian had a problem when it came to picking up random women but we had only been here a couple of days. Besides, whoever this girl was, she was not a part of this mission.

"Yeah, Belikov. Rose and I. Who else?"

"This isn't funny, Adrian. Where's Rose?" I demanded.

I wanted to punch him in the face and wipe off the smirk that appeared on his face.

"In the bedroom, I'm not sure how decent she is, just for fair warning," he shrugged casually, that stupid smirk still in place.

I shoved Adrian out of the way and headed into the bedroom.

The sheets were rumpled, some of them thrown onto the ground. Clothes littered the room and someone lay sleeping in the pile of sheets that hadn't made it onto the floor.

Not Rose. Not my Roza.

I stepped carefully towards the bed, and pulled back the sheets. But even before then. I knew.

Rose.

She was naked and her hair was in a messy topknot. She looked tired.

I brushed my fingers against her skin and she smiled lightly.

"Adrian," she sighed in her sleep. She rolled onto her side and I shrunk back in horror.

Bite marks covered half of her neck.

Most of them were fresh. One of them still had a little blood trickling from it.

I was suddenly sick.

"Don't play the saint, Belikov."

I turned around to face Adrian.

"She loves it. But hasn't she always? This isn't much different from what you did to her in Russia," he said, lighting a cigarette.

"At least I didn't have to compel her to do it," I snapped.

Adrian just shrugged his shoulders.

"Believe what you want. But I don't need to 'compel-rape' people to get some easy sex. She came to me."

"Roza, wake up," I said frantically, trying to wake her up.

She opened her eyes and looked around a little bit, her eyes settling on me.

"You're not Adrian."

"Rose?" I asked. By this point, I was so confused.

So imagine my surprise when Rose jumped out of bed and crossed the room into Adrian's arms.

Hehehehe. Stay tuned :{)