CHAPTER ONE: DESOLATION & ISOLATION
"And thus, the heart will break, yet brokenly live on."
Lord Byron
AUTHOR NOTES: Hi guys! Thank you for reading this story. This is my first fanfic and I hope you love it! I'm a huge fan of Vampire Academy! Please leave some love and I always love reviews to help me grow. Best, India
There was nothing except for the pounding of my heart and the beating of the rapids under the rickety bridge. I could barely feel the pain that crept down my legs, and the heavy ache in my wrist. I could only stare at the abyss under me as the man I loved drifted away into the night. The weight of the stake had been the only thing that had kept me going, and now it was gone, but so was he. My legs moving before I realize it into the coldness beyond the bridge, beyond the Estate, and beyond Dmitri. Blinding lights shining in my face as the cold kept burning into my essence. My eyes barely registering onto the older women before me as the broken Russian came creeping out of my lips in a desperate plea: "H-. Help.. Pomoshch". That was the last thing I could hear myself say before I came crashing down onto the snow coated Siberian highway in the emerald cloth that was the last piece of him and the Estate.
The metallic smell drafting into my nostrils and the soft beeping sound of machines came filtering into me as I looked around the room. It was a hospital room. Walls bleak with little directions, sheets too itchy, and a window that I knew was locked. The surprising thing was the blonde curled up in the corner with the Golden Lily tattoo marring her perfect skin. Sydney, the Alchemist came for me. I pushed myself up slightly from the bed as I glanced towards my hand and the coil of tubes on it. I yanked until the IV jilted out of my hand and left behind a tiny drop of crimson. I could almost flinch at the startling color before me but was interrupted when the brown eyes in front of me awoke. "Rose, you're awake?" She had the perfect voice almost a fusion of so many languages. I tried to give her the smile that I had used on Lissa, Adrian, and Dmi-.. "Looks like it doesn't it?" The edge of cockiness always creeping into my voice. "They didn't think you would make it... No one did." Sydney came up from the chair to the edge of the bed as a look of concern flashed onto her features. Her hand reaching out as she sharply grasped my neck, thumb running over the bites, then retracting, I reached to shove her back slightly but was restrained by the maze of tubes connected to my body. "Did you, do it?" Sydney paused slightly as she waited for my reaction. "Yes, I did it... He's, uh, gone.". It was so simple to say it out loud instead of feeling for it inside of me when all I felt was numb. She nodded briefly before turning to the hall probably looking for the nurse. But instead came in the man with the pirate earring and the scarf that looked like it belonged in Bermuda more than in the Siberian hospital room. His eyes almost black washed into an unreadable expression. His body leaned against the chipping teal paint as his fingers pulled small circles across the silk scarf. "Sometimes, Rosemarie, it is harder to be the one who survived.".
There it was the cold hard truth slipping out of the serpent himself, Zmey. It was strange for a man so adept in fashion and illegal goods, feared by most, that Abe could be the one to tell me the truth. But perhaps those viewed as bad knew the depth of isolation, of survival. My voice choked: "What do you want, Abe? I did not tell you how far I would go when you asked me to go.". The chestier cat smirked as he pushed up from the wall slinking forward towards the bed. His hands wrapping around the scarf then bringing it around my slender neck. I reached my hands up to meet his as the scarf crept onto the marred skin of my punctured neck. He twisted his hand over and revealed the thing that I had dreaded most. Home. He showed me home.
There it was in printed writing. It was the one-way ticket back to Montana. "You are going back this time to Montana, Saint Vladimir's, Rose.". I knew it was time but looking at him and out the window to the land that once was Dmitri's, I couldn't bear it. His fingers coiled the scarf tighter around the olive skin as I studied the colors. The scarf like this did not belong in a place of dreary. It belonged in the light. "Who hired you?". Again, Zmey's face contorted into an unreadable expression as he pressed the call button. Ding, ding. He left as the nurse came. The pale face of the nurse moved into the T single bow. My legs did not feel like my own because the moved even though I felt like I was dreaming. It went from the room to the town car with Zmey and the flashes of Sydney's face then onwards to the stormy airport, and finally into a seat with a bag next to it, letter poking out of the corner of the material. It was the last thing I saw before the grasp of the darkness consumed me into slumber. The humming of the plane under my body.