My head pounded when I came to, and I winced in pain. I stifled my groan as I opened my eyes, coming to rest on unfamiliar surroundings.

Where was I?

"You're awake. Finally."

The last thing I could remember rushed through my head, and that was Dimitri's fist coming down after I pointed my gun at him. I forgot how fast he moved, and I forgot just how much it hurt to get hit by a mover. It was almost like they could manipulate the air around them when they fought.

I gingerly turned onto my other side to face him, taking a quick glance around the room to find the closest exit point.

"I might have hit you a little harder than intended," Dimitri said sheepishly from where he lounged in a chair, his eyes trained on me. I took a selfish look at him because I knew things weren't going to end well for me. I didn't know where I was, and if Dimitri was with Division, it was only a matter of time. Either he'd try to convince me to join, or I'd be shot.

Or drugged into submission.

I didn't say anything as I watched him. It hurt to know that the reason I hadn't seen him was because of Division. What hurt even more was the consequences of not knowing where he was. The Strigoi clan was pissed that they were able to find me, but not him. They thought they if they could dangle a 'package deal' over the heads of Division, they could get what they wanted out of Division.

But because I didn't know, or as they thought, was withholding information, they tortured me.

Dying at the hands of bleeders was not the way to go. I had seen peoples' heads pop like tomatoes because of them. Thankfully Adrian found me when he did.

"Here, take these," Dimitri said pulling me out of my musing, coming towards me with a glass of water and two pills in his hand. I eyeballed them wearily, not sure about what they were.

"It's just Advil, I promise."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Right. Like I'm going to believe that, Agent Belikov."

Dimitri sighed and came to sit down on the edge of the bed, holding the pills out towards me. "Roza, please take them. I will explain everything. Please."

"Explain. Now."

Dimitri sighed and set the pills down on the table beside the bed but forced the glass of water towards me. I took it a sniffed it before taking a tentative sip.

"I'm not with Division."

"Likely story."

"Rose."

I huffed and propped the pillows up behind me, leaning back against them as I waited.

"We were supposed to meet at Nora's that day," Dimitri started.

"And you didn't show up."

"Division caught up with me. I had stopped at Ruby's to pick up something for you, and when I turned around, one of their agents was there. I don't remember anything else other than waking up in one of their facilities."

"You went to Ruby's?" I whispered. It made sense now. Ruby's was a small little shop in the corner of the city we lived in that carried all sorts of things. She was almost like a trader of sorts. Clothes, jewelry, knickknacks, books. She had almost everything. Ruby called me later that day telling me that I had an outstanding order to be picked up. I thought it was strange because I hadn't ordered anything from her, but she insisted.

We sat in silence but I could tell that there was something he wanted to ask. I knew what he wanted to ask, but it didn't make that hurt less. It was hard to live through it once, but to have to tell him would be hard too.

"The baby?" Dimitri finally asked, his eyes closing in preparation.

I shook my head slowly and bit my lip. "I lost it. Bleeders."

Dimitri's eyes opened as he stiffened. "Bleeders?"

I nodded and slumped down in bed. Bleeders were the one type of psychic that were actually dangerous. They could produce a high frequency scream that could cause things to break, blood vessels to pop – hence the name Bleeders. They usually used their abilities to inflict pain. I had seen them shatter aquariums before with a short cry.

I was hard to watch Dimitri's heartbreak and I wanted to comfort him, but there was a part of me that was scared he was trying to lure me into a trap.

"How long?"

"How long what?"

"How long was it after I was caught did you lose the baby?"

"About a month. Losing the baby was dangerous too. Lissa's friend Adrian found me and had to smuggle me into a hospital. It almost killed me too."

Dimitri was usually a stoic man, hard to read for most. But right now he was as real and raw as I've ever seen him. The Dimitri I knew showed on his face. I could see grief and fear in his eyes as he stomached what I told him. Dimitri let out a shaky sigh and reached for me, but I pulled back from him the best I could.

"I promise I'm not with Division. I got out. I've been trying to find you for a year," Dimitri pledged quietly, moving close enough to cup my cheeks. I couldn't move back any further.

"If you aren't why did you knock me out?"

A smirk crossed his lips. "Roza; you're a shoot first, ask questions later kind of woman. You had a gun to my head. I knew there would be no reasoning with you. I didn't mean to hit you that hard though," Dimitri chuckled before becoming serious again.

He was right though. I was a shoot first kind of girl. It was part of the 'charm' Dimitri used to joke about when he spoke about his first impressions of me.

"I looked for you," I said quietly, my voice breaking for the first time.

Dimitri stroked my cheekbone softly. "I know you did. But it was safer that you didn't find me."

I furrowed my brows and leaned back. "How did you know I looked for you?"

Dimitri pulled away and walked towards the duffle bag on the dresser and routed through it for a moment before coming back to me, dropping a thick file onto the bed. I stilled when I saw the name at the top of the file.

It was a file on me.

I pulled it towards me and opened it, feeling my stomach turn as I read the opening sheet. It seemed to be a summary page about me. It had my name, my date of birth, who my parents were, their abilities, who I associated with, who I had relationships with, my abilities. The only thing that I didn't understand was the code at the top right-hand corner.

"What does that mean?"

The slight twitch in his jaw was enough of a sign. "You may be on their watch list, but if you won't go willing, you're on an execution order. They think that you're too dangerous," Dimitri explained sitting down beside me. I flipped through the file, mostly photos or reports of sightings. It was stated in the file that Division still held my mother, but they didn't have a location on my dad.

For which I was thankful. The only thing they knew was that he was alive.

I flipped through more of the file and stopped at a small black and white photo pinned to the file. I pulled it out and my shoulders dropped. My head tipped to the side and let it rest on Dimitri's shoulder, seeking comfort that I didn't have before.

"That was the last one," I said quietly. Dimitri wrapped his arm around me and pulled me tight to his side. Finding out I was pregnant was a shock. I mean, who wouldn't be shocked to find out your pregnant at twenty-two, and on the run with no real home. But that didn't mean that that baby wasn't loved.

Dimitri and I had only been dating for six months, and I gave him an out, but he didn't want it. He had said that a family wasn't something he thought he would have. We both went into that blind, but excited.

Five months of excitement led to heartache.

"How long were you tracking me? I didn't even see you coming," I asked quietly, turning my head to look at him.

"A little over six months. I broke free from Division and hide for a few months before I started looking for you. I ended up tracking down a sniff and asked them for help. You've been careful Rose; I had a hard time finding something with enough of your scent on it. But I found something."

"What did you find?" I asked, genuinely curious.

Dimitri dug under his shirt and pulled the chain from his neck out to show me. I smirked and leaned forward, pressing my lips against the pendant. I bought it for him as a joke the night we met and kissed it before we departed, and since that night I would press a kiss to it every time we had to separate. It was our little thing. We were the only ones who knew I did that.

"There was enough of my scent on that after all this time?"

"Just enough. It led me to Hong Kong. I've been here for two months before I found you," he said, tucking the chain back beneath his shirt. Who would have thought a stupid cowboy hat pendant would bring him back to me?

I smiled to myself and looked back up at him, feeling whole as the familiar sensation of his breath fanning over my face made me tingle. Dimitri's lips quirked and his eyes fell to my lips before back to my eyes. Like a magnet I leaned forward to kissed him with a sigh. I had missed the warmth of his lips and how they felt like mine were molded for his.

"What did you order from Ruby?" I asked as I pulled away.

"It was pendants, St. Christopher pendants. One for the baby and you. Ruby said she had a supplier that she could contact and have them shipped to her. That's what I was picking up that day."

I kept it. I knew that it was small because it came in a small box, but could never bring myself to open it. I kept it hidden at Lissa's.

"I never looked at it," I admitted, "I couldn't work up the nerve. Ruby called me when you hadn't picked it up. But I have it kept safe."

Dimitri nodded with understanding and kissed my head. I groaned and closed my eyes, screwing up my eyes at the pulse of pain. Dimitri gently kissed my battered temple again and held the Advil out to me again, brow raised in challenge. I took one to appease him.

"I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to hurt you," he said sullenly but I waved him off.

"How did you get out? I mean, I assume they would have pushed you to become one of them." I knew I was asking him questions like rapid fire, but I just had too many to hold them back.

"I don't know. One day it just kind of clicked and I remembered you telling me how to tell the difference between a push and reality," he said.

When you start to doubt the truth, that what I always told him. I told all the people close to me that's how to tell the difference. Eventually a pushed thought will start to become inconsistent. Even the most carefully thought-out push can unravel with the slightest hiccup. That was why I rarely pushed hard, it was easier to do small pushes. It was safer to do smaller ones.

"What was it?"

"I saw your mother," Dimitri said, "I didn't know it was her until she spoke to me."

I shifted onto my knees and looked at him with wide eyes. I hadn't heard news about my mother in years. "What did she say?!"

"She said that I needed to protect you. She said that you would have all the pieces and would know what to do. It didn't make a lot of sense though, all things considering."

"What do you mean?"

Dimitri frowned and slipped his hand into mine. "Rose. They are practically sucking the future out of her. They keep her drugged up to the point where she can't hold a spoon. I was surprised she was lucid enough to talk to me. She had this look in her eyes and honestly, it scared the shit out of me," he explained. I sank back onto my hunches deflated.

I had always hoped that she could have gotten away. But to know that they're drugging her, I just made my heart hurt for her. I took a moment to grieve everything my mother had been going through. It was one thing to be a watcher, but to be drugged so that the visions came constantly must be devastating.

My mother was one of the best. And a part of me was grateful that I wasn't as talented as her. I only had one vision a day, and they were all relatively minor. The last important one I had was a few weeks before Dimitri told me he loved me for the first time. I was strange to see him say it in my head and then hear it later, but it made me feel like I was on a cloud the whole week.

My talents truly lied with being a push.

"I could try to remove any push the Division may have put on you," I said nervously, the thought jumping into my head abruptly. There was a good chance that they pushed him to do things without remembering being told to do so. It had happened to Christian. They had a very powerful push put a thought into his head to collect intel and send it back to them even though he no longer worked for them. It happened for a few weeks before Lissa came across a letter her was writing to them. It took a few attempts, but I was able to undo the push.

The worst thing about being pushed was that you rarely knew it happened.

Dimitri looked at me with uncertainty. It was possible, but depending on how deep the push went, it could kill him.

Could I stomach that? If I tried to remove the push and it killed him? I got up gingerly and paced the small spot between the bed and the dresser. I had never removed a push from someone I knew. I had done it for people who had been pushed with a mild push, but that was in life or death situations.

Dimitri got up too and came to a stop, making stop between me and the dresser. I looked up at him and found his answer on his face. He wanted me to do it.

"Are you sure about this?"

Dimitri walked me back against the dresser and set his hands on the top of it, leaning down over me.

"Are you going to push me or not, Roza?" Dimitri asked his head dipping down to mine. I took a slow breath and pushed up on my toes, cupping his head and pressing my lips to his, just to be safe. Dimitri's hands moved to my waist and held me close.

"Okay," I said pulling away, "I'll do it. But you have to tell me if it starts to hurt, and I'll pull back."

Dimitri nodded yes, but that wasn't enough. "I need your word."

"I promise, Roza. I'll tell you."

I nodded and took a slow, deep breath. I looked in his eyes for a few seconds before I pushed him.

You'll ignore any push Division has given you.


Hello hello!:) I hope you are all doing well!

Here's the next chapter. The next should be up shortly!