That Dimitri had heard the news about Rose was obvious as soon as Lissa and Christian approached his allocated room in Guardian Quarters. Instead of the usual two Guardians flanking his door, there were six gathered—and when Lissa entered his room, she could see why.
The usually pristine space had been trashed. Books, CDs, furniture, and clothing flung in every direction. The only thing that seemed to have escaped the former Guardian's wrath was a photo of his family which lay, the glass and frame miraculously unbroken, on top of a pile of clothing on the floor. Every other pane of glass was shattered; his window and the mirror in his bathroom reduced to jagged shards on the floor. But the saddest thing in this destroyed space was the man who had caused the destruction.
Lying on his back on the bed, wearing the casual clothes and duster he'd worn to Her Majesty's funeral, Dimitri's hands were cuffed in front of him. Even in his sleep, he was twitching and grimacing in pain.
"I'm sorry, Princess Dragomir," one Guardian said. "He just went berserk. When Perkins arrived on shift and confirmed the rumor Hathaway junior was dead, Belikov knocked him clean out. Browning tried to subdue him and ended up with a broken nose for his troubles. Belikov was breaking everything in sight and a danger to himself. In the end, it took six of us to hold him down until they could get a doctor up here to sedate him."
Tears pooled in Lissa's eyes as she observed the pain etched across Dimitri's face. The man had already experienced so much loss. To now lose Rose—particularly with things the way they had been between them—must be unbearable.
Stepping through the debris to Dimitri's bedside, Lissa ran her hand over his forehead, sending a blast of soothing spirit. She wasn't sure how effective it would be, but his twitching was less severe, and his face looked perhaps a little less strained afterward.
"We might as well clean up," Christian said, appreciating there was little else they could do to aid Lissa's former Guardian. Since they couldn't, in good conscience, leave two Moroi alone in a room with a violent and emotionally unstable Dhampir, even if he was sedated, the Guardians helped them sort the space—removing the broken furniture and returning the chest of drawers to its usual place. Sadly, falling Guardian numbers meant there were plenty of empty rooms to raid for identical furniture to replace what had been broken, which is what they did.
Recognizing Dimitri might not appreciate her touching his undergarments, Lissa focussed on gathering up his books and placing them one by one on the small bookshelf brought in to replace the one he'd obliterated. A few of the books had separated from their spines, no doubt thanks to being flung against the wall, but mostly, they could be salvaged. Looking at the covers, it seemed that the former Guardian favored Westerns. It seemed such an unlikely genre for a Dhampir raised in rural Siberia, but really what did she know of Dimitri and his life? He had been tasked with knowing everything about and protecting her, not the other way around. It was a sobering realization of how little she knew about the man who had once pledged his life for hers.
Christian was slowly folding and placing Dimitri's clothing back in the chest of drawers. With no idea how Belikov liked his belongings sorted, he went with briefs and socks in the top drawer, tanks and T-shirts in the next, and anything else in the bottom drawer. Despite the wreckage in the room, it took no time at all to right it—a testament to just how little the guy owned.
"How long is he likely to be out?" Christian asked, wondering whether they should leave. The Guardians had already contacted a glazier to fix the window and medicine cabinet, so there was nothing left to do.
"At least another two or three hours," the Guardian who'd spoken with Lissa replied. "But the doctor will come by again before then. They want to bring him up slowly, so they'll sedate him again, but at a lower dose. The guy is stronger than anyone I've ever met. Can't risk him going postal again."
Lissa nodded in understanding. "Please call me when he starts coming to. He's going to need a friend as he comes to terms with what's happened." As his regular guards, these Guardians were aware there'd been something between Rose and Dimitri. They'd all heard his repeated refusals to see her, and likely deduced it was because it was too painful for him.
"I'm not sure that's wise. There's no knowing what his state of mind is going to be when he wakes."
"It will be fine. Guardian Belikov has always defended and protected me. I don't need to fear him." He would never hurt her. At least now, Lissa's subconscious added, recalling the horror that had been her former Guardian as a Strigoi. But now he was again Dhampir, she was safe with Dimitri since he credited her as the person who'd saved him from that horrifying state.
It was raining the day of Rose's funeral. A steady, soaking downpour, it was heavy enough on the roof of the church to make the space feel chilly and somewhat oppressive. Only the frontmost pews filled, thanks to Janine's insistence on a private funeral. Because of the circumstances of her passing, Rose's service had the potential to become some sort of public spectacle, so Alberta, Janine, and Vasilisa had sat down and drawn up a list of those who would be there for the right reasons.
There'd been a few last-minute additions—some Guardians from St. Vladimir's who'd flown in for Tatiana's funeral had stayed on at Court and asked permission to pay their respects to the recently graduated student. Other requests, such as the one from Jesse Zeklos, had been refused, Lissa politely explaining it would be a very small service. Basically, family only.
Sitting between Lissa and Alberta, Janine had not said a word since she'd arrived. Wearing her smartly pressed dress uniform—as was every other Guardian there—her face was the perfect impassive Guardian mask, if you ignored her red-rimmed eyes.
Dimitri looked handsome and surprisingly composed where he sat further along the pew between Christian and Tasha. While he was yet to be formally reinstated, in an act of beneficence, Croft had allowed him to wear his dress uniform to say goodbye to his former mentee. The woman he'd loved. Lissa was glad to see Belikov quiet, but not sedated. The first few days after Rose's passing had seen him drugged by Court's doctors to keep him placid. By the third day, he'd quietened enough to be taken off any tranquilizers, but since then he'd refused to leave his room.
Lissa had visited him every day, for all the good it did her. Dimitri would not interact with anyone, even the Guardians who brought him his meals three times a day. It was only yesterday, when she'd dropped by to tell him that Guardian Croft had given his permission for Dimitri to wear his formal Guardian uniform for Rose's service, that she'd gotten a nod of the head and a soft mumbled thanks.
A lack of responses didn't seem to bother Tasha right now, Lissa noticed, a rare uncharitable thought crossing her mind about her boyfriend's aunt. Cheerfully talking at, rather than to, her taciturn companion, Tasha had an opinion on everything from the flowers to the beeswax votives flickering to one side of the altar, all of which she happily chirped to Dimitri.
Honestly. Read the room, Tasha, and shut up. This is not a happy occasion.
Shocked at her mental rudeness, Lissa quickly distracted herself from expanding these thoughts by looking across to the pews on the other side of the aisle. Filled with a smattering of Guardians from St. Vladimir's and from here at Court, Abe Mazur and his Guardian, Pavel, were seated in the frontmost pew along with Eddie, Mia, and Adrian. Despite Abe's golden complexion, there was no hiding the black eye and other facial bruises inflicted by Janine Hathaway. After the initial shock of losing Rose had ebbed, she'd quickly moved onto the anger stage of her grief. Word was that she'd gone berserk on her former lover, blaming him for concocting the plan that had killed their only child. Eddie had heard about it from one of the Mazur Guardians present, and apparently, Rose's father hadn't even attempted to defend himself, forbidding Pavel to step in as the legendary Janine Hathaway had at him. According to those there, she'd only stopped when Abe had brokenly told her to do her worst because no one could blame him more than he already blamed himself.
Also looking different from expected was Adrian. Not sober since Rose's death, yesterday Lissa had sent Christian over to his apartment to clean him up for today's funeral. She still wasn't fully across what had gone on between Adrian and her best friend, however, Rose didn't deserve a drunken scene at her final farewell, so she'd tasked Christian with making sure Adrian came to the service sober or not at all. That he was here, in clean clothes and freshly shaved, making quiet conversation with Eddie and Mia was reassuring.
The soft dialogue around her quietened as the music denoting the arrival of Reverend Father Grigorescu started. A very different funeral to the last she'd attended—Tatiana's—Rose's was a simple and subdued affair. The casket closed, for obvious reasons. As she listened to the priest's opening remarks, Lissa again tried to reach out through the bond, once again finding nothing there. She hadn't appreciated she could 'sense' the bond until, with Rose's death, she noticed the lack of it. A sad reminder on the very saddest of days, Lissa knew that her best friend and sister was gone.
As Janine prepared to listen to the Priest's opening comments, she hoped he would focus his comments on eternal life and God's beneficence rather than a sermon about familial love. Heavens knew she'd hadn't been much of a mother. She doubted she could endure a sermon centered on family ties and tenderness when that hadn't been the way things were between them. It wasn't that Janine did not feel the loss of her child—she had loved Rosemarie very much. However, after so many years apart, she'd been unsure quite how to show her that, and now it was too late. Almost everything regarding Rosemarie had been difficult for Janine, but of all the things she'd had to do as a mother, saying goodbye was undoubtedly the hardest. Because how could a mother continue to live and breathe when her daughter didn't?
Across the aisle, Abe Mazur—the mobster otherwise known as Zmey—had forgone one of his brightly covered scarfs in favor of a deep purple stole. He didn't realize it, but it toned in with the dark bruises on his face and neck. Thankful that the swelling had almost subsided, and that his suit covered the worst of the bruising, Abe had no anger for his daughter's mother. Because of him, she had lost her only child. It was a cruel irony that just when Janine and Rosemarie had started to form some sort of relationship, his actions had ripped them asunder. No. He deserved everything Janine had done to him, and then some.
"Thank you all for gathering today to say farewell to Rosemarie Hathaway," the Reverend Father proclaimed, addressing the small gathering in front of him. "Let us start with a prayer for Rosemarie and her family," he said, leading those present. To Lissa, the entire scene was surreal. Rationally, she knew what was happening, yet even as she repeated the priest's words, she almost expected Rose to walk in and declare the whole thing a joke. Because watching him standing over the closed casket, it was unfathomable for her to believe he was blessing Rose into the afterlife.
The ceremony blissfully brief, at the conclusion of the service, Rose's casket was to be taken for cremation. Abe, who was nominally Muslim, had assumed Rose would be interred. With Alberta acting as an intermediary between the estranged parents, Abe and Janine had finally agreed on a private cremation, so the funeral was their last chance to say goodbye. That being the case, they each took a moment to approach the casket—separately saying a private parting to their child.
Once Janine and Abe had said their farewells, Dimitri, Adrian, and finally, Lissa approached the coffin to say their goodbyes. Each done quietly enough that no one could overhear, all three were heartbroken by their loss.
Dimitri had taken the longest, standing beside Rose's casket, one hand resting on the highly polished wood, his face anguished. No one was close enough to hear what he said, yet it was clear he was professing something to his former mentee. His former love. When he'd finished, he kissed his fingertips, patted them on the casket before returning to his seat, his Guardian mask firmly in place. Ignoring Tasha when she made some comment, Dimitri was there in body, yet not in spirit.
Rose. You've been my best friend for as long as I can remember, Lissa sent through the now-defunct bond when it was her turn to approach her best friend's coffin. Leaning heavily on Christian as her tears fell, she thought rather than spoke out loud. It's not fair this happened to you, she continued. You should have had so much more time. We should have had more time. Looking across to her former Guardian, and Rose's first love, Lissa knew what she needed to do. I will look after him, Lissa vowed. For you, Rose. I promise to help him in any way I can.
The funeral over, and Rose's coffin removed for cremation, the mourners spilled out of the church into the outside gloom. With Janine and Abe unable to even look at one another, no wake had been planned. Tasha's cheerful suggestion they all adjourn to a nearby bar had provoked universal disapproval, so in the end, Alberta walked Janine back to her quarters while Lissa, Christian, Adrian, and Tasha returned to the Dragomir residence. Christian had invited Eddie, Mia, and Dimitri to join them, but all three declined, the lattermost requesting his ever-present Guardians return him to his room.
"What do you think happened to Mazur?" Tasha tittered as they walked the short distance to Lissa's home. "It looks like someone beat him up."
Christian bristled. He hadn't shared with his aunt what Eddie had told them, and with Tasha's tone of voice, he now had no intention of doing so. Making someone else's pain and grief a point of gossip didn't sit well with him, and he refused to be a party to it. Frankly, given their own family situation and the commentary that existed to this day thanks to his parents' choices, Christian thought Tasha should have known better.
"I don't think that's any of our business," Christian snapped.
"I agree," Adrian added, his tone equally frosty.
No one knew what to say, and for once Lissa did not jump in to smooth over an awkward moment. In fact, she was silent as she opened the door to her townhouse. Working with Alberta and Janine to organize Rose's funeral had kept her distracted, but now that was over, there was nothing else to occupy her thoughts. Seating herself on the sofa in the middle of the sitting-room her mother had tastefully redecorated just before her death, Lissa let the floodgates open as she sobbed for the loss of her best friend.
Sitting beside his girlfriend, and wrapping her in his arms, Christian had been waiting for this to happen. Yes, she'd cried in the days since Rose's death, but not in the all-consuming way someone does when they lose the person closest to them. With Eric, Rhea, and Andre gone, Rose had been the last of Lissa's 'family', and now she was gone, too. He gave Adrian a meaningful glance over Lissa's shoulder before flicking his eyes across to his aunt. It took Adrian a moment to get what Christian was trying to say.
"Tasha—Lissa's distraught. Christian will comfort her, but how about we go have that drink you suggested?"
"Um… yeah, sure. Probably a good idea."
Maybe it was because he was sober, so more observant than usual, but something about Tasha seemed off. It wasn't that she'd enjoyed the funeral, per se, but she certainly hadn't been as affected as everyone else. Her aura brighter than the muted shades of the other attendees, it showed an optimism that was unexpected at a funeral. Yes, something was up with Tasha, and Adrian intended to find out what.