Rose –

"I'm with you. If you're going to save the world from stupidity, you're probably going to need my help."

"That's it?" she asks incredulously. "I just spilled my guts to you! You don't have anything else to say?" She sounds almost offended and she places her hands on her hips defiantly.

I have a million things I want to say to her, but it's taking everything I have not to collapse back onto the ground. I had stood up too quickly, and now my vision is swimming and the world around me seems to sway. I close my eyes for a moment and will myself to make the dizziness go away. When I open them, I see that Lissa has taken a few steps toward me. All of the fiery determination that had been etched into her expression only moments earlier has been replaced by a look of concern.

"Rose," she says tentatively, and I can hear the pity in her tone, "Are you okay?"

I hold up one hand to ward off her advancement. "I'm – "

"Don't say fine," she says, swatting my hand away, "Because you're not. You look terrible."

I scowl at her as she moves to pull my good arm over her shoulder and then wraps her own arm around my waist. "Thanks," I grumble, looking down at my pale and trembling legs. "I was feeling really self-conscious about my appearance, but now I feel much better."

She sighs, "I'm sure Dimitri doesn't care what you look like."

My stomach sinks and I wouldn't be surprised if I looked down to see that it was lying in the dirt. "You're just putting it all out there today," I say with a nervous laugh.

She shifts her body so that she is bearing most of my weight and I let myself sag against her. "We don't have to talk about…that, if you don't want to." She says as we begin to make our way out of the tiny cemetery.

I hadn't notice until this moment, but Lissa is taller than I am, and I have to crane my neck to gauge her expression, and to my surprise she's smiling. "How long have you known?" I ask, turning my burning cheeks toward the ground.

"Hmmm," she muses. "I've had my suspicions since the two of you got back from the holding facility."

"What do you mean?" I ask, wondering if she had somehow known about our brief tryst before Victor had interrupted us.

She hesitates and then glances down at me. "Dimitri is a…complicated person. Even when we were little kids he was guarded; he never cried, he never had nightmares, and he was never scared of anything, until he met you."

We turn and walk down the narrow dirt lane that leads back to the Embassy, our boots kicking up dust and gravel as we go. "Was it the whole knife thing?" I ask, recalling how Dimitri and I had met. "Because I thought we had kind of moved past that."

I can feel Lissa's laugher through her sides, "No, I didn't mean that he was scared of you, I meant that he was scared for you."

"Oh," I say, feeling a little stupid for not realizing the point Lissa had been trying to make.

"That night," she says, her voice sounding far away. "That was the first time I had ever seen him look scared, but it was more than just fear; it was regret and grief and guilt."

I consider her words, and then all of the sudden, I'm back on the train and there's a bloody knife lying on the ground in front of me. Dimitri's eyes are wide with terror and his hands tremble as he tries to stop the bleeding. In between his rapid Russian, he begs me to stay with him. Then I'm in the front seat of a jeep and we're speeding toward the compound, Dimitri cursing as he fumbles to keep the vehicle under control. We come to a stop and he pulls me out of the jeep and into his arms. He cradles me against his chest and he runs. I can feel his heart racing even as my own grows weaker with each pulse.

I shudder and return to the present. "I didn't know it was possible for one person to feel so much."

"That's what love does to a person," she says casually.

I freeze. "Love? No…no, he doesn't love me. No, we kissed but, that doesn't mean he loves me. Love is, I don't even know what love is, but it's not…we've only known each other for a month and we spent most of that month threatening each other!"

"Rose," says Lissa exasperatedly. "Maybe neither of you is willing to admit it quite yet, but it's written all over both of your faces."

I'm saved from having to respond to Lissa's accusation when the jeep comes into view. Dimitri, Adrian, and Mikhail walk back and forth between it and the Embassy, loading in the supplies we had brought in the night before. Dimitri looks up at our approach, and thrusts the bag he had been carrying into Adrian's arms and rushes over to Lissa and me.

"Don't mind me," calls Adrian sarcastically, staggering back a few paces. "I can handle it."

"What's wrong?" he asks, his dark eyes narrowed with worry.

"Nothing," I say, pulling myself away from Lissa. "We just went for a walk."

"Really?" asks Adrian, trotting up beside Dimitri. "Because it looked like Lissa was doing most of the walking."

Lissa scowls at Adrian and then pinches his ear between her thumb and finger and begins dragging him away, "Honestly, Adrian…" she mutters under her breath.

Dimitri turns his attention away from the spectacle and asks me again, "What's wrong? And don't say nothing, I saw Lissa helping you."

"What is it with you people and not accepting my vague assurances that I'm fine?" I ask, running a hand through my already disheveled hair.

"Because," he says moving behind me to examine my shoulder. "As I mentioned yesterday, you are horribly stubborn." He sweeps my hair to one side, sending shivers down my spine. "How is the sling holding up?"

"It's good," I say, whirling around to face him. "Thank you."

"If your shoulder was bothering you, would you tell me?"

The image of Dimitri on the train flashes through my mind briefly, his grief-stricken face feels like it has been seared into my memory with a branding iron. He wears a similar expression now.

Is this what Lissa had been talking about?

Is this what love looks like?

"Probably not…maybe, I don't know," I say dropping my gaze, and then deciding to change the subject all together. "What's the plan?"

Dimitri studies me carefully, seeming to contemplate whether or not he'll allow me to evade his questioning of my wellbeing. "We only have half a tank of gas left. Mikhail thinks it's enough to get us past the Midwestern border."

An image of NAAMA forms in my mind, and I picture the borders of the provinces and the railways that line them. There are thousands of miles between us and the Southeastern Province. "That's not good enough," I say, shaking my head slowly. "At this rate, it will take us weeks to get to the Havens."

"If we rotate drivers we can make it there in a few days," he offers, though he doesn't sound as hopeful as his words.

"What about gas? It won't matter if we make it past the border if that's as far as we get."

Dimitri averts his eyes and I watch as his features slip into his familiar neutral expression.

I take a step forward, closing the gap between us. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Mikhail says he can get us the gasoline we'll need to make the trip."

"Great!" I say with a hint of sarcasm. "I don't suppose you're going to elaborate on the subject?"

"Hey, lovebirds," Adrian yells from behind us, interrupting an explanation I'm not sure I would have gotten. "Let's go, we're burning daylight!"

Dimitri and I turn to Adrian and give him matching glares, but instead of shrinking back, the sides of Adrian's lips quirk up in a devilish grin.

I clench and unclench my fist, "Is it too late to leave him tied up on the side of the road?"

This earns me one of Dimitri's rare smiles. "Probably, I think even then he would find a way to follow us to the Havens. He's surprisingly resilient."

"Yeah, well, so are cockroaches."

An hour later, I find myself sitting in the passenger's seat of the jeep, much to my annoyance. I had insisted that I be the one to drive, but Dimitri had refused to let me – claiming that I needed to rest. Even after I had told him that I could drive better with one arm than any of them could with two, he still hadn't budged. Both he and Lissa are convinced that I am a fragile daisy who needs to be tended to with a gentle hand. I get the distinct feeling that they plan on babying me all the way to the Havens.

I sit slumped in the seat with my forehead pressed to the window, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my shoulder. I also try not to think about the fact that I have been unable to move my left pinky or ring finger since I woke up this morning. Both fingers lay curled against my palm and the only thing that let's me know they are still attached to my body is the feeling of pins and needles running through them constantly.

I grit my teeth and force myself to concentrate on the trees that line the dirt roads. After a few miles, the lush foliage seems to blur together into nothing but shades of green and brown. My breath fogs the glass and I use my working fingers to draw on it.

"Well that's kind of morbid," says Adrian from the seat behind me. His hands grip my seat and his face is pressed in between the sides of the jeep and the headrest.

I pull away to look at my work and realize that what I had intended to be a smiley face looks more like a skull. "Whatever," I say, wiping away my creation. "How much further to the border?"

Mikhail sits in the backseat between Lissa and Adrian with a map of NAAMA spread out across his lap. "At this rate?" he asks, glancing down at the watch I had given him. "Three hours."

I lean over the center console to get a better look at the fuel gauge and see that we have less than one-third of a tank left. "Now would be a good time for one of you to explain how we're going to make it there." I watch as Adrian, Lissa, and Mikhail exchange apprehensive looks.

"The Provincial Guard has blockades and encampments set up along all of the borders," says Dimitri matter-of-factly.

"I know," I say, furrowing my brow, "But they're not the only ones. The RPD and other military branches all have some sort of presence on the borders."

"Right," says Mikhail, "But the Midwestern province has the lowest population density in NAAMA, so the military presence isn't as concentrated here as it is in other areas like the Northeastern or the Southwestern provinces."

"What's your point?"

"Less soldiers means less trouble when we rob them blind," says Adrian bluntly.

"Adrian," Lissa snaps, reaching across Mikhail to smack him in the arm.

"Lissa," he says mockingly, rubbing the red spot on his arm. "You're so violent today. Besides, she was going to find out some time, might as well be right now."

"Find out what?" I ask. "That when left alone for an hour, the four of you have come up with some ridiculous scheme that involves stealing from the Provincial Guard and getting us all killed?"

Adrian scoffs, "Well do you have a better idea?"

I fight the urge to twist around in my seat and smack him myself; instead I remain firmly planted in my seat when I realize that I don't have a better idea.

"No," I admit, "But the only reason I can think of for not being brought into the loop is that you all plan on making me wait in the car."

"Rose," starts Dimitri. "You need to let yourself heal, you lost a lot of blood over the past few days, and your stitches aren't even a day old."

"So?" I grumble. "This is hardly the worst injury I've ever sustained."

Lie.

"I feel fine."

Another lie.

"I can barely feel a thing."

Not technically a lie, it's true that I can't feel parts of my arm.

"It doesn't matter," says Dimitri shaking his head. "Besides, someone needs to watch the jeep."

"And who's going to watch you?"

Dimitri glances at me out of the corner of his eye. "Mikhail and Lissa are coming with me."

"Why does she get to go?" I ask, trying not to sound wounded.

"She has the uniform," replies Dimitri simply.

"I would go," offers Adrian. "But the uniform isn't my size…not really my color either."

I somehow manage to ignore Adrian. "So your plan is to just stroll into the blockade and take what you need?" I ask, my words dripping with doubt and incredulity. "Did you forget what happened the last time we tried to do that exact thing?"

"No," he says darkly. "I didn't forget, but just like last time, we don't really have a choice."

A heavy silence falls over everyone, and no one speaks for the next three hours. We stop a few miles from the border and have a late lunch of canned beans and dried meat. Dimitri sits beside me on an overturned log, staring at the map of NAAMA.

"You should leave Adrian and me here," I say, breaking him from his reverie.

"Why?" he asks, blinking back his surprise.

I take a deep breath. "You can't just walk up to the blockade on foot, it will look suspicious. Take the jeep, but leave the supplies. You should drive through here," I say, pointing to a spot on the map, "And circle back around, then it will seem like you're passing through the border from the opposite direction."

"That way we won't raise suspicions when we come back for you and Adrian?" he asks, seeming to puzzle together my plan.

"That, and if the Provincial Guard are looking for you, and I think that they are, they won't expect you to be trying to reenter the province. Then we can cross over through here again, and meet back up with the main road in the Mideastern Province." I trace a path on the map with my good hand, and watch Dimitri's eyes follow along.

"That should work," he says, nodding his head and then turning to meet my gaze. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

"I get it," I say, raking a hand through my hair. "I wouldn't want to try to convince me to stay behind either."

He studies me carefully; his dark eyes look lighter in the late afternoon sun. "You understand why I need you to stay here though, right?"

"I do," I say, averting my eyes. "My injury makes me a liability, and someone needs to baby-sit Adrian."

Dimitri chuckles softly under his breath. "It's more than that," he says, growing more serious. "I need you to be safe. I won't be able to concentrate on anything if I think there's a chance that you might be in danger."

I've always known why the military discourages romantic feelings. We have been desensitized: raised to be unfeeling and unflinching. Love makes us vulnerable, those who love are easier to hurt – easier to control. I find myself wondering how many wars had been fought, how many people had died, all because some fool somewhere had dared to love.

I reach out my arm and squeeze his hand. "Don't worry about me, I can handle myself."

He tries to smile, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Easier said than done."

We spend the next thirty minutes discussing my newly formulated plan with the others. We do our best to account for anything that might go wrong, which seems pointless when I consider how many things could go wrong. After the jeep has been unloaded, Mikhail climbs into the driver's seat. Lissa sits in the seat directly behind him, looking pale and nervous. Adrian has taken it upon himself to reorganize our packs, and he sits with our supplies spread out before him on the grass.

I grab Dimitri's hand and lead him away from the camp. "One last thing," I say, turning to face him.

"Ah," he says knowingly. "I was wondering when we would be having this conversation."

"What conversation?" I ask, my heart racing.

"The one where you tell me not to come back for you if we run intro trouble."

"Glad we're on the same page then," I say flatly.

He reaches out both hands to cup my cheeks, tilting my head back so that our eyes are locked on each other. "I left you once," he says, his voice a hoarse whisper. "I won't do it again."

My nerves are on fire, and for a brief moment, the feel of his hands on my skin makes me forget where we are. He leans down and presses his lips to my forehead. I close my eyes and try to commit the feel of him to memory. He murmurs something to me in Russian, his breath sending shivers down my spine, and then pulls away.

"Be careful," I say softly.

He nods, his mouth opening and then closing, as if he had been about to speak but had changed his mind at the last second. I watch him walk away, allowing my expression to reflect the inner turmoil that swirls within me, but only because I know he can't see me.

He climbs in next to Lissa. I had told them that soldiers consider themselves to be superior to Provincial Guards, and would hardly acknowledge someone of Mikhail's station as anything more than a driver. Lissa and Dimitri cast anxious looks over their shoulders at me, and I try to offer them a reassuring nod, but Mikhail has driven away before it can be acknowledged.

I spend the next few hours doing my best to ignore Adrian as he attempts to question me about my upbringing. I lay on the soft grass, staring at the sun intently with my good arm beneath my head.

"What about nunchucks?" he asks, leaning over me to make sure I'm listening.

"Yes," I say, not bothering to mask my annoyance.

"You could kill me with nunchucks?" he asks, sounding both surprised and afraid.

I glare at him, "I could kill you while wearing a dress, a blindfold, and with both arms tied behind my back."

His head moves to blot out the sun. "And if that didn't work, you could always use that withering stare of yours."

"If looks could kill," I say narrowing my eyes. "My weapon of choice would be staring."

"You're mental," he says, moving to lie down beside me.

"What are you doing?" I ask, shifting away from him.

"Don't flatter yourself," he says, nestling himself in the grass. "I prefer blondes."

"Like Lissa?" I'm not sure why I ask, but the question slips out.

He props himself up on his elbows to glower at me, "That is disgusting…it's practically incest!" he proclaims dramatically.

"Has Lissa ever…" I chew on my lip, trying to find the right words.

"Been in love with anyone?" he offers.

"Sure."

"There was this one guy, Aaron. He used to follow her around, and she eventually caved and they dated for a few months."

"Uh," I say, struggling to sit up. "Dated?"

Adrian looks confused and he raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me. "Yeah…dating, you know – holding hands and going on dates and calling each other honeybun."

"Why would anyone want to be compared to food? And what does that have to do with dates? Are you referring to the numbers…or the weird little fruit?"

His jaw drops open, and then he breaks out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. "Are you serious?" he eventually asks, wiping the tears from is eyes.

I feel my cheeks flush, "Never mind."

"Wait," he says in between labored breaths. "Oh my god, you are serious. No wonder you and Dimitri look like wide-eyed goldfish whenever you get within ten feet of each other." His eyes open as wide as he can manage and he purses his lips together, moving them up and down while making strange gulping noises.

"Shut up," I growl, ripping out a handful of grass and throwing it in his face.

"This is awesome," he says, folding his hands behind his head and returning to the ground. "Honeybun is a term of endearment, it's like calling someone sweetie. Does that make sense?"

No.

"Yes."

"You have much to learn," he tells me, feigning wisdom.

I see a group of birds burst through the tree line in the distance, cawing and flying out in all directions.

"There are candlelit dinners, awkwardly kissing good night…"

"Adrian, shut up," I hiss.

"I'm just trying to he-"

I clamp my hand over his mouth. "Stop talking and follow me."

Adrian must have sensed the urgency in my tone and the seriousness of my expression because he rises from the ground without another word. We make our way into the surrounding brush and lower ourselves behind the branches. Our hiding spot gives us a good view of our camp, but offers little else in the way of vantage points.

In the distance I can hear a low rumbling sound, but the birds seem to have disappeared. I concentrate on my breath, and force the rest of the world to fall away. This way, I can concentrate on nothing but the noises that surround us. Or I would have been able to, if Adrian didn't insist on interrupting me.

"What is it?" he whispers.

I let out a long, exasperated sigh, and ignore him. The sound is closer now, but the source is in the opposite direction that Dimitri and the others should be coming from. The jeep appears suddenly, roaring into the clearing and screeching to a halt. Adrian moves to leap out of the bushes, but I yank him back down before he can give away our position.

I wait until Dimitri and the others climb out of the vehicle. As soon as I have confirmed that they are alone, Adrian and I rush forward to greet them.

"What happened?" I demand, aiming my question at the group. "You were supposed to circle back and come from that way." I point behind them for emphasis.

"The Province is locked down," says Lissa darkly. "Nobody goes in or out. If we hadn't circled around and came from the outside like you said, we would have never made it out. They just gave us the supplies and sent us away."

I don't bother masking my surprise, "They what?"

"We can talk about this later, what matters is that we have enough food and gas to last us another week," interjects Dimitri. "We need to leave."

Together, the five of us are able to load up the jeep in less than five minutes. Mikhail climbs back into the driver's seat and Adrian, after yelling shotgun, dives into the passenger's seat.

Once we're back on the road, I'm able to pry the rest of the details out of Dimitri and Lissa. The Midwestern province has been locked down. The Provincial Guard had been vague as to why that was, but Mikhail assumed it had something to do with the missing fugitives. They had been so eager to keep anyone from sticking around to ask any questions, that they had sent Lissa, Dimitri, and Mikhail away with everything that they had asked for.

"We got lucky," I say after Dimitri finishes the story. "Something like that won't happen again."

Dimitri sits beside me in the backseat of the jeep and he squeezes my knee reassuringly. "We have no reason to have to try something like again. By this time next week, we'll be at the Havens."

Dimitri had been off on his count by one day. We ran out of gas as soon as we passed the border into the Southeastern Province. By the time we had made the 46 mile trek into the former state of Florida, we were nearly out of food. I had had a week to recover from my injuries, but the poor conditions of our journey had taken its toll. My stitches are healing, but my arm has not regained any of its former strength and my range of motion is severely limited. I had spent the week insisting that I felt stronger everyday, and find that I am thankful that I'm a skilled liar.

We decide to follow the old highways that had been used for travel before the Pulse, and eventually we pass a sign that says we have entered Leon County.

"We're almost there," says Mikhail, trying to lift everyone's spirits.

Adrian grunts in acknowledgement, but the rest of us are too exhausted to respond. Everyone wears the same forlorn, sunken expression. Lissa's skin is stretched across her bones, and she is all sharp angles and wide planes. Dimitri, Mikhail, and Adrian look thinner, but have maintained most of their muscle mass. I'm grateful to have not seen my reflection in over a week. It's hard enough to feel myself deteriorating; I'd rather not watch it happen too.

We walk for miles, and each step gets harder for me to take. I do my best to keep the pain from invading my expression, knowing that Dimitri would force us to take a break if he thought that the trek was too much for me.

The sun is beginning to sink on the ninth day when we finally see the remnants of a city looming in the distance. Our group heaves a collective sigh of relief. I would smile, but even that would require too much energy, energy I know I don't have.

We keep walking, and the idea that we might sleep under an actual roof tonight drives me forward. I try not to consider what will happen if we don't find anything, instead I think about putting one foot in front of the other.

The sun has disappeared completely by the time we reach the outskirts of the city, and we group together to discuss our next move.

"Adrian, Mikhail, and I should go ahead to scout out the city," says Dimitri in a low whisper. "Just in case."

I can barely make out his features in the darkness, but I can picture the hard lines of his face and the way they would be set in determination. "Okay," I concede, too drained to argue. "Lissa and I can find a place to hide until you get back."

We make our way further into the city before splitting up. The roads are clustered with abandoned vehicles and buses, some are even pushed onto the cracked sidewalks and we are forced to weave our way in and out of the piles of twisted metal. After the Pulse, most of the major cities had been abandoned, the damage was too extensive and we didn't have the resources to rebuild them.

Executor Ozera feared the ruins of the old world; she feared that they could hold the key to intelligence and information she had worked so hard to eradicate. Ozera had burned many of the more advanced cities to the ground even after the Pulse had done its damage.

Tallahassee had somehow managed to escape the fate that had fallen on places like Seattle and Chicago, and as I look around at the crumbling buildings and the narrow streets, I realize that it must have been because she deemed it too small to be a threat.

Dimitri comes to a halt outside of a dilapidated looking gray building. There are boards covering most of the windows, and only shattered glass remains of the ones that aren't blocked. The door is marred by scorch marks, and the knob is missing. Mikhail glances in both directions and then kicks the door down with the heel of his boot. Dimitri gestures for Lissa and me to go inside, but I find myself hesitating.

"Maybe we shouldn't split up," I say in a low voice.

"Rose," Dimitri says, placing his hands on my shoulders. "You have to rest. We're just going to do some exploring and then we'll be right back."

"Twenty minutes," I say firmly. "Be back in twenty minutes."

He squeezes my shoulders, "Twenty minutes."

Lissa and I take what remains of our meager supplies and make our way into the building. I feel Lissa grip my wrist so that we aren't separated in the dark. She holds her other hand out in front of her, groping for something to sit on.

"This way," I say, pulling her toward one of the windows that still provides a view.

We move to stand in front of it, but the night has practically swallowed the streets of Tallahassee whole and the only thing we can see are shapes.

One of the shapes moves.

Lissa's hold tightens. "Rose," she breathes. "What was that?"

My blood has turned to ice in my veins.

More moving shapes.

"We shouldn't have split up," I say, my voice nearly inaudible.

Lissa screams, but before I can react, I feel my legs crumple beneath me and I sink to the floor. Someone has thrown a sac over my head, and my sharp intake of breath pulls the fabric into my mouth and I feel like I'm suffocating. I struggle to stand, but I'm too weak. My eyes are open, but all I can see is black. I feel my lids flutter shut, and I let the black drag me under.

I think a part of me didn't want this story to end, because writing it was so hard. Every time I started to write, I would just delete my words and start over. Hopefully it turned out well. Also, I'm starting law school in August so I'm not really sure what kind of time I'll have for writing. The goal for right now is to finish Pulse, then my other fic, To Forgive and Forget, and then start posting Haven before my classes start. I'm not sure how realistic any of that is, but we shall see, for now, just nag me until I start writing.