Chapter 15: Attack

"Lock down the campus now!" Alberta yelled into the phone as she hit the red button near her desk.

Dimitri, Celeste and Yuri were instantly at my side as Alberta said "Tasha is missing, the cabin she was staying in is on fire and the four guardians watching her were killed."

We then heard the overhead recording about the campus being locked down, while it was the middle of the moroi night and the only people out were guardians, they were responsible for locking and guarding doorways of the dorms of students, teachers, guardians and guest quarters.

Pavel was already communicating with Abe's guardians, instructing them to get the plane ready for take- off and authorizing deadly force if Tasha attempted to get on the plane to escape. He called for two of the SUVs to be outside of the administrations building and wait for our arrival.

All of a sudden I was pulled into Lissa's head due to the panic of the alarm. She was already awake because she was getting ready to meet me to say goodbye.

"Christian, what is going on?" Lissa asked.

"I don't know Liss, but we should be safe here you have two guardians plus Tasha and I will protect you." Christian said as he embraced Lissa.

"It can't be Strigoi, the suns still out." Lissa said looking around frantic. I felt Lissa ask through the bond 'Rose what's happening, can you call me?"

I watched as Tasha faced Christian and Lissa and looked straight into Lissa's eyes and said "Rose, you have two minutes to come to Lissa's suite with my Dimka. Once Dimka and I are safely off campus I will let the Princess go. If you are not here in two minutes, I will set your precious Princess on fire."

Lissa looked down at Tasha's hands and she had fire balls in each hand.

Christian stepped in front of Lissa and yelled "What the fuck Aunt Tasha!"

"Christian get out of the way, I love you but Dimka and I are destined to be together, that blood whore has corrupted his mind and the sooner everyone realizes that, the better, and everyone can get on with their lives." Tasha stated.

"Tasha, don't do this, I love you, but I love Lissa more, don't make me fight you." Christian said as he stood protectively in front of Lissa and he had fire balls in each of his hands.

"Christian, you would fight me even though I saved you from your parents? I realize that Lissa is potentially the next in line for Queen, but there are other royal women out there. In a few years, you will realize that she was just a silly school yard crush."

"Roza" Dimitri said as he was standing in front of me with his hands on my shoulders. I was trying to get out of Lissa's head so I could let everyone know what was going on, but Lissa's emotions were so extreme I couldn't get out. But I was able to hear Dimitri and speak with him.

"Tasha is in Lissa's room and she says if you and I are not there in two minutes she is going to set Lissa on fire. And that once you and her are safely off campus, then she will release Lissa. Christian is also there and he is standing in front of Lissa trying to protect her, both Christian and Tasha have flames in their hands.

Alberta immediately tried calling Guardian Emil and Guardian Andrews who were guarding Tasha. There was no answer from Guardian Andrews but Guardian Emil finally answered on the fourth ring sounding out of it. Alberta had it on speaker, "Emil, are you with the Princess?"

"I am outside her door, someone hit me on the head from behind, I must have blacked out. Her door is locked. I don't know where Guardian Andrews is." We could hear Emil banging on the door calling for the Princess.

"Emil, Tasha Ozera is in the Princess's room threatening to burn her to death and Christian Ozera is also in there protecting the Princess. Hold on I am sending guardians to you."

Alberta spoke into her walkie talkie "All available guardians to Princess Dragomir's room, do not enter and wait for further instructions."

I was finally able to extricate myself from Lissa's head and I started bolting for the door. At the same time, Dimitri wrapped his arms around my waist preventing me from leaving. "Comrade, let me go, Lissa needs me." I tried to run to the door so I could save Lissa. I should have known it was stupid idea since Dimitri, Celeste, Yuri, Pavel and at least 4 of Abe's guardians were outside and I probably would not have made it past all of them. But I needed to do something, as soon as I took another step Dimitri's arms were locked around me, his chest to my back. Pavel, Celeste and Yuri immediately stepped in front of me just in case I got out of Dimitri's hold.

"Let me go!" I screamed and when Dimitri didn't let me go I brought my chin to my chest and threw it backwards hitting him. Due to his freakishly tall height, I only managed to hit him in the chest. I heard a grunt from him, meaning I had been somewhat successful but he still did not loosen his hold on me. Since my arms were immobile in Dimitri's hold, I tried to kick at anything behind me, but Dimitri had anticipated this and elevated me slightly off the ground. This meant that because I didn't have one leg on the ground, I had no anchor so the kick with my other leg was much weaker.

"Dimitri, let me go, you are killing Lissa." It was a low blow and I knew it but I needed to get to Lissa no matter what. I could always apologize later if we all made it out together.

"Roza, you can't go, Tasha has lost it. Even if you went there and I went with Tasha there is no guarantee that Tasha won't still try to kill both you and the Princess and possibly even Christian or me. She is not thinking logically, let the guardians who are trained do their job."

I was still struggling against Dimitri, stupidly strong Russian god. Pavel spoke up "Rose, Dimitri is right, there is no way of knowing what she will do, she is unstable".

"Rose" Dimitri yelled while he was restraining me from the back to keep me from running to Lissa's dorm.

"Roza! I know you want to go to Lissa but you can help more by being inside her head and relaying what is going on and where everyone is located in the room so Alberta can relay it to the guardians outside her door."

I looked up and saw Alberta with her phone in her hand and nodding as she agreed with Dimitri.

I stopped struggling and Dimitri cautiously started to lessen his hold on me but his arms were still around me in case I tried to bolt.

"I'm okay" I said as I went into one of the chairs to concentrate on Lissa. Because of her heightened emotions it wasn't hard to get back into her head. Just before I did, I saw Dimitri kneel in front of me and place his hands on my arms for support. When I went into Lissa's head I could feel everyone staring at me in amazement as no one had seen this happen except Dimitri and maybe Celeste and Yuri.

Once I was in Lissa's head, everyone was still in the same position, Christian was in front of Lissa and he had fire balls in his hands. I knew how accurate his aim was as he liked to throw them occasionally at me. I was trying to relay the information as best I could, I had only done it once before, during Lissa's kidnapping on the night of the lust charm. But Dimitri and I never talked about it so I am not sure how well I did in communicating while in Lissa's head.

Tasha was still in her same place, maybe 15 feet away from Christian. She spoke in Lissa's direction, but it was really directed at me "Rose, you and Dimka have 30 seconds to come through that door or your precious princess with be scarred for life, if she lives that long."

"Tasha, don't make me choose between Lissa and you. I love you both, but Lissa is my love, my life and my future and I will always choose her over you." Christian stated.

"You would choose the whiney Princess over me, after I saved your life when your parents tried to turn you Stigoi?" Tasha screamed.

In as calm a voice as he could muster in the current situation, Christian said "Aunt Tasha, I am forever grateful for everything you did for me and every sacrifice you have made, but it is time for me to make my own decisions. And if that means following Lissa to Leigh, then Court with the possibility of her becoming Queen, then that is what I am going to do. But you will have to destroy me first if you want to get to LIssa!"

As I was attempting to relay the conversation, I vaguely heard Dimitri ask me where in the room Tasha was and where Lissa and Christian were in relationship to the door.

"Tasha is to the left of the door near Lissa's desk about 5 feet from the door. Lissa and Christian are on the other side of her bed near her window about 10 feet away from the door."

I could vaguely hear Alberta relaying the information. Christian and Tasha continued staring at each other, when Tasha looked at Lissa and said "Time's up Rose, I always knew you were a coward and once my Dimka realizes that you let Lissa become scarred for life or worse killed. He will leave you and run straight into my arms. If you are lucky, maybe I will send Jesse and Ralf to pay you a visit."

All of a sudden, chaos broke out as Christian and Lissa realized that the attack against me was all Tasha's doing. Tasha was raising up her arm to throw a fireball at Christian and Lissa. But Christian was faster sending one towards Tasha and at the same time, he pulled Lissa with him to the floor where they were hidden behind the bed.

While this was going on, the door to Lissa's room was kicked in and I heard a gunshot ring out.

"Lissa" I screamed as I was pushed out of her head and I came back to Alberta's office with Dimitri still kneeling in front of me.

"Oh my God, Comrade, what have I done? I let Lissa get killed. I got pushed out of her head." I screamed at him.

Dimitri looked straight into my eyes "Roza, I don't think you got Lissa killed, it was a rescue mission ordered by Alberta."

I could see Alberta on the phone, no doubt she did not want to use the radio in case Tasha overheard the order from the hallway. I was looking intently at Alberta but she wasn't giving anything away as she was listening to the speaker on the other end of the phone.

Finally she said "Princess Dragomir and Lord Ozera are safe and unharmed. Apparently the Princess hit her head when Lord Ozera pulled her to the ground and she was knocked unconscious temporarily. But she is awake and other than her head she is uninjured as is Lord Ozera and they are both on their way to the infirmary as a precaution. Tasha was shot in the shoulder and was subdued and is now being taken into a holding cell where her injuries will be attended to and she will also be sedated so she cannot use any of her powers."

I let out the breath that I had been holding. Dimitri was caressing my cheek. I started to look around the room and noticed that Baba, Pavel and my mother were no longer in the room.

"Can we go see Lissa in the infirmary now?" I asked to no one in general.

"Of course Roza, let's go" Dimitri answered.

The walk to the infirmary was quiet but not the comfortable silence Dimitri and I usually share. Everyone was on edge and I was starting to feel horrible for what I did to Dimitri. After I know Lissa is safe than I can apologize to him.

The infirmary was a buzz of activity as there were a lot of guardians surrounding the entrance. We walked through and saw Dr. Olendzki "Hey doc can we see Lissa? Is she okay?"

"Yes Rose, come with me."

I walked in the room and Lissa was sitting on the stretcher and Christian was holding her from behind giving her support. Lissa was crying and as soon as I saw her I ran into her arms and hugged her tight.

"Rose, can't breathe" Lissa said.

"Sorry" I responded and I loosened my grip on her. "Are you okay?" As I looked her over to make sure she had no injuries, I could see a small cut on her forehead from where she must have hit but other than that I couldn't find anything wrong.

And then I did something I never thought I would ever do. I hugged Christian! "Thank you so much for keeping her safe. I am so sorry about Tasha."

"Thanks Rose, I can't believe what she was saying and threatening to hurt LIssa." Christian looked behind me and as Dimitri "Are you absolutely sure there was nothing between Tasha and you? There had to be something there, she couldn't have made it all up herself."

"I am afraid the relationship was only in Tasha's mind. I had thought she was interested in Ivan when we were in Russia and I only found out she was interested in me when she made me the offer to be her guardian. But I was very clear that I was not interested in her." Dimitri responded.

Dimitri's phone started to ring and he looked at the caller id and then he stepped out of the room. Shortly afterwards Eddie then Adrian came into the room "Hey, are you guys all okay?"

Everyone sort of nodded, we were as best as we could be under the circumstances. "So, what is this about you leaving us Hathaway?" Eddie asked.

"Um, well besides the issue with Tasha apparently due to my father's work there have been threats to my life." I said.

Adrian started "Rose, I can take you Court and keep you protected there are tons of Guardians and I am sure my Aunt will have you protected."

"Thanks Adrian, but unfortunately Court would not be safe for me."

"Where are you going?" Lissa asked me.

"It's better if you don't know, but we can talk on the phone and skype and hopefully I may be able to come back for graduation."

"You better, and be here for the dance as well, since you have a killer dress." Lissa said.

Dimitri then reentered the room "Rose, your father just called and would like us to make our way to the plane so we can take-off before the sunsets."

"Okay" I didn't want to say goodbye to my friends and I knew I would lose it if I stayed too long. I gave everyone a hug and promised to keep in touch and I followed Dimitri out the door.

"You okay Roza?" Dimitri whispered.

"Yes, No, I don't know."

Dimitri pulled me into an empty room and closed the door. He took me into his arms and caressed my cheek. "Dimitri, I am so sorry about what I said and did in Alberta's office. I shouldn't have fought you and I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Roza, it's okay, if I had been in the same situation and it was Ivan in danger, I probably would have done the same thing. Plus it was a really good effort you gave trying to get away, I almost thought at one point you were going to get out." Dimitri said trying to joke with me.

We walked out of the infirmary and one of the SUVs was waiting for us to take us to the academy's airstrip.

Abe POV

Everything we had heard about Tasha Ozera seemed to indicate she was unstable and was hell bent on hurting my daughter. While in Alberta's office, we heard Rose explaining what was happening to the Princess. I gave Pavel a look and he and I left the room and Janine was following as well. When we got to the Princesses dorm, Pavel made us wait outside while he went with the other guardians as one of them kicked in the door and Pavel shot Tasha in the shoulder. If it had been me, I probably would have shot her in the head. No one messes with me or my family.

Once Tasha was in her cell and sedated do that she was unable to use her powers, I went to have a talk with her.

"Zmey" Tasha greeted me.

"Good, you know who I am, this will save some time."

"It all makes sense now that blood whore is related to you." Tasha hissed.

I remained calm, I did not want her to know how her comments had affected me. "So, you know who I am and you know what I am capable of."

She didn't respond so I continued "If you think you are safe in here or Tarasov, you are not I can get to you anywhere I want to. If you so much as look at my daughter or speak her name, I will end you. Are we clear?" I said deadly calm.

Tasha at least had the smarts to look scared at my threat. With that said I joined Pavel and Janine as we made our way to my plane to get my daughter out of this god forsaken place.

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