If I could be grateful for one thing in my previously dark and difficult childhood, it would be learning about the importance of loyalty.
Right now though, I hated the word.
My father had always shouted and preached about never breaking ties with your "true" family or with your own kind of people and that anyone who did was lower than dirt.
He already considered me lower than dirt, so helping the police put him away; I never felt an ounce of guilt or like dirt in any way.
Right now, I felt worse than I could possibly imagine, worse than anything my father could call me.
I was a traitor.
I was leaving and giving up Dimitri and anything we could have had together.
And for what someone may ask?
For my supposed best friend who, if she truly was my closest friend, wouldn't have asked me to give up what had become so precious to me out of fear.
I guess I did inherit somewhat of a trait, I might have actually learned a lesson growing up in the world I did: it was to be loyal to those you consider close to you, to anyone you couldn't stand leaving.
I must be a hypocrite though, since loyalty faded when it came to Dimitri.
I was at somewhat of a crossroads, a two way street.
On my left was Lissa, long time friend and someone I'd once made a promise to stick by no matter what the cost and on my right was Dimitri…
The sweetest and most gentle man I had ever met…a man that I once confessed my love to…a feeling he returned.
However, this adventure ends, I know I'll think back and wonder why it seemed so difficult to choose one over the other when I should have chosen Dimitri, when it seemed best to choose Dimitri.
For now, I'd already made my decision, even if I wasn't too happy with it.
I wasn't too crazy about Lissa right now either, even if it had been my choice.
"You're this for your self," Lissa tried telling me. We were on a city bus that was headed into the dangerous part of town where we assumed our fathers were. "You always used to say how you never do anything for your self. Remember? As a little girl you used to complain that no matter how hard you tried being a good daughter, your father never appreciated you and still hated you."
I flinched at how easily the words came from her mouth.
"I remember Liss."
"Okay, so keep that feeling in mind and you'll be okay. If we do this, we'll be much better off."
"How do you figure? Abe has always looked for good reasons to kill me. Normally, he hit me without a reason but now that I'm going back to him for you and to help you he has motivation, reason and I'm positive, a nice layout plan on how he wants me to die. You might bet off easy. Your father isn't nearly as awful. In what way am I better off?"
I hissed.
A few people sitting around us on the bus glared but turned away the second we looked at them.
Lissa sighed as if it took great effort for to get the words out of her mouth.
"We'll plead, beg, offer them tips on how to avoid the police raid and in return they might spare us."
"No they might spare you! I'm night even sure any more why I came with you."
She whipped her head around, her eyes wide with surprise.
"You promised. When we were kids, we promised-"
"To stand by each other, no matter what. So long as we had one another we'd be okay," I finished angrily than she had started. "Yes, I remember the promise. You know what Liss, over the years, it seems I've kept to my end of the promise more than you have."
"That's not true," she shuddered. Her grip on the pole we were leaning on tightened, her knuckled turning white and shaking.
The bottoms of her eyes filling with tears.
Normally, I would have taken everything I'd said back and apologize and things would return to normal. This was different. This was me choosing sides. This was a choice that affected what would happen with my life.
The crying thing with Liss didn't affect me the way it used to.
I'd really changed.
"Yes it is," I retorted. "The time you got lost when you mother took you into the city when she was dealing," I said putting great emphasis on the word so that it would get through to her, "and I snuck out of the house to get you after you called me crying. I went through the rain at night in a bad neighborhood to find you and you've never thanked me when I brought you home. The next day when you saw how badly I was hurt when my father caught me sneaking back into the house, you said nothing."
"Rose-"
"Last month when I tried to stop Ambrose from raping you and you did nothing!"
"Rose stop."
All of the hurtful memories I'd built up inside were rising up and boiling over.
"Or the time Andre accused you of using his drugs and held a knife to your throat and I took the blame. Lissa I still have nightmares and scars about that day! Everything your family has done to you and me, your "best friend" who you rarely do anything for, and you want me to give up the one good thing I've ever had in my life and help them because you're SCARED!"
"You made your own choice by coming with me!"
"To protect you! Because I actually care about what happens to my friends."
The bus stopped at the corner where the downtown of the city started to worsen and we got off glaring and shouting at each other. I notice two policemen in a car across the street hiding off to the side of the alley in between the good part of town and the bad staring at us.
Lissa saw them two and we moved further up the street out of view.
I grabbed her arm when she started walking and turned her, yanking her toward me.
"What do you want from me? To say I'm sorry about what happened in the past over the years?" she asked her voice shaking.
I let go of her arm and stepped back.
"I don't want anything from you anymore. I'm not even sure how we stayed "friends" this long." My voice lowered to a whisper my eyes on the ground. "I used to believe in that promise that your always reminding me of and that if we stuck together everything would be alright. I had that with Dimitri and I gave it up. I made my choice and I know it was a mistake now. I'm done with you Lissa."
I stepped away from her further, into the shadow of a near building.
"Rose, please I need you," she murmured, the tears falling.
I was shedding a few teardrops my self but I kept stepping back, away from her.
"No you don't. You need someone to take the blame and the consequences that come with it if they won't take you back."
"That's not true I can't do this alone. Please."
It was the pleading that stopped me from moving any farther away. Gangsters, thugs, junkies, dealers, hookers, innocent people who were just moving from one place to another with wanting any trouble moved around us.
I was vaguely aware of anyone else near us.
The tension and enormity of it all seemed to overwhelm me. I calmed a little bit, from my earlier ranting, and was breathing heavily through my mouth.
Loyalty. Choices.
I hated both those words at the moment.
"Fine. I get it you hate me."
"Yeah. I do," I said harshly.
I wasn't sure I'd meant it though.
She stared unblinkingly for a few moments before speaking.
I sighed and moved to stand in front of her. I put my hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye. She was always a little taller than me and older than me by a year or two but right now I was holding the sensible, older role.
I turned her around and immediately we could both see the tallest building at this end of the ceiling. It was at the far end of the street but no one could miss the flashy cars and three guards out front.
People crossed the street to avoid getting as close to the building of all evil as possible.
"Do you see what I see?"
She started shaking her head but stopped, taking a quick breath.
"For once in your life, stop turning a blind eye to the awful things around you and look at what's going on," I whispered standing behind her. I held my grip on her shoulders tight, not to keep her from bolting or because I thought she'd run but just because I'd had enough.
She couldn't put me through this any more.
She had to see for herself.
"Look up, directly, straight ahead," I ordered. "The outside is a façade, a building, seemingly harmless but everyone is privy as to what goes on inside." I was using strong words I knew would get through to her. "Our father's built that building. They control what business goes on inside. They control their families just as much. Maybe even worse."
"I see it," she whispered.
I kept going.
"Main Rules of Mazur and Dragomir: loyalty and Obedience; double cross them and break any of these rules and you end up in death's hands."
I said it without any emotion in my voice. Lissa stood unmoving under my hands staring at the shelter we were positive housed our fathers.
"No amount of begging, pleading, admission of guilt is going to save you. You're afraid that you'll help the police and every criminal we've ever known and come into contact with will end up in jail. Our father's our powerful though. They control almost every major city on this side of America and hold strong power in all other cities. You think they'll come after you and punish you in ways you could never imagine. You think that running to them now and asking for forgiveness will get you back on their side and save you and that they'll spare you."
She nodded.
I finally really understood her fear, why she was so reluctant.
I had my own fears and I still had a while to get over and let go of them.
So did Lissa. I could at least help her get started in getting past her fears and maybe turning her around.
It wasn't too late.
"You couldn't be more wrong. Whatever they could do to you if they do manage to order hits out on us from prison would be a million times worse if you walk into that building right now."
"My odds of walking away from all of this alive are better if I stay on the police's side."
"You're odds of being alive and happy…with Christian, a man I know would do anything to protect you, are greater if you stay on the police's side."
At the mention of Christians name she turned around to face me, a new light in her eyes.
"You afraid of the outcome and of being alone and having no one to protect you."
She nodded. I could relate.
I had those same fears before.
"You afraid of not having a family."
She nodded again moving a strand of her hair out of face.
I noticed I sounded like I was giving her a random intervention but I kept going.
"Family means more than blood," I said simply.
"It means love," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "It means having people care about you."
"You already have that. We left it behind but it's not to late to turn around and go back."
"Christian will be-"
"No matter how angry he might be, happiness over knowing that you're safe and you're with him will outweigh that."
She nodded.
She took one last glance back at the building.
We both sighed.
"So much change," I muttered.
"So much change."
"Let's go, okay?"
She nodded.
We turned to wait at the bus stop again.
I thought about everything I said and admitted to Lissa and how I told her I hated her. I'm sure she was replaying the argument in her head too but silently, to her self just like I was. I don't think we were really friends, not the same way we used to be but if this really was a change and a fresh start like Dimitri and I had declared, maybe we could forget all of that, now that it was out in the open, and get past it.
Maybe things would look up.
We moved from under the building we were standing under shadow and I walked right into someone.
Lost in our thoughts, Lissa and I simply moved and tried to avoid running into whomever we bumped into again. The person sidestepped and blocked us.
I finally looked up, realizing the person was blocking us intentionally.
Victor.
I gasped and stepped back.
Lissa, who had bumped into someone else, backed into me, gaping mouth open.
From my peripheral I could see it was Andre…
...and from the other side of the building came Adrian…
…and from across the street came Mikhail.
Oh damn.
Victor, his cane/stake in hand, looked down at me with what can only be describe as a wicked grin, the thin of his skin stretching far at the side of his aging face.
He had been leaning on his cane/stake combo thing but leaned off of it, taking the cane in his hands.
He looked down at it, admiration clear across his face for being the proud owner of such a gravely, deadly weapon.
Adrian stood in front of Lissa; his hands in the jeans of his pockets, his coat intentionally ride open to show the thick gun at the belt of his jeans and the stake in the other.
Mikhail, for once, wasn't giving me that creepy smile I'd always associated with Victor and a pervert. He wore something between a cross of sheer hatred and blank nothingness if that was possible. The gleam in his coal black eyes said other wise, exposed his true thoughts, running every possible scenario of what he could do if he had only a few moment alone with me, all of the scenarios ending in death, my own.
Andre…Lissa's older brother I hadn't seen in a while, stood, back against the wall, casually lounging. Her ran his tongue around the side of his cheek, unsmiling. Andre never smiled. He didn't have the dark sense of humor most employees of the Mazur's or Dragomir's had. He was all business and cold blooded. He was the first person to pull out his knife (guns were too quick and painless for his taste) and the last person you wanted to cross; the last person most of the deaths in this large city were attributed to and saw before they met their demise.
I imagine Lissa and I would end up on that list.
I was pretty sure his own parents held the only amount of fear they could manage for their son. Why he worked under them and didn't just take them out was because of his tiny ounce of fear of my father.
When I thought about…it always came back to my father.
It always came back to fear and death was traveling close behind.
Victor gripped the casing of his stake, fingering the handle.
I suddenly noticed that the streets, only minutes before so crowded, were completely empty save for a few delusional homeless men. Even the junkies sobered enough to go elsewhere. Mazur and Dragomir workers owned the streets and everyone on them.
They created, enforced and were fear incarnate in itself.
"There's been a lot of talk about you two. At first, I couldn't believe you two bitches would be so stupid as to betray us." His voice was low, spoken barely so that we could hear.
"I couldn't believe you two whores would be so stupid to come back here," Adrian said, the tip of his thumb on the handle of his knife.
Victor made a face of agreement.
Lissa's brows had risen at Adrian's use of the word whore.
Noticing, he chuckled softly.
"You think I couldn't put two and two together and guess you were screwing around with that cop." The way he said cop made it sound like a dirty word.
He muttered a few explicatives under his breath.
"You're even a dumber bitch than I originally thought," he chuckled. "You know what? I'm actually glad that you did this because now, killing you would be doing a lot of people a great favor and it wouldn't have been the pointless death I was originally planning."
"You were going to kill me," Lissa whispered. Her voice faltered a bit.
She grabbed at my hand, tight but shaky.
"You honestly thought I'd keep you around?" He laughed to himself, his hand on the end of the knife tightening. He pulled it out and waved it tauntingly, flipping it into the air and catching it again. Eyes following the knife he said," the sex might have been good for a while but once that faded, and believe it would have eventually, and I had a permanent residence in your family business, there'd be no point to you being around. I've heard that "demeaning" saying that women are only good for one thing but honestly honey, you weren't even too good at that," he laughed.
If Lissa hadn't been so scared, she would have been embarrassed.
She squeezed my hand so tight that the bones at my wrist were starting to pop and crack.
"I hope that boyfriend of yours, Christian isn't it? I hope he feeling a little bit differently than I do." Adrian stepped forward, so close to Lissa she could probably hear his heart beat. "I hope he comes down hear and tries to save that pathetic waste that you are only to find whatever parts of your body I decided to leave behind."
"That sounded like a good plan. I'm sure Dimitri would be just as eager to find Rose in the same position. I wonder what parts of Rose I should leave behind. I have a little bit of time to make up for," Mikhail said yanking out his own stake from behind his back. If gleamed in the little sunlight that showed from between the buildings. He looked up at it, touching the end of it, pricking his finger on it.
Victor unsheathed his stake; his most prized and treasure possession, and leaned his cane against the wall.
"I don't care what you two leave behind, so long is I get a few slices in," he said, carelessly whipping his stake back and forward. It made that quick swishing sound against the wind.
"Deal," Adrian and Mikhail said in unison.
"I want my cut."
Lissa and I both looked at Andre, who hadn't spoken yet but carelessly stared at the ends of his fingertips and then wiped invisible dirt from his knife blade.
It wasn't him who had spoken though. Another figure stepped from behind the building and stood between Mikhail and Adrian.
Jesse.
"Deal," Mikhail and Adrian said again.
Jesse yanked out his own stake, a lot sharper and rigged at the edges than the others and bound to hurt more.
"Maybe when we're done with them and their still alive…" Mikhail let the words trail off, leaving the other men to finish the sentence on their own.
"No. I want them gone. I should have had a few guys bring Belikov down hear to make him watch both Rose and his family die before his eyes. They don't deserve leniency though. Sending them into the sex ring would be too easy, too kind."
"Not if I had a minute with them," Mikhail muttered.
Jesse cut his eyes at him. "Dead. Gone. I want their bodies unidentifiable. Maybe I'll pay the Belikov family a little visit when I'm through."
I gasped, wanting to bring my hands to my face, appalled at the thought of-
"I should make you watch," Jesse said to me.
"After all of the trouble they've put us through? Definitely," Adrian said grinning, showing all whites.
"I agree," Victor said rubbing his thumb along the blade.
Mikhail looked less than happy but still a little ecstatic at having Lissa and I before him at his mercy. "Fine."
Victor inched his finger up and down the metal as if measuring.
"I'm wondering how far I should stick this in," he said as if answering my thoughts. I tried to hide the shutter that shook my body.
"I can give you a few ideas on where to stick it in," Mikhail muttered.
Adrian laughed, darkly amused.
And then her went for Lissa.
His arm stretched out so fast I didn't see his hand until it was already tight in Lissa's hair and tugging her toward him.
We held our hands tight and together though.
All of our earlier words forgotten we clasped our hands so tightly together I feared we'd morph into one.
The four of them laughed and Andre stood to the side, still not saying a word only flipping his already clean knife over as I fearful to use and get it dirty with our blood. He was going to use it though and would simply clean it off later for his next victim.
I'd seen him do it before.
A quick swipe across the neck…
Adrian pulled at Lissa, his own blade already so deep in her skin a scarlet stream of blood trickled down, onto her shoulders, dampening her blouse.
She didn't let go of my hand though and I didn't let go of hers. My nails dug so deep into her skin but she was sure to feel the pain of the knife more than my nails imbedded in her skin.
"I'm growing tired of your togetherness," Victor sighed.
In one quick motion, he reached for the case of his stake, made of hard, heavy metal it self, and raised it easily above his head, smashing it down onto my wrist.
A heating unimaginable amount of pain ran the length of my arm but center at my wrist. There was a distinct cracking sound of metal on bone and the cry of pain that escape my lips.
"Nice shot," Mikhail compliments.
"What are you talking about? I missed. I was aiming for both wrist," he hissed.
Mikhail simply laughed and brought the casing of his stake a little less heavy than Victors and brought it down onto Lissa's wrist.
"There. Now they're both hit," he said amused.
That last hit broke our grip and Lissa slipped from my fingers even as I reached for her to the very last second. She faltered and fell away from me, landing against Adrian who shoved her away from him onto the ground.
The sound of her head hitting the pavement rang in my ears and I felt a little relieved I didn't have to see it happen.
Adrian went on, rambling with a few explicative in between, encouraging Mikhail to bring the end of the stake sheath down as he did it. I flinched each time Lissa cried out and not at the own pain of Jesse's blade running along the side of my face.
Only the left side was exposed as I turned away trying to run or move, instinctively.
I tried keeping my thoughts on Lissa.
The burning sensation of streaks of blood running along the side of my face and arm, shredding my sweater made it hard to focus though.
Lissa was wailing, not used to taking as much pain as I was. I wanted to go to her and make it all stop for my best friend. I wanted it all to stop. I wanted both of safe and warm in the arms of those we loved and who loved us in return.
Dimitri.
DPOV"Two patrol men spotted two girls that fit the photos of Rose and Lissa we issued out in the downtown area of the city," Kirova told us, half an hour later, as we made our way to the parking garage.
"You think it was a good idea to put their faces on ever iPhone of every available cop. What if one of the dirty cops finds them first? Then what?" Christian asked,
He was still pissed off that Lissa and Rose had snuck away so easily.
I was a little steamed my self.
We made our way to my truck and climbed in, Kirova in the passenger seat, Christian and Tasha in back.
Kirova suggested we bring Tasha so that the girls could be taken away as quickly as possible when we found them.
If we found them.
I couldn't help thinking it but immediately wished I hadn't.
Instead I paid attention to the intensity around me.
Christian was two seconds from punching my back window out with his fist, Kirova was so eager to end all of this right now, today; she was fidgeting uncontrollably in her seat. I was seconds from putting pedal to the metal and driving off of the parking structure onto the street. Even if we were on the fourth floor.
Natasha was the only real calm, sane one.
It might have been because she didn't really have connections to this case.
"I think that if it really were dirty cops who found them first that they would report it back to us," Kirova said reading her phone.
"They would if they wanted us to find their bodies wouldn't they," Tasha said from the back.
The three of us shifted in such a way to stare and glare at her with expressions asking if she was seriously making this matter worse.
It wasn't like we weren't already thinking the worse by our selves.
"Sorry," she said, a bare note of empathy in her voice. She looked away from us to her phone.
I turned back to the road, two dozen patrol cars behind me, undercover cars, police issued cars, a SWAT team truck and personal vehicles following behind us, driven by on duty and off duty cops all together.
We sped down the roads, cars swerving onto the sidewalk and opposite, wrong side of the streets to get away from our path and avoid us. We ran who knows how many lights and stop signs, barely avoided a handful of pedestrians.
It didn't matter to me.
Not much, not now.
Not with Rose on my mind.
"She has a point," Kirova said after a while.
No one said anything to that.
I continued driving by Kirova's directions and instructions on where to go.
After what seemed like and eternity we made it. We were on one of the worst streets in the state; the street where the nice parts of the city ended and the dark criminal side began.
It was completely deserted.
Except for far off into the distance.
"Lissa," Christian said, sitting up straight and unbuckling his seat belt even as I was still driving closer down the street, gun in hand.
"Rose," I breathed
RPOVI thought I had felt pain in all ways possible.
I thought I'd lived through the worst of it.
Everything before today was NOTHING compared to how I felt now.
I stopped screaming after the first five minutes and they dragged me against the ground further down the street in front of the Mazur and Dragomir building, my nails scraping against the cement all of the way, the end breaking off into trails of blood.
The side of my cheek scraped the ground when I tried rolling and getting away only making more scars on my face. I could hear Lissa, not far from me, crying and wailing, screams and sounds I would never forget for the rest of my life.
These were cries that shook a person to the bone that no human being of animal for that matter, should ever have to bring to voice.
This was pain no one should have to endure.
Adrian and Jesse worked on Lissa, laughing and chatting as if they were doing something as natural as having tea and discussing strategies of chess.
This was all a game to them.
"…never had more fun in my life. Watching and making you squeal this way is much better than making you squeal in bed," Adrian chuckled.
Lissa cried out, muttering Christians name.
It only made them cut and hit and kick her even more.
They beat her down until her screams were nothing but a hiss and then a bare whisper from a horse voice.
I tried to turn and keep her focused on me but Mikhail and Victor had my attention.
I tried raising my hands and blocking the quick hits and punches. They solve the problem that was preventing them from getting any good hits to my face but taking my arms and wrist in such a way, that I couldn't lift them from beside me.
Mikhail leaned over me, preventing me from using my legs to fight back.
I tried remembering everything Dimitri taught me in the few times we were able to train but my mind blanked.
I was on the defense and the others were on the offense.
I don't even think I was on the offense.
I was below a victim.
I was just trash they needed to get rid of.
Lissa and I both were.
From the side of my view I could see Andre casually waiting, leaning against the front of the building. He'd gone in to bring our fathers our as Victor ordered and came out a few minutes after.
Abe came, grinning, pride in his eyes at the work his boys had done, hand behind his back, strolling over toward us.
He raised a hand to call them off of us and they did, reluctantly, after sticking and slicing a few more times, breathing hard, out of breathe. Eric Dragomir, all blond hair and green eyes came out afterward.
He didn't seem as satisfied as Abe was but then again he showed about as much emotion as his son did.
"Nice work boys. Who found them?" Abe asked bending down in his clean, dark blue suit, a silk scarf loose around his neck, examining his employee's work.
"Two of our patrol men," Jesse said panting, wiping the end of his knife off.
He motioned somewhere down the street, the alley where Lissa and I had seen the patrol car before. The police car drove toward us, two cops, young, and clean shaven, barley old enough to even drive, let alone to be cops, got out, chewing gum. Ignoring the two bodies before them, they looked directly at Jesse and then to Abe.
"How were sure it was them?" Abe asked curious. "We have a lot of homely, trashy looking girls around here."
"There was a photo of the two of them sent out to every cop on the force," the youngest of the two said.
"Which means that soon every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a badge will be here. Why didn't you inform me on this sooner," Abe said calmly, too calmly, his voice deadly.
He looked at Jesse who looked at the cops.
"We weren't sure on how to proceed…especially since we had to call it in and inform our boss that we spotted them," the youngest stuttered, turning his hat in his hands.
"You called it in to Kirova!" Jesse shouted.
Abe just shook his head, disappointed, like he was speaking to an intolerant child.
"Novice workers. I thought it was suggested we hire more of the cops because it'd be easier on us," Abe muttered. "Are you simply insane or just moronically idiotic?"
Calm, cold, deadly voice.
The young officer shared a scared, frightened look with his partner.
"W-we had to. If we didn't call it in and reported back, Kirova would have been suspicious," he stuttered.
"You idiot," Jesse muttered. "You could have called in and said there was no sign of them," he said barely above a whisper.
The officers looked at one another like this idea was just dawning on them.
Abe shook his head disappointed again and grabbed the gun at the side of Andre's belt. Andre, unmoved by the action, continued cleaning his knife.
The officer's eyes widened and were barely able to utter a "N-no," before one shot was fired, directly into his chest, above the vest he was wearing and into his skin. Not deadly but painful.
He fell to the ground.
The other backed away, like he actually thought he'd make it to his car and using his gun at his waist didn't dawn on him.
Abe smiled and fired again in the same spot.
"If you want something done you have to do it your self."
He slid the gun into Andre's hold again and turned to go back inside. Over his shoulder he said, "Finish the job and fast. Eric and I will escape in back."
"And the bodies sir?" Mikhail asked,
"Leave them. That's what I plan on doing with Janine and Eric with his wife," he said easily.
The three of them shrugged, except for Victor and Andre who were apparently too classy for that. Eric, a man of few words (but many mistresses) followed behind my father, barely giving a glance to Lissa.
Abe hadn't even looked at me.
I always guessed my death would be at his own hands but it appeared even with death, I wasn't worth it to him. That only made it easier to not hate him, but something beyond hate. To feel nothingness.
Hate meant caring and no one could possibly care for a monster like him.
Especially me.
The pain on my body had felt like it worsened around him, the chilly cold of his darkness rolling off of him in waves, leaving icicles of pain prickling on my skin. The flames of my wounds increased and returned the second he and Dragomir went inside though.
I waited to feel the cool metal of stakes on my skin again, leaving behind their stinging mark. It didn't come though.
When I dared open my eyes again and look up at my attackers, they looked beyond us down the street where I could sense and even see hundreds of cars coming toward us. There was even a lead police car with a bullhorn.
I didn't feel safe at the sight of this though.
Not with the idea of all of these policemen being traitors and coming to help finish Lissa and I off, playing in my mind.
Even with the idea of Dimitri coming to rescue me as he had so many times before.
I moved my head slightly and caught sight of Lissa, who was still awake, still breathing, barely.
She shifted her head, slightly catching my gaze and tried to smile and whispered, barely, an audible, "Christian."
She even kind of relaxed.
I wanted to shake her and tell her we weren't out of the clear yet.
Not with Andre's gun and Adrian's gun out and their finger's on the trigger.
I caught their smiles, the glint and gleam of the gun, flashing across their faces.
"Let's do this. We still have time to getaway with the time it takes to clear the area of potentials," Jesse said raising his own gun.
I heard a click, the clock at the handle and then the ear-shattering explosion as the trigger was pulled.