***A huge thank you to Romitri99, Ginevra Annabeth Herondale, dream-big-101, Maximum Rose Ride, Rose Thorn Catli, shayisaslytherin, Guest, Do'B, Guest, L.M.T.O.P., ilovesos9467, and Guest for reviewing chapter two. This story has gotten an amazing response so far. Thank you all so much! –skd***

"Mr. Belikov," I acknowledged, desperate to get out of the gym. I quickly stepped around him, walking toward the front doors, ignoring Ivan behind me.

"Rose!" he called, following me. "What is going on here?"

"Nothing is going on – anymore," I said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go home."

"What's the supposed to mean? Did something happen between you and Ivan?"

I shot him a look. "I don't believe that's any of your business."

Mr. Belikov followed me outside. "Considering that you're a minor, it might just be my business."

I glared at him. "I may not be 18 yet, but that doesn't mean shit when it comes to sex, considering that I'm well over the age of consent." I crossed my arms. "It's sixteen if you didn't know."

"I'm aware of what the age of consent is here in Montana," he said, looking uncomfortable for a brief moment.

He took a step closer to me, and I immediately took a step backward, almost subconsciously.

"Are you scared of me?" he asked, eyes wide, taking another step. This time, I took two steps back.

"Personal space," I said vaguely, gesturing with my hand.

"Personal space?" he scoffed. "Like personal space matters to you."

"Excuse me? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"I think you know exactly what I mean," he said. At my confused look, he continued, "I've heard the rumors."

"Personal space matters a great deal to me," I snapped, angry. "You don't know a single thing about me, and I'd suggest that you don't believe everything you hear from petty teenagers in high school. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have places I need to be."

I turned away from him and started to walk back towards my apartment.

"Places to be? Like where? Fucking someone else and putting yourself in danger?" Mr. Belikov called after me, and I froze.

I whipped around and fixed him with an icy glare. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," he said, walking slowly towards me. For a brief second, I thought I saw regret flash in his eyes.

"You don't know shit about me," I hissed. "Whatever it is that you think you know about me is wrong."

"I know about your incident last year and everything else that happened," he said, crossing his arms.

I blanched. "You can't possibly know about that," I stuttered.

"Why would I lie?"

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," I said, my voice wavering. I turned and started jogging away before he could see me break.

"Rose!"

I ignored his call and just continued running.

I arrived at the apartment sooner than I thought, and it was only when I stopped that I realized just how fast my heart was racing. Adrenaline still pumped through me, and I attempted to calm my breathing as I took the stairs two at a time. The handle for the front door twisted easily under my grip, and I walked into the apartment, shutting and locking the door behind me.

"Lissa!" I shouted. "I'm back!"

I made my way to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, nearly drinking the entire thing in one sip. My note to Lissa still hung on the fridge door, and I froze. Usually, she'd write something back, acknowledging that she'd seen it, or even just take the note off the fridge.

A creak came from down the hall, startling me. Walking out of the kitchen, I noticed for the first time how messy the living room was. The pillows from the couch were tossed halfway across the room, and the coffee table was sitting crooked to the side of the living room. I could have sworn that it was in its normal spot in front of the couch earlier today.

I reached blindly for the bat that we kept in the pantry and slowly made my way down the hall.

"Lissa?"

I heard another sound, a loud banging noise, and this time it was clear that it was coming from Lissa's bedroom. I approached the door silently, noticing that it wasn't shut all of the way. I adjusted my grip on the bat before using my foot to nudge open the door further. And I promptly dropped the bat, reaching out the slam the door shut, definitely not needing to see my best friend and boyfriend making out on her bed, half-naked.

"Jesus Christ," I shouted, practically running for the safety of the kitchen. "Lock the fucking door!"

I heard Christian's low chuckle and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to rid those images from my brain. Repressing a shudder, I made my way into the living room to pick up after Lissa and Christian.

A few moments later, I heard Lissa's bedroom door open, and they appeared at the edge of the living room. I turned and stared them both down, my arms crossed.

"What the fuck?" I demanded. "Don't you know how to lock the door? Not only to your bedroom but also to the front door?"

"Sorry, Rose," Christian said with a smirk. "We were a little preoccupied."

I pretended to gag. "I don't want to hear it. But why isn't your car out front?"

"It's behind the building," he said. "That was the closest visitor parking space that I could find. Was your workout good?"

I glanced down as Christian gestured, realizing that I was still in my leggings and sports bra.

"Yeah, it was fine," I said. I gestured to the hall. "I'm going to go shower, Liss."

She nodded, and I knew that she and Christian would most likely be making out again before I even made it to the bathroom.

Christian was gone when I got out of the shower, and Lissa was perched on my bed. I quickly got dressed in a pair of sweats and an old long sleeve shirt before sitting on the bed next to her. She had me turn sideways so that she could brush my hair quickly and then braid it. She didn't speak until she had finished braiding my hair and I was sitting facing her.

"Are you okay? You seem off."

I rolled my eyes. "Seeing your best friend and her boyfriend going at will do that to you. But seriously, you couldn't have locked the front door? I thought someone had broken in."

Lissa's brow furrowed. "I could say the same about you. The front door was unlocked when we got here."

It was my turn to be confused. "No, that's not right. I definitely remember locking it before I left."

"Maybe you just thought you did?" Lissa asked.

"Maybe. I'll double-check it next time."

Lissa nudged me. "Come on. Let's go get dinner, and then we can watch something stupid on television."

I laughed. "Deal."

Nearly a week and a half of classes passed. I had no other incidents with Mr. Belikov but his words never left my head.

I know about your incident last year. I know about your incident last year. I know about your incident last year. I know about your incident last year.

That night as I laid in bed on Wednesday night, I once again found myself repeating Mr. Belikov's words in my head. Groaning, I got up off my bed and walked to my desk, reaching for my laptop. When my hands hit empty space, I frowned and turned on my bedroom light. It was nowhere in visible sight, but I was almost positive that I left it sitting on my desk this morning.

Walking into the hall, I noticed that Lissa's bedroom light was still on. I walked the short distance to the living room and checked there and the dining room to no avail. I paused in front of Lissa's door on the way back to my room, knocking softly.

"Come in!"

She was lounging on her bed, her own laptop open in front of her.

"Have you seen my laptop? I can't find it anywhere."

"No, I haven't seen it. Where did you have it last?"

"I thought I left it on my desk this morning, but it's not there."

She shrugged. "I'm sorry. You can borrow mine if you need to."

I shook my head. "It's okay. I'm sure I'll find it eventually."

I walked back to my room, shutting the door behind me. I flipped the switch, so the light shut back off, and noticed a faint flashing light coming from the far side of my bed. Using the flashlight on my phone, I laid on my stomach on my floor and looked under the bed for the source of the light. Tucked just barely in reach was my laptop, the source of the flashing light. How it got under my bed was a mystery to me, but I was thankful that I had found it.

I grabbed it and climbed back on my bed, turning on the lamp on my bedside table. I got comfortable on my bed and opened a Google Chrome window. I quickly typed Dimitri Belikov into the search engine, but it didn't provide very many relevant results. There were a few fake advertisements for contact information and a couple of articles in Russian that I didn't even bother clicking on. The last result on the first page was for Vladimir High School's staff page, which led to his class website, but there still wasn't any information I could use there either.

"Fuck!" I swore.

I had resisted Google searching Mr. Belikov for the past few days and considering that the results were so lacking, I wished that I hadn't started searching. I drummed my fingers on my laptop, trying to think of something else I could put in the search engine. I was determined to find something now.

Ivan Zeklos and Dimitri Belikov.

This time, two results came up, one of which being a Twitter account with the username ivanzeklos. I clicked on the link and scrolled through his tweets, looking for any mention of Mr. Belikov. I stopped on a picture of two young boys, one blond and one brunette. The caption was in Russian so I copied and pasted it into Google Translate.

Me and Dimka, age nine in Baia, Siberia, Russia.

Dimka?

I Googled the name Dimka and quickly figured out that it was a diminutive of Dimitri. This time, I tried searching for Dimka Belikov, and the first result was a Facebook page, belonging to a Viktoria Belikova. I clicked it and searched through her page. Her account wasn't set on private, and I could see all her posts. One post, in particular, caught my eye. Like the rest of the posts, it was in Russian, but one word, in particular, stood out to me.

Димка. Dimka.

I quickly copied the entire thing and put it through the translator. It came out mostly in a jumble and partially unintelligible but I was able to piece together enough around the mistranslated words to understand what Viktoria was trying to say. It seemed that Mr. Belikov had been living in the United States for some time now and that Viktoria and the rest of his family back in Russia missed him greatly.

There was a picture attached to the post, and it showed a slightly younger-looking Mr. Belikov and a girl who was a head shorter than him and probably a year or two younger than me. My computer made a noise, signaling an incoming message on Facebook, and I ignored it in favor of continuing to look at Viktoria's page. As I continued scrolling through Viktoria's page, I found a few other photos, but still nothing relevant to how he knew about the incident and the details involved.

My computer went off again, repeatedly, the messages quickly piling up. Rolling my eyes, I clicked on the message icon. At the top was a message from an unknown profile. I clicked the blurb, and the messages filled my screen.

It was a handful of pictures. The first one was from last year. I could tell because my hair was shorter, but the real giveaway was the fact that I was wearing the black and red cheerleading uniform that marked me as a Vladimir High School cheerleader. The next picture was taken through a set of blinds, but it was a very clear shot of me handing in my captain's armband to Coach Tegan.

The last three items that were sent scared me the most. The first one was a video, and my room appeared on the screen. The owner of the camera picked up my laptop and opened it. The screen went black, and I quickly clicked to the next picture. It was of Lissa and Christian walking towards her room, the angle making it clear that it was taken from inside my bedroom and the date in the corner making it clear that the picture was from today.

The last picture was accompanied by a message: I don't like not finishing what has been started, Rosemarie. You should know this by now. The picture was of me with my laptop open in front of me, the room barely lit by the bedside lamp. This picture was taken just now.