The air suddenly seemed a lot heavier and Rose had difficulties breathing it. She could feel her heart racing under her skin and she knew that Christian wasn't feeling much better. Unlike Christian, Lissa would never prank them like that. She was too scared to leave the office and wouldn't have gone anywhere alone. Also, she was just too nice to do something like that. Unlike someone she had actually understood the danger of their situation. So whatever happened to her couldn't be good, and given that it was more than likely that some psychotic murderer had just captured her best friend, Rose decided that this might be the moment to panic. Might be. But that wouldn't help anyone at all, so she pushed all that fear and anxiety back down and waited until her heart rate slowly went down. She still felt the cold sweat on her back but her mind was clear enough to focus again. She needed to find Lissa NOW. "Christian" she whispered, "Listen to me. Here's the plan"
The corridor was even darker now that they had turned off the light in the office. The night seemed so peaceful and quiet and hadn't Rose known better she would have enjoyed the feeling of it. But instead she was slowly sneaking back to the stairs, avoiding the creaky parts of the wooden floor and trying to be as quiet as possible. She managed to get to the staircase without making a noise, but when she stepped on the first step the old board made a squeaking noise that seemed impossibly loud and disruptive in the peaceful darkness. Rose stilled, begging that no one overheard that. When nothing happened for what felt like an eternity she carefully stepped further and slowly made her way up the staircase.
The first floor seemed a lot more unreal than the ground floor due to the moonlight that seemed to float in through the windows in the ceiling. All those beautiful statues and vases and other little trinkets the Dragomirs had decorated their corridor were a lot scarier than they had been just a few hours ago when she first went up here. While she found herself admiring them from time to time, she now wondered why someone would keep these things - it was a nightmare bound to happen. But that wasn't what she was there for. She carefully walked down the corridor until she arrived at the first door. Trying not to think about what might happen, she more or less confidently opened the door. The room was empty. She let out a shaky breath she hadn't realised she was holding and turned back into the corridor. After what felt like the thousandth door (in reality it was probably the fifth but who's counting?) she hesitated. Was there a noise behind the door? Instead of opening it she slowly moved her head towards the wood, trying to make out any other sounds. Suddenly, the door gave in and she stumbled forward, into the room behind it. But she didn't fall to the ground. She was about halfway down when something caught her. No, she realised as she looked up, someone caught her.
