I knew something was wrong.
I could feel it.
It was like my mind was trying to claw its way out of a pit of quicksand, but with every attempt, I was pulled back further. As the light penetrated my eyelids, a burst of searing pain burst at the back of my skull. My eyes wouldn't open in order for me to survey my surroundings due to the intensity of the light. My muscles tensed at the overwhelming sensation, but I tried to relax so the pain could diminish. The pain remained, though my body was growing accustomed to it.
Despite my body being fully awake due to the rush of pain, my mind was still sluggish, like a part of me wasn't awake yet. I groaned and rolled to my side to start the slow and painful process of trying to sit up. The ground shifted underneath me as I moved, sparking my confusion. I quickly opened my eyes to take in my surroundings.
My ears began taking in sensory input as soon as my eyes opened. The harsh crashing of waves against the shifting sand flooded my senses, letting me know where I was but not how I got there. My body jolted upright despite the pain as I wracked my brain for my most recent memory.
The last thing I remember was holding Roza in my arms. We were just standing in the ocean enjoying the others' embrace. I remember her being so warm and loving. Her smile filled my mind's eye and brought me a moment of peace despite my panic. I didn't remember anything after that. My hand came up to the back of my neck slowly, the pain radiating from the back of my head and my spine, my body aching with each small movement.
The back of my head was tender, and I could feel a sizable lump starting to form on my scalp. My body felt like it had been pummeled as both my muscles and my joints ached. I was having trouble thinking through my memories. My mind was still foggy, only it didn't feel like my mind.
Roza.
The whisper at the back of my mind brought me understanding. Our minds and bodies were connected now, but she wasn't here.
I looked around frantically, flipping around onto my knees, running my hands frantically across the sand as if I would find her there. I looked up and down the beach hoping she was somewhere nearby, but I didn't recognize any of the surrounding houses. There was no one on the beach but me.
Roza was nowhere to be found.
Despite me sifting through the surrounding sand, I could still make out footprints leading up the beach. My eyes narrowed at the two lines that followed in between the two sets of footprints.
It was quite plain to see that someone had been dragged between two people up the beach, though the trail would have stopped once they were off the sand. There were at least two people that took Roza, but there was no telling how many they brought as backup.
I scanned the horizon quickly, locating the sun just completing its path above the line where the sea meets the sky in the east.
Morning.
The last time I checked the horizon when I was with Roza, the sun was setting. Roza could have been gone for, potentially, twelve hours, probably less, but that still made her gone. I was giving myself a headache as I tried to focus my mind on retrieving the lost moments between having her in my arms and waking up on the sand.
I leapt to my feet in frustration, ignored the pain I felt run through me, and looked up and down the coastline, hoping that something would look familiar enough to point me in the direction of the house. I tugged at my hair as my head swiveled back and forth between my two options.
I couldn't follow Roza. She'd most likely been transferred into a vehicle once whoever took her got off the beach. I didn't know if I could find the house without some direction. This section of the beach didn't look familiar to me, which was odd considering how often Roza and I ran by the water's edge.
Right before I started walking to the right, my eyes caught movement to my left. The harder I starred, the more focused the figures became, but I realized that the figures were coming closer. My eyes found four people jogging toward me.
I felt myself fall naturally into a defensive stance until they were close enough to distinguish who was running. My body didn't relax, however, when I took in their identities, none of which were Roza.
Christopher was the first to reach me, his stake drawn as his eyes darted all around me. A wild look that mirrored my own inner turmoil lived in his eyes when they finally fell on me.
"Where is she, Belikov?" Jasper asked in a panicked tone as Sydney looked at me with the same imploring question.
"I don't know," I mumbled, not wanting to admit what I already knew.
"She was with you, right? Where could she have gone?" Sydney asked in a more panicked voice than Jasper. Her eyes were wide as they darted around us, looking for Roza.
"I don't know," I responded yet again.
"Well, what happened?" Kyle asked, his stake also drawn as he moved around me as if I could be hiding her.
"I don't know," I said, my anxiety leaking through slightly.
"You don't know?" Christopher questioned in a tense voice. "What does that mean? You don't know? What do you mean you don't know?!"
"I mean that I don't know," I growled in frustration. "I can't remember what happened. Before waking up on the beach, I was holding Roza in my arms. I woke up here in pain with no Roza! Those tracks suggest she was taken forcefully, but I don't know how that was possible. There is no way that the two of us could have been taken down, especially not Roza."
"While I'm sure that would be true in a normal case, I doubt even you could have prevented what happened," Sydney said, worry filling her voice as she took my arm down from where I'd been anxiously rubbing at my face.
She ran her thumb over a sensitive area on my forearm that caused me to flinch. When I looked down, there was a barely noticeable puncture wound. I don't even know how she managed to see it with the way I was moving my arm.
"If I had to guess, you two were drugged. The drug most likely knocked Rose out almost immediately, but I'm guessing you fought back because it didn't take hold of you as quickly, which is probably why you look so horrible right now." She said quietly, her digit still circling the blemish on my skin.
"Why wouldn't the drug have taken effect immediately on me as it had on her?" I asked with scrunched up eyebrows.
"Dude. You're a Russian giant built like a steel tank." Jasper replied monotonously. I couldn't help but wince. Roza had been taken because she was smaller than I was. Whatever drug had been used only took her down because her body was perfect. Of course, I should have been able to fight harder, I should have been able to protect her.
"We have to find her," I said, pain filling my voice as I looked at each of them in turn.
"Dimitri." Kyle began slowly. "We don't have any idea of where she is or where she could be. We don't know who took her. We don't even know if-"
"No! She's alive!" I exclaimed before Kyle had the chance to voice my fear. "I can feel her. She's still alive, but she's not awake yet. The drug, if that's what it is, hasn't worn off yet. Maybe because I'm the Russian giant, the drug metabolized quicker and I woke up sooner, but Roza…Roza's body belies her strength, but she won't be able to fight this off as quickly as I did."
"Alright," Christopher said, actually being the calm one right now. I could only imagine the look of distress that had taken over my features to have all four of them looking the picture of cool and collected. "We need you to try to remember."
"I've been doing that since I woke up here, but all I've accomplished was giving myself a headache," I said crestfallen.
"Sydney, take him back to the house and see if you can help him," Jasper said gently, eyeing me with thinly veiled concern. "We're going to see if we can follow these tracks and maybe talk to some of the people in these houses."
"No. I can't go back to the house, not without Roza." I exclaimed in a panic, wincing when the pain at the back of my head flared.
"Dimitri. You're not going to be of any help right now. Abe is worried sick about both of you, surprisingly, but we need you to remember more than we need you to be searching for her. You're the only link we have to know she's still alive. We need you to focus on finding her with the information only you have, we'll worry about tracking her." Kyle said gently pushing me back in the direction of the house.
Sydney still had a hold of my arm and was also trying to coax me back to the house. My anxiety grew as I thought about having to tell Abe that I'd lost his daughter. It was my job to keep her safe, and now I didn't know where she was. She certainly wasn't safe right now, no matter who she was with at the moment. If she wasn't with me, she wasn't safe.
But it was because of me that she wasn't safe at the moment. This is my fault.
"Don't beat yourself up, Dimitri," Sydney said, breaking me out of my self-destructive thoughts, or maybe I'd said them aloud. "It isn't your fault. There wasn't anything you could have done to stop it. Even someone like you can't fight off drugs as powerful as the ones I'm sure they gave you."
"I just need to remember. I can't be sure if it was Strigoi or Moroi or Dhampir or human. The last memory I have, the sun was still out, but that doesn't tell me much because I've been out all night. She's the target of Strigoi at the moment, but then again, so am I. Why wouldn't they have taken me? Humans could have been doing it to help the Strigoi, but Roza isn't necessarily the poster girl for Moroi or Dhampir, either. I just need to remember."
"I think I might have something to help you with that, but you need to trust me and stay focused on finding her and bringing her back home. Don't let yourself get bogged down with the what if's. She's going to be fine, you know her. She won't stop fighting until she's back by your side." Sydney said determinedly.
I was distracted the rest of the way back to the house trying to remember what had happened. The steady thumping in my head increased with each attempt until all I could hear was the pounding in my ears. The cool air from the house as I entered alleviated some of the pain I was experiencing, but as I looked up into the eyes of my love's father, the pain returned full force.
"Dimitri." He said in a broken voice. Pavel stiffened beside him as I braced myself to deliver that news.
"I don't know where she is, Abe." I managed to whisper.
"Both Rose and Dimitri were drugged," Sydney said, stepping in to keep the blame off of me. "Rose was taken. I'm going to help Dimitri get his memory back so he can help us know who took her and where she might be."
"Let me know how I can help," Abe said after a few moments of silence. I watched in amazement as the sorrowful look that had first greeted me morphed into steely determination.
"I will do everything I can to bring her back," I said squaring my shoulders. I fed off the hope that he held onto and used it to fuel my own dwindling supply. Without Roza here beside me, I was slipping and I was slipping fast.
Both Abe and Pavel nodded sharply at me before Sydney led me upstairs into Roza's room. While I was curious about the process Sydney was going to go through to help me regain my memories, I had to trust that she knew what she was doing. I had to trust her to help me get my Roza back.
"Lay down on the bed and close your eyes." She instructed. I paused momentarily, but not long enough for Sydney to notice. When I closed my eyes, I was overcome with the feelings of Roza.
I could feel her with me, though her mind wasn't awake still. I felt her hands bound behind her and the sensation of cold metal was on her left side. I clenched my fists trying to quell my anger at the person or person's responsible for her situation.
"Separate yourself from Rose and focus on the here and now," Sydney instructed, her stern voice filtering through my angry haze. With great reluctance and difficulty, I pulled myself away from Roza's feelings and sensations.
I focused on the feeling of the bed underneath me. My ears registered the soft footfalls of Sydney's light pacing and the quiet voices that drifted up from below. I focused on my pain, both physical and emotional. My body was aching and sluggish from fighting off my attackers and the drug.
I longed for Roza.
It took so much for me to not focus on Roza. She was my everything. I had to find her. I had to bring her back. Without her, there was no me. She made me a better person, and I was convinced that I made her a better person. We were a team, a partnership. We worked as two halves of a whole.
We need each other.
"Focus on your last memory of the two of you together on the beach," Sydney said quietly. Her instructions got quieter and quieter, but, somehow, I still heard her through the fog of my memory.
Her big brown eyes peered up at me through thick lashes. The sound of her giggles flitted around my mind an intoxicating manner. Her scent wrapped me in its comforting embrace. Her mouth moved in a question, and I found myself nodding in agreeance.
I carried her back to the shore and placed her down with a gentle kiss to her soft lips. Her loving smile never left her face as she looked away from my intense gaze with a slight blush on her cheeks.
She wound her fingers through mine and pulled me behind her as she slowly made her way down the beach. My eyes remained fixated on her swaying hair as the salty breeze twirled it around her head. Her steps were light and bouncy and her countenance was content.
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she stopped abruptly, bringing a hand up to her neck. She turned to me with a confused expression with a small feathered dart in between her index finger and thumb.
I saw a small bead of blood on the side of her neck and was just reaching my hand up to inspect it when a prick in my arm caused me to jerk away. I quickly pulled out the dart that had lodged itself into my arm and threw it into the shifting sand.
My head swiveled slower than usual in the direction the darts had come from. Two men were making their way toward us. They moved like trained professionals. Their demeanor screamed Guardian, which is probably why I hesitated long enough for them to reach us.
"Comrade." Roza's weak voice called out. I tried to catch her as she fell, but was stopped by the two men. My adrenaline kicked in long enough for me to land a few punches of my own as the two men worked to further subdue me.
I guess they didn't give me a high enough dose or they didn't expect me to fight back as hard as I did. I caught a fleeting fearful look that passed between the two of them before I was distracted by my Roza laying still in the sand.
My distraction allowed for a painful thud to be landed against the back of my skull. I had enough time to mutter an apology to Roza before I blacked out completely. The last thing I saw before falling into complete oblivion was the two men dragging Roza to a car that was waiting at a nearby house.
I couldn't see much as the edges of my vision started closing in, but I saw the standard black Guardian vehicle that was to take my Roza away from me.
"Dimitri?" I heard call out to me, but it wasn't my Roza. The voice wasn't as sweet as my Roza. It was harsher and more annoyed. My eyebrows scrunched in confusion as I tried to place the voice.
As soon as the black edges of my vision met in the middle, I shot up. Coming back to my senses, I was in Roza's room. My breathing was labored and my expression was still confused as I looked up at Sydney.
I now understood where the voice was coming from.
"What?" I asked after calming myself down a little.
"What did you remember?" She asked perching on the edge of the bed and looking at me intently.
"I remember everything. It was two Guardians that took her, but they weren't dressed like Guardians. My guess is that they were either privately hired or chose not to dress in their uniform to avoid suspicion."
"Guardians? What would Guardians want with Rose?" She asked, her expression turning thoughtful.
"I don't know. They were driving a standard Guardian vehicle, so perhaps you can, or Abe can, look into which vehicles would have been loaned out and used up here. I can't be sure, but I think most of the vehicles have GPS tracking unless they were smart enough to disable it." I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration.
"If they were Guardians, they could be working for someone. I doubt that Guardians would just kidnap one of their own on a whim, and there's no way a Guardian would be working with Strigoi. There has to be someone behind it. Either the Guardian Council or a Moroi." I said after processing more of the information.
"What reason would the Guardian Council have for kidnapping her in this fashion? If they wanted her, couldn't they just have contacted her, either directly or indirectly?" Sydney asked as she went back to her quiet pacing.
"Unless they were trying to get rid of her quietly," I mumbled. "But even that wouldn't make sense. If they wanted to get rid of her, there would be no point in drugging her and taking her to a secondary location. If they wanted her dead, they would have just shot her and been done with it."
"Alright, so maybe it isn't the Guardian Council. What Moroi would need Rose?"
"I can't think of any Moroi that would need Rose. We're stuck in the same place we were with the Guardian Council. If they needed to contact her, they could have. If they wanted her dead, they would have just killed her."
"Well, maybe they weren't looking to kill. Rose is really powerful and has a lot of powerful people that are dedicated to her. Perhaps she's been taken as some sort of leverage? We could be waiting for a ransom demand." Sydney said hopefully, but I couldn't find it in myself to feel the same hope.
"If we're waiting for ransom, wouldn't they have contacted us by now?" I asked.
"Not necessarily. They could be waiting until they reach a safer place, or they could be waiting for their boss to reach the location that they chose."
"So, what do we do? Just wait?" I asked incredulously.
"Unless the boys find something useful in their search, we have to wait until either Abe or I can scrounge up enough information to get a decent idea of where Rose is. All I can ask is that you try to keep a level head and let us take it from here. We're going to need you focused when we go in to get her. You're no good to her if you can't think straight."
"I can't lose her, Sydney," I whispered. "We have to get her back."
"We're going to get her back." She said gently, placing a hand on my shoulder before leaving the room.
I let my mind play through the last memories that I had. With every iteration, the faces of the men became clearer and clearer, but I still didn't recognize them. I hadn't met either of them, but that wasn't strange at all considering the, while dwindling, numbers of Guardians scattered across the globe.
The men seemed to recognize me, but that wasn't strange due to the publicity that I received upon my restoration. However, these men didn't look like they expected to find me with Roza. Of course, there aren't many who know I've left Court, and those that do don't know I've taken up a position with Abe in New York.
My head was once again aching, but this time it was due to me trying to figure out who took her. I couldn't think of one person who would do this. A sense of hopelessness overtook me as I ran out of potential kidnappers.
I just needed to find her, soon.
Roza, where are you?