She began jogging down the driveway and I hurried to catch up with her.

"Hey, what's the big deal? Are there Strigoi around?" I called, and for some reason, she almost laughed. We jumped into the car and began speeding away, but she was silent. This was most definitely not Rose, or something was really bothering her. I quickly slipped the stake she usually kept in the glove pocket into my pockets. My fingers absentmindedly traced the pattern through my jumper as I sat, anxiously waiting for Rose to tell me what to do. Soon, we pulled over and jumped out, where we swapped into a tinted black van.

"Is this part of the test?" I asked, extremely confused by now. She confirmed my non-Rose suspicions by cackling and leading me towards the doors. I stood firmly in the middle of the path. "No. I'm not getting in that car." She stalked towards me, handcuffs glimmering in her hands. I punched her quickly and she stumbled backwards. Definitely not Rose. She would've seen that coming. I landed another punch on her, when a guy in black appeared. He smiled at her and I caught sight of a gun in his hand. And, so help me, he was pointing it at...

"Adrian?" No. Surely not. What the hell was he doing here?

"Hey little dhampir. Look what we've got ourselves into," he replied, somehow cheerfully considering we'd just been captured by humans. He was wreathed in smoke and probably drunk if he thought that this was normal.

"Shut up all of you, or Ivashkov gets it!" barked the man with the gun. 'Rose' clicked the handcuffs on and pushed me roughly into the van. Adrian soon followed. They slammed the door closed.

"Crap," I moaned. "This is awful!"

"Well done. I hadn't realised that," Adrian added.

"Well, how are we going to escape?"

"Escape? Can't we just, be prisoners quietly?"

"I've heard about you, Ivashkov. You were in a lot of Rose's plans. Do you think I'm just gonna let myself be killed by Strigoi? No."

"Well, you're the mastermind in this plan. What are we going to do?"

"Look, I have a stake in my pocket." His eyes widened.

"You know how to use one of those?"

"Sure. We need to listen to those guys and, whatever you do, don't go to sleep. I'll get us out before we need to. Unless it's like, necessary to get your strength up, don't go to sleep." He nodded and I strained my ears to listen to the conversation in the seats at the front of the car.

"We've got Adrian Ivashkov and Hathaway's student. I think we did well," someone praised themselves. Seems like Rose was notorious among the Strigoi.

"Do you think Lauren will be happy?"

"Of course. This is like, the best of the best." The rest of the journey was silent, which didn't help my scheming. All the time I tried to think what would Rose do? And all the time I was coming up blank. I kept my eyes focused on where we were being dragged. Four flights of stairs, down a corridor and the third door on the right. I committed it to memory. Lucky we'd done training on that. I'd thought it was useless at the time, but Rose obviously knew what she was doing. I couldn't imagine her being caught up in as stupid a situation as this, though. They opened the door and dumped us roughly on the bed, before exiting. A Strigoi girl walked through the door after them. I gasped in spite of myself. She had that same deathly pale skin and a crimson ring around her ocean blue eyes, but she looked about seven years old. Her blonde girls fell delicately around her chin.

"Hello," she greeted us in a tinkling voice. "I guess you're my new people."

"Get away from us you freak of nature!" I spat, injecting my voice with as much menace as possible. She almost shrank back.

"Ooh. Fierce." She glanced over to Adrian, cowering in the corner, and giggled. "Adrian Ivashkov. I've been wanting you for a long time."

"What is this? Some kind of collection?"

"Of course. My Daddy is going to make sure that I have the best place in the World for me. He's bringing all you lot so I always have friends to play with." I snorted at friends. "And then, when I get thirsty, all I have to do is this." She leaned down and bit into Adrian's neck. He cried out before his pleas turned to moans of pleasure. The endorphins were doing their work. It took all my strength not to swear at her.

"Get the hell of off him!" I jumped her and ripped her teeth from his neck before punching her in the face. She was clearly new to the Strigoi ranks, and wasn't very good at defending herself.

"Aww. His blood was tasty." She undid our handcuffs and left us here. The room was furnished with the basics. There was a single bed, which I could feel the springs through the mattress. There was a small bathroom with no lock. There was a chair to sit in. But we had absolutely no entertainment whatsoever. Apart from each other. I knelt beside Adrian, who had slumped to the ground.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Fine," he murmured. "Endorphins." I dragged him onto the bed and washed the wound on his neck. It looked painful, and I remembered being bitten by a Strigoi myself. However, my high was interrupted by being slammed against a wall. Just the thought of it made me dizzy. Adrian soon fell asleep and but I couldn't take comfort in his light snoring. I'd told him not to sleep, and he'd disobeyed me almost as soon as we arrived. Aggravated, I paced the room, looking for options. There was nothing silver, nothing sharp and nothing that could start a fire. Apart from my stake. This girl really wasn't very clever, letting me keep my stake like that. The window was unbreakable, and it looked like a several story drop anyway. I walked towards the door, wandering how many numbers the code would have. If I was lucky, there would only be about 4 and I could make guesses. However, when I turned the handle, the door was unlocked.