Chapter 42

'' Have you found the students yet ? '' I asked the guardian who met us when we got off the jet . I was anxious as the guardians lead us to the front gates of the school where other guardians , novices and moroi were standing waiting to go to the caves and get the students . The scene was all to familiar as were the feelings . it brought me back to when we had to go to the caves when i went to the school . It had to be the worst day of my life going into the caves the first time , it is when i lost Dimitri for the first time . I had since had him back , restored him from a strogi back to a dhampire but it didnt change the fact i had the memories of dimitri gettting taken down by a strogi and when i had sat in the church waiting for news and just crying .

'' What are we waiting for ? '' I asked kivora who stood at the gates handing out stakes . '' You .'' Kivora looked at me i was a little taken back . there were students in a cave with strogi and they were waiting for me ?

kiovora answered my question before I even asked it .

'' You are one of the best guardians know of , you have fought in the caves before and you are a great leader .'' She told me handing me a stake .

I was flattered that she put so much trust in me and believed in me so much I was determined not to let her down .

I put everyone in groups , there were a few novices that were going into the caves but i tried to keep it a few at time , if there were to many novices with the guardians they would be worried about the novices and not the ones in the cave . I tried to keep the number of moroi limited too but i also wanted to make sure there were enough to help out the guardians but not be a burden . Christian of course stayed with me along with a novice i had met when i was helping out with the training that i knew would be able to handle themselves and a female guardian .

We walked through the caves for a while before running to any strogi and they still didnt even come out until the screams started from other parts of the cave. But lucky there were not many on the part we were at and we found the students rather quicky .

They were tied up in circle shoulder to shoulder it remined me of how they had tied us up when were captured in Spokane.

" Rose ." Christian burned the ropes off and sabrina ran to me throwing her arms around me . " are you okay ? " I checked her over . There was a bite mark on her neck but that was about all . Jared was leaning over on one of the cave wall . He had been bitten recently and was still out of it . They probably fed on him because he looked like he was the strongest out of the group.

" come on ." I wrapped my arm around his waist and draped his arm around my shoulder . " you are going to be okay ."

I struggled behind the group the female guardian helping with Jared . We had not gotten far when more strogi jumped out . It was three or four strogi of them the novice the guardian and christian were busy helping the six students we had rescued most a few were weak like Jared and were being helped get out . I had to handle the strogi myself .

" Go ! Get them out , I will take care of them . " I yelled when Christian stopped and was coming to help . I gave jared to the guardian and went to work .

It figured that the strogi were of course trained , they must have been guardians before they were turned .

Good ones .

But I got two of them down and was working on the last two when the last strogi arruped into flames I turned by headto ssee why Christian had come back and all I can remember is everything went black.

I woke up in the nurses office , my head hurt like a bitch my body was of course sore but otherwise I was fine . Though that wasnt my greatest concern . I needed to know what had happened and who else was hurt .

I got out of bed and walked out to the waiting room . Christian was standing there on the phone . He hung up when he saw me standing there .

" Rose ." he rushed over to me . " You should be laying down , you hit your head really hard ." he wrapped his arms around my shoulder and tried to usher me back to the bed .

"No , I'm fine ." I turned to him .

" I just need to know who was hurt and if everyone got out alright . " I told him .

" a few were injured but there was no casualties ." He sighed giving into me .

"Really ? " it was pretty amazing , there were quite a few casualties the first time we had gone to the caves .

" yes . " he nodded . " now sill you please go lay down before adrian gets back with the coffee anf sees that I let you get up and walk around. " he asked me .

"Fine . " I agreed making my way back to the bed .