Chapter Nine

Dimtri reached for the Explores radio/CD player and started tuning the radio.

After a couple of minutes he found an Eighties radio station and all of a sudden I was laughing.

I was suddenly time warped back to a time before I had been with Dimitri, a time before Mason had been killed, a time before a lot of things.

It was like I was back in the car with Dimitri, on my way to my qualifier interview with Arthur Schoenberg.

When Dimitri had given me a choice between eighties music and country.

Back in the present I went quiet again and Dimitri glanced at me, a look in his eyes that told me, he too was remembering that trip. That trip had been the beginning of my guardian life. I had learnt how to read a crime scene and even though the man who was supposed to be interviewing me was dead by the time we got to his house, I had still been interviewed, in a way. Kind of a trial-by-fire thing, I had to tell the crime scene clean up guardians what I could discern from what was in front me.

"You're very quiet." Dimitri said to me, stirring me out of my memories.

I just shrugged, still unsure what to say to him.

"I don't think we're being followed." He said obviously thinking my silence was out of concern of our situation.

"That's not why I'm being quiet." I corrected him in a very even tone, not wanting to let him know how confused I was about him being in the car with me and not someone else.

"oh." he said surprised. "So why are you being so quiet?"

"I'm thinking."

Dimitri chuckled.

"Well that's new." He said through his chuckle. "The Rose Hathaway I knew would just think as she went along."

"I'm not that girl anymore, a lot has happened since you last spent time with me." I wasn't snarky as I said that, although it was an effort to stay calm.

"Yes, I suppose that's true." Dimitri replied with a grimace, and turned his attention back to the road.

That was all he said, no 'I'm sorry' no 'I should have been there'.

For another hour I sat silently, seething.

I couldn't make sense of why Dimitri was with me. Not if what he had been saying to me since his transformation back to Dhampir was true, which of cause he had insisted it was.

Finally I had had enough.

"Pull over." I said in my best hard-ass-guardian voice.

"What?" Dimitri replied

"I said pull over." I said a little harder.

"Why?"

I turn to face Dimitri.

"Pull the hell over Dimitri." I yelled at him and he started.

Without another word he pulled over, and before we had come to a complete stop I threw my door open and got out. The uneven gravel under my feet shifted a little under my weight, but I managed to keep my balance. Yay me.

Dimitri got out and came around the back of the Explorer.

"Roza, are you alright, is something wrong?" He asked coming up to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

I pulled away from his hand.

"Don't call me that." I said, practically yelling at him

"Call you . . . . . "

"Roza, don't call me Roza. God damn it Dimtri." I could feel the rage inside me creeping up, I was going to boil over if I wasn't careful, but I couldn't bring myself to stop.

I looked Dimitri in the eye, those beautiful brown eyes.

"What the hell are you playing at? First, your all 'I don't want to see you rose'. 'My loves faded Rose'. And now here you are, getting me out of prison, beating guardians to a pulp, all so I can escape." I took a quick breath and continued.

"I suppose you're doing this for Lissa, help her by helping her shadow kissed guardian?"

Dimitri just stared at me.

"Or is because Abe bribed you? Because I'm telling you now, if that's why your here, you might as well just get in the SUV and go back to the court, because I don't need your help. I've lived this long without you, in fact in spite of you." Dimitri winced but I went on.

"I have killed strigoi, dozens of them, so I don't need you for that. And as for Abe's plans for us to go wherever the hell he thinks is best, well I already have a plan and leaving the country is not part of it." The last bit left my mouth before I had a chance to stop it.

But before I could cover up my let-slip-plan Dimitri spoke.

"I was taking you to Baia." His voice was quiet, if it wasn't for my Dhampir hearing I would never had heard him.

"What." I said, hearing that had brought me out of my rage.

Dimitri raised his eyes from the ground and looked me in the eye.

"I was taking you home."

I was lost, what the hell, he was taking me home?

"I can protect you there. I've already talked to my mother. She was so happy to hear from me."

"Had someone told her what happened with Lissa? My god, Olena. I told her you were strigoi. They had your memorial . . . . "

Dimitri held his hand up to stop my words.

"I know, she told me." His eyes showed more affection with that one glance than what I had seen in him for so long that my knees almost buckled.

Again, I was speechless. The time I had spent in Baia with Dimitri's family had been one of the saddest times in my life, yet had also been one of the happiest. His entire family had embraced me as one of them, treated me like I had been Dimitri's wife. I had heard stories of him in childhood and in return I had shared my stories of him as an adult.

Dimitri took my silence as permission to keep talking.

"I spoke with Yeva as well."

My eyes widened in alarm, I still wasn't sure if Dimitri's grandmother like me or not, she was so hard to read.

Dimitri grinned at my worried look.

"She speaks very highly of you. She said after you left Baia she knew you would bring me back."

"She was the one that told me to leave. Told me I was I disappointment." I looked at the ground. I may have come through in the end, but she had dreamed of me as a shinning warrior and that wasn't what she had found.

"She told me to give you a message." I looked up when he said that, if Yeva had a message I knew it would be worth listening to. "She said 'You shine again'."

I grinned, Yeva was good alright. She had known that I would take her words to heart, and she knew that I would need to hear that.

"You know what that means? She said you would, but still it's a little vague." Dimitri enquired.

"Yeah, I know what she was on about." I said still grinning and shaking my head a little.

Talking with Dimitri felt so intimate. Talking about his family, his life, like I was actually a part of it. Suddenly I recalled our conversation in the church.

"Why are you here Dimitri?" I asked needing to get back on track.

"You know why I'm here Rose." He said simply, like I really should know, aarrgghh men!

"No, I don't. If I did I wouldn't have asked."

Dimitri stepped forward and put his fingers lightly under my chin and started to move his face down to mine.

"I'm here because I. . . . . "His words were cut off.

I was suddenly pulled into Lissa's thoughts and I was seeing through her eyes.

Lissa was so angry, and most of it was directed at me. In front of her was Hans Croft, the guardian in charge at court and a few other guardians from the Guardian Council.

"Where has she gone?" Hans asked Lissa.

She glared at him.

"Do I look like I know where she's gone? Seriously, I want to know where she is as much as you!"

Hans looked at Lissa doubtfully.

"Okay we'll try another question. Who helped her?"

A small flicker of pride sparked to life in Lissa thoughts, even through her anger at me.

"She got the better of you huh?" Lissa replied almost laughing. "And as for who helped her, she has a lot of friends, it could be anyone."

Hans was all but growling at Lissa, I could read his frustration all over his face.

"You can't expect us to believe you have no idea about anything, you two have been friends most of your lives and no matter where she goes you're always close behind, well maybe not when she left school after the attack." Hans said obvious trying to get her angry enough to spill whatever information she had. Unfortunately for him, Lissa knew nothing.

His comment about me leaving her behind when I went to Siberia struck a nerve though. But not the one Hans was trying to get at.

Lissa started to cry.

"I don't know where she went or even how she got out." Lissa sobbed. "She didn't tell me anything."

Lissa tears seemed to soften Hans just a bit, and his body relaxed, obviously realising Lissa really didn't know anything.

Lissa's anger started to ease a bit as she cried and I was able to drag myself back out of her mind.