I'm alive!

Bad jokes aside, if you follow me on tumblr, then about a month ago you probably saw I was having a hell of a time — and by that I mean four hospital trips in less than two weeks, including a five day hospitalization right at the beginning. A big thank you to everyone for being so patient in my getting this up — I know I would say "this weekend!" only to let another week or two disappear, but that 's only because my health was constantly fluctuating from day to day.

But I'm feeling a lot better and I'm back with an update, so that ugly mini-hiatus is over!

An hour later, Rose and Dimitri were standing over the first uncovered stake, this time with several other guardians including Captain Sosnitsky, who looked rather irritated at having been pulled out of bed in the middle of the night. A groundskeeper had also been woken up and was a ways off from the group, hurriedly clearing away the stakes and finding them roughly every ten feet like Rose had initially guessed.

"This is bad," Anton understated, rubbing his face wearily. He'd been on a patrol shift on the opposite side of the school and, like Rose, hadn't gone to bed yet. It was nearly 3 and the snow was picking up. "You found the first one, Rose?"

She nodded, watching her mother, who was squatted in front of the broken wards. The groundskeeper had dug the surrounding snow out from where the stake had been pushed into the ground.

"What time does the sun go down?" Janine asked.

"In a couple of hours," Sosnitsky replied, nodding towards the western horizon, broken up by the trees. "We won't be able to retrieve all the stakes and reset the wards, but we have enough time to secure the students and Moroi faculty." He turned to the guardian next to him, a man Rose had only seen at meals a few times. "Varenkov, go set the alerts. Wake Ryzhkin and have him organize everyone except essential personnel in the ballroom. All patrols that switch out at three are to inform their relief to keep a twenty foot distance on perimeter checks. No one comes near these wards unless their corpse is dragged over it."

Varenkov nodded once and quickly departed. Janine stood, still staring out into the distance.

"It's a shame the footprints are obscured," she said. "It would be helpful to know which direction they'll be coming from."

"What I want to know," Sosnitsky said gruffly, darting a glare towards Anton, "Is how this even happened in the first place."

Anton's face was stone blank but Rose had the feeling he was largely responsible for the screw-up, however much something like this could blamed on a single person.

Sosnitsky nodded to Anton as he turned in the direction of campus. "You and I will be having a chat after this is over, my friend. For now, we must begin planning our defense." He called out to the groundskeeper, who snatched up his bag of stakes and hoisted his shovel and followed after Sosnitsky on the trek back to the school.

It's a shame the footprints are obscured.

The words bounced around Rose's mind as she crouched down in the same spot as her mother, staring out in the same direction.

"Rose?" Dimitri asked, pausing mid-step in his following the rest of the group when he realized she wasn't walking with them.

She might have been imagining things, but later, she would swear up and down that she had seen depressions in the snow where the footprints hadn't been completely filled in by fresher snowfalls.

"We might actually be able follow the tracks," Rose said, more thinking out loud to herself than anything.

"No, we can't," Dimitri said, returning to stand just behind her. His tone said she was crazy for even considering it. "There's too much fresh snow."

"You can see them." She pointed to a slight dip in the snow. It was about the length and width of a foot.

"Okay," he said, like he still didn't believe her, "Even if we can, you would get lost in about five minutes. The forest surrounding the school is too . . . I'm not sure if there's a good English word for it. It's a labyrinth. Everything looks the same and you'll start wandering in circles long before you realize it. We mark the trees along the wards for a reason."

Frustration was building inside of her, a surface reaction to the terror filling her veins. She sprung up, gesturing beyond the wards behind her as she spoke. "This is exactly why we need to start going on the offense instead of waiting around for them to attack. I saw the Alchemist report that came in last week. It wouldn't have been hard to figure out where they set up base camp if someone had looked at that report longer than it takes to shuffle it off into some folder to be forgotten about. Now, we know they're going to attack and we know lives will be lost."

"Exactly. We know they're coming. We can make sure everyone who's a liability is protected before they even reach the wards. There's a lot you're saying that I agree with, but for right now, we're in a pretty good situation, all things considered. Imagine if we didn't have this warning."

"I don't have to. I've lived through this nightmare before," she snapped, brushing past him as she started to head back to the school.

"Rose—"

She turned the ball of her foot, anger and fear rolling off her in waves. "What?"

A beat. "Nothing." Then: "You probably shouldn't go to the meeting."

The anger overpowered for a moment. "Why the fuck shouldn't I?"

"Because you've been awake over eighteen hours," he pointed out. "Sosnitsky won't let you out on the front lines if you haven't had any sleep in a while. And I know you want to be there, so don't try arguing with me about that."

She studied him for a moment, trying to pull her emotions in check. "You know, suggesting I take a nap would've been better worded."

He laughed, hollow and flat. "I'm much more eloquent in my native language, Rose, trust me."

"I do," she said automatically. The fury had dissipated some and she jerked her head in the direction of the school. "If I'm taking a nap, so are you. You've been up just as long as me."

"Coffee and some of those pancake-looking things," Eddie offered when Rose arrived at the ballroom to get an update on what was going on.

"Blini," Rose corrected automatically, taking the small styrofoam plate and cup from him. She looked past him at the organized commotion going on in the rest of the room. "What's going on?"

"We're almost ready to head out," a voice from behind her said, and she nearly jumped out of her skin before realizing it was Dimitri talking around a barely contained yawn. His gaze was fixed on her coffee. "Is there any more of that?"

"I got it," Eddie said, dipping out of the way.

"Are you going to be okay for this?" Rose asked Dimitri softly.

He nodded. "I have to be. I'm needed out there."

"Do me a favor?"

"Anything."

"Try not to do anything too reckless out there."

Dimitri grinned, his full smile shining through for a moment. "I feel like I should be telling you that." He shook his head and tucked a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. Briefly, she remembered she would need to put it up soon. "No recklessness here, I promise."

"Thank you," she murmured, and then Eddie returned with more coffee, effectively shifting the conversation back to strategy and logistics.

"I don't like how still the air is," Rose murmured, barely audible over the sounds of crunching snow and palpable tension among the guardians who'd been posted along the western edge of the wards for the battle.

"Strigoi will do that," Janine muttered back. "Back in the school . . . you and Belikov… well, you two look like you're close."

This is quite literally the worst time to bring this up, Mom.

"I live with his family for my assignment," Rose said with a shrug, trying to parse her mother's tone. Was a distraction good right now? The reviews would probably be mixed. "I'm close to all of them."

Janine stopped short, grabbing Rose's wrist. Concern — for her and only her — bled through her otherwise blank exterior. "No matter what's going on, Rose, I want you to be careful. I'm serious. The fewer things clouding your judgment, the better. There's no room for emotions in our line of work. We can't afford the liability, not when others depend on us for their lives and security. You'll only end up hurt, one way or another."

Eyes narrowed, Rose watched as a couple mental puzzle pieces slid together. "Is this about me or is this about you?"

"It doesn't matter," Janine deflected. "If there's no other advice I can give that you'll take to heart, let it be this." She gave Rose's wrist a gentle squeeze. "Not that you need to hear it, but keep your head up. I'll see you on the other side."

How charming, Morticia, Rose grumbled to herself as Janine parted ways to head to her own post, not far from where Rose had been placed along the wards.

She didn't know where Dimitri was — he, too, had been posted on the western edge, like most of the more experienced guardians — but he was far away enough that she couldn't make out his silhouette. She couldn't decide if she even wanted to know where he was or not.

By the time she reached her post, the sun had set, leaving her with nothing to do but wait. It felt like for the longest time that maybe they'd miscalculated, maybe the Strigoi were coming a different night; after all, hadn't it been a little presumptuous to assume that—

Snap.

Crunch.

Scream.

They're here.

Almost immediately, intense nausea rolled over her, nearly making her go weak-kneed. She grabbed for one of the hundreds of birch trees surrounding them, ghost white in the moonlight, and took a couple deep breaths of air to clear her head.

It was like a wall barreling straight for the school, a sea of hungry red eyes intent on breaking past the impressive barrier of bodies the guardians had managed to stage. Two Strigoi seemed to be headed for Rose in particular, and she pushed herself to stand up straight, doing her best to work past the nausea so she could fight.

And fight she did. She threw herself into the mess, only being able to distantly register how many Strigoi were surrounding them — there were easily twice as many Strigoi as there were guardians. The numbers were staggering if what she thought she was seeing turned out to be true.

Two at once was not an easy task. It seemed that for every punch or kick she got in, there was just as many that she had to block. What blows did land on her passed unnoticed, her adrenaline working overtime to keep her focused on the fight in front of her. She hadn't faced a Strigoi in some time, not since an ill-fated shopping trip to Philadelphia a few years prior with Lissa when they'd both made Dean's List one semester at Lehigh. If she hadn't had her sparring match with Dimitri a few days ago, she didn't know if she would've been able to hold her ground as well as she was.

One of the Strigoi, a woman with black hair who was probably around forty or so, threw her foot out and dead-kneed Rose, who used the momentum to roll away. The Strigoi followed, lunging for an easy kill, but Rose kept rolling with the other woman, pushing her into the ground and staking her awkwardly from the top. It did the job well enough; the Strigoi screamed in pain before her body went limp.

The other one had been watching, standing on the peripherals and ready to let his companion do most of the work. Rose pushed herself up and spun around, chest heaving, and he visibly blanched. "You're that Hathaway girl, aren't you?" he snarled, more than likely trying to bluff over his fear.

Irritation flashed through Rose. Did people have nothing better to do than talk about her? "You know," she said breathlessly, reaching over and tugging her stake from the Strigoi corpse on the ground, "I get that a lot, and I'm sick and tired of hearing it."

He grinned, apparently getting comfortable with the banter. "You won't—"

Using his distraction to her advantage, she took two long strides forward, pinned the Strigoi against the tree behind him, and staked him in one swift motion.

"Not today, Satan," she muttered under her breath, pulling her stake free and letting the body slide to the ground. Blood pooled out of his chest, staining the snow beneath him. All she could see was black on white. Nothing ever looked red in the moonlight.

In the moment she took to catch her breath, a hand reached out and grabbed her from behind, pulling her up by the neck of her layered thermals. She twisted, trying to see the face of her attacker, and nearly dropped her stake in shock.

He was blonde. Familiar. It took her a beat to remember who exactly was standing in front of her but when it sunk in, her heart dropped out through her stomach — Nathan.

"Hello, Rose," he crooned, fangs glistening in the moonlight. A cruel excitement, the kind seen in those who enjoyed torturing, lit up his blood red eyes, and his voice was just as cool and calculating as Rose remembered. He seemed more annoyed than anything when she kicked out, trying to hit him so she could get away from his grasp. "I was hoping I'd get to see you again."

"Fuck off," she spat, face red from her struggling. His arms were longer than hers and he held her at such a distance that the only contact she could make was with her feet, and even then, she wasn't close enough to really hurt him. The front of her shirt collars were on the verge of choking her.

He tsked and grabbed her wrist, squeezing it with a twist hard enough that she actually dropped her stake this time. It fell to the snow, the snow silencing its landing admist the snarls and screams in the background. Panic began to take over, her vision blurring and guardian training flying out the window as she fought to stay conscious. "I'm not at all sorry for killing your boyfriend. You foiled my plans and I couldn't get to the Queen in time. I should've just killed you then. Would've saved me all this trouble. The note I sent to Court . . . that was just a bluff. No, shh, Rose, stop struggling. You'll only make it harder on yourself. Just listen."

He made a wide sweeping gesture around him as guardians and Strigoi slayed one another. "None of this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't come. I wasn't going to attack another school. That's not my endgame. You are. You and Vasilisa. But you're inconveniencing me — you found a sister for her to get her elected and now she's hidden away behind all those wards and guardians." He tsked again, shaking his head as she gasped for air. The edges of her vision were beginning to black out. It figured witty one-liners would literally be the death of her. This was why she didn't let herself have nice things.

"No, Rose, you made it so much harder for me to continue to taking out the Royal families, which is why I have to kill you. It'll be a shame, though. We want the same thing after all, don't we? To dismantle the current system? They're so rich and powerful, always controlling everything about you — what you do, what you wear." He shook her roughly; she coughed, sputtering for air. "It's why I gave it all up, so I could make all my own choices. Freedom from that caged existence guardians call a life has never been sweeter. And I can see it in you, too — you crave free will, and you know, deep down, that you'll never get it if you stay by Vasilisa's side for the rest of your life."

She didn't get to answer. Just as she was about pass out, something collided hard with Nathan, forcing him to loosen his grip on her shirts. She had just enough oxygen left to twist away, breaking free and dropping to the ground. The grunts of a physical altercation filtered through her fight to breathe.

Blindly, she dug her hands through the snow, finally wrapping around her stake after a couple of cold, terrifying moments. She scooted away, her back against a tree and fingers clawing at the collars of her shirt, gasps and shuddering breaths loud in the night around her as her lungs burned to work properly again.

Eventually, she was able to focus on the sight in front of her — Dimitri had somehow made his way to her and was currently tangling with Nathan. On a good day, it would've been a fair fight, but Rose could see the exhaustion lining Dimitri's hard, intense expression. He was utterly focused on Nathan, his one goal — to take out the threat — driving his every movement.

Rose couldn't tell if the nausea that threatened to make her puke was from having Strigoi so close or if it was a stress reaction to nearly being choked into unconsciousness. She rolled onto her knees, side pressed into the tree for stability and security, and heaved.

How can you possibly be so pathetic? You've survived a school attack before. You made your first kills at 17 and racked up dozens more when you were looking for Lissa's sister. What's so different this time?

A loud cry made Rose's head jerk up. Dimitri was quickly wearing out, and he seemed to be favoring his left leg in a way that indicated something was wrong with his other ankle. She barely had time to process what was happening until all of a sudden, Nathan had Dimitri pinned against a tree.

She couldn't think. The briefest of images flashed through her mind — Dimitri, like Nathan, with pale skin and blood red eyes — and for a heartbeat, the idea of Dimitri being turned scared her more than nearly losing her own life.

She stumbled to her feet, switching her stake to her other hand when fire shot through her wrist with the motion of pushing herself up. In three shaky, long strides, she shoved into Nathan, who stumbled only half a step. His arm flung out, connecting with her stomach, and suddenly, she was soaring through the air.

Her back hit something hard, there was a sickening crunch, and then the world snapped to black.

Her body was on fire. Breathing hurt.

Everything was black. Her only line of sight the timeless void below and in front of her.

I can wake up, can't I? If I just try hard enough, then maybe—

It was a struggle to open her eyes. Her body was sore to the point that even her eyelids refused to cooperate.

She pushed forward and when she got her eyes fully opened, the bright light made her quickly squeeze them back shut.

"Can you get the light?" someone whispered.

The words sounded like a shout.

A new darkness settled over the room and Rose forced her eyes open again. The weak late March light that filtered in through the window was more than enough to see the handful of people sitting in — shit, was this a hospital room?

Eddie. Sydney. Her mother. Underneath her cool, Alchemist-trained exterior, Sydney seemed shaken to her core. The other two looked pretty beat up but otherwise alive. There was a pretty impressive bandage above Eddie's right eye.

She tried remembering what happened. It came back in blips, images not sequencing together until she saw Dimitri, pressed into a tree by a familiar but unidentifiable Strigoi.

No, he couldn't have.

She jerked upwards, agony shooting through her head and shoulder. "Where's Dimitri?" she gasped. The pain was a fifteen on the one-to-ten scale.

Nobody answered her. Janine leaned forward in the chair next to Rose's bed and gently guided her back down. "Stop moving. You broke your shoulder."

"That doesn't—" Her throat hurt like hell, the air being pushed through like sandpaper against exposed muscle. "Where's Dimitri?" she repeated more forcefully, dread beginning to overwhelm her.

Janine glanced at Eddie, who ducked out the door with a nod.

Water. She needed water. After she figured out where Dimitri was. He couldn't not be alive. There was no way. Her brain was refusing to accept it.

"Will someone talk to me? Please?" She cast one last furtive glance at her mother. Horror filled her. "Where. Is. He?"

Eddie returned with a nurse, who wasted no time in hurrying over to the vitals monitor standing by her bed and quickly pressing a couple of buttons. Almost immediately, Rose began to feel drugged out, morphine slipping through her veins and calming her down.

When she surfaced again, she didn't open her eyes right away, even though she felt like it would be much easier this time around.

Still calm.

Pressure on her hand.

Her fingers twitched

The pressure twitched back.

She focused enough to realize it was a hand.

"Roza."

Her eyes flew open and she nearly started crying when she saw Dimitri sitting next to her. He'd pulled up a chair so he could sit as close to her as possible, his knees awkwardly tucked under the bed. His fingers were tangled with hers as best they could given the cast on her wrist, and he squeezed tight now that she was awake.

His eyes were brown.

"Oh my God, I thought—"

She began crying, all her previous fears melting away into exhaustion. He was up and over her in an instant, hugging her mostly on her right side, his face buried in her neck.

"I'm here," he whispered, dropping a kiss just below her ear, his free hand smoothing her hair from her face. "I'm here, Roza, I'm not going anywhere. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here."

She took a moment to take stock of her body now that she knew Dimitri was alright. Her cast extended from mid-fingers to upper forearm; her left arm was in a weird cuff sling thing that kept her entire limb immobile against her chest. She ached, and not just from getting tossed around like a ragdoll. Her words were barely audible as she calmed down.

"How did you . . . ?"

Dimitri pulled back, his eyes flooded with emotions, and he cupped her cheek, cool fingers brushing against her heated skin to help continue calming her down. "When you charged at that Strigoi like you did . . . it was the half-second I needed. I don't know how you did it. I thought you were done. You looked like it."

"I feel like it," she said, her head throbbing. Crying and head trauma didn't mix well.

Dimitri laughed softly, relief flooding his features. "You're a warrior, Rose. You'll be alright. Bodies heal."

His small smile made her feel like she was floating . . . and then she remembered her earlier confusion.

"Where are we, exactly?"

"Omsk." He sat back down, one hand tangled with hers despite the intrusive cast and the other resting on her leg, his hand scorching her skin through the blankets. At her continued puzzlement, he said, "There's a Moroi-staffed wing in the hospital here that's better equipped to deal with field injuries than what St. Basil's can do. You were among the handful of those in critical condition, so they sent you here." He squeezed her leg. "I'm sorry I wasn't here when you woke up. It took me a while to be able to leave the school."

Her heart soared at his words but the flight stopped mid-air when her mother's voice from days ago snuck in her ear.

There's no room for emotions in our line of work. You'll get hurt, one way or another.

"You—" She struggled to find words. "You showed up because I was in trouble. You abandoned your post to save me."

"That's not—"

"Let me talk, Dimitri," she gritted out, her head filling with pain. She wanted to get the words out quickly so she could sleep again. As happy as she was to see him, the whole exchange was quickly wearing her out. "My mistake pushed you into acting irrationally. No, you did, don't argue with me on that. You're not supposed to step in unless the rest of the threat has been neutralized. It's guardian one-oh-one stuff. There were other Strigoi out there, Strigoi that were making a push for the school, and you chose to throw yourself in front of me instead of the rest of them. You nearly died because of that. Or worse. I'm not sure what would've happened to you."

Her gaze was steely, but he met her in it, moment for moment of contact. "This," she said, referring to the two of them, beaten up and battered in a hospital room, "Is exactly why I said why I was hesitant to really get involved with you." She swallowed, hating herself for even thinking of uttering her next words. "There's no room for emotions in what we do, Dimitri, you know that as well as I do. We can't afford to be emotionally liable in the field. We're not even really dating and it's already been proven that we'll worry about the other before anything else. That flies in the face of everything we were trained to do."

Dimitri's face had hardened and by the time she finished talking, lungs winded and throat sore, most of his warmth had been locked away. He still kept his hands on her, but they felt oppressive and weighted now.

"You know I'm right," she finished.

"No, you're not," he replied softly, accent thick. Voices from just outside her door floated through and he stood again, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to her forehead, his nose brushing against hers as she trembled underneath, barely able to keep her tears at bay. "You think you're right, but only because you don't know what you're doing. I . . ." His breath hitched. "I can't keep my feelings buried, Roza, not after I came so close to losing you. The thought of living my life without you . . . You said it yourself — I would be good to you. So let me show you. Let me show you what it's like to let someone else worry about you instead of you shouldering the world on your own."

Anxiety wracked her, tears spilling over. "I—I don't know how—"

I don't know how to be anything but Lissa's guardian.

"Let me show you," he whispered, his breath against her lips, his forehead pressed ever so gently against hers, the only balm for the storm inside her head. "Let me show you how beautiful the world can be if you let me love you."

Time stopped. Her eyes slid open, the air drying her tears, and she peered up at Dimitri, who was so close and looking at her like she was his everything.

The door rattled, breaking the spell and propelling Dimitri across the room to the window, looking out at the city lights blinking through the now night sky. To anyone else, he looked casual and unbothered. To Rose, she could tell he was furious at having been interrupted.

A different voice echoed in her mind.

We want the same thing, don't we? To dismantle the current system? They're so rich and powerful, always controlling everything about you. . . . I make my own choices. And I can see it in you, too — you crave free will.

What did it say about her choices in life that a Strigoi's logic sounded appealing?

Yet . . . he wasn't wrong. She did crave free will. She would've loved to have gone to college on her own terms, do something other than get up, go to work, talk to the same ten people every day, eat, go to bed, lather rinse repeat. She wouldn't give up being Lissa's guardian or best friend for the world, nor did she regret the choices she'd made to get to where she was now, but there had always been something missing. She had a life that people would kill for — a steady paying job, a roof over her head that wasn't going anywhere, a friend group so closely knit it felt like a makeshift family — and yet . . . it had never felt whole.

She'd never felt whole until she met Dimitri Belikov and had him turn her entire life upside down.

A nurse — Rose could clearly see now that it was a Moroi — finally got the door open, apologizing in Russian and muttering something unfavorable about sticky door handles under her breath. She bustled over to the side of Rose's bed where Dimitri had been just moments prior and started checking her vitals. She asked Rose something that went straight over her head. When Rose stared back, totally at a loss, the nurse turned to Dimitri and asked him something different.

Dimitri stepped forward, worry creasing his brow and tensing his shoulders. Any signs of their earlier conversation had been carefully tucked away for the next chance they were well and truly alone. "She wants to know how you're feeling."

"Like I got thrown into a tree," she deadpanned and when Dimitri translated, the nurse gave a small smile. She asked a couple more questions and Dimitri gave them to Rose in English one at a time.

"How's your head?"

"It hurts? She's gonna need to be more specific. I can't think clearly right now."

He said something to the nurse, who responded with what sounded like numbers. "She said to go by a scale of one to ten."

"Dyesyat," she said to the nurse, her brain cooperating enough to remember the word for ten in Russian. The door opened again and Rose's eyes flicked to Janine slipping in, staying by door with a small nod.

The nurse grimaced and motioned for Dimitri to ask the next question.

"Your wrist?"

"Like maybe a six? Seven?" To the nurse, "Syem, let's go with seven."

"And your shoulder?"

"Dyesyat," she repeated. The pain she felt had slipped away during her conversation with Dimitri but was now back in full force.

The nurse said something, motioning to Rose's ankle.

"She needs to take your blood pressure but she can't do it on either of your arms," Dimitri explained and Rose nodded.

"That's fine. Ohne mozhet," she said, starting to kick the blankets free. She's allowed.

A few minutes later, when the rest of her vitals were completed, the nurse let loose a rapid-fire string of Russian that Dimitri simply nodded to. "Da, miy znayem," he said when she finished and Rose melted in the small bit of language. She rarely ever heard him speak Russian, but when she did, she turned to putty. His voice in English was enough to do things to her she didn't want to think about with her mother in the room.

"Dobroy nochi," the nurse said before dipping out of the room again. Good night.

"What did she say?" Rose asked when the door clicked shut.

Dimitri took his old chair, rubbing his face wearily. Rose suddenly wondered when the last time he slept was. "You slept the first few days you were here, so now that you're awake, they're ready to send you home. A physical therapist will be here in the morning to go over exercises for you to do when your shoulder is mobile again and the cast will be off in a couple of days. You'll probably be discharged tomorrow afternoon."

"I suspect they'll give you enough painkillers to last you the year," Janine said when Rose started to protest about how could they possibly let me leave in this much pain?

"Your mother's right," Dimitri said. "There's not much else to do now except heal."

Rose sighed. The urge to go back to sleep was stronger than ever. "It'd be safe to assume I'm going back to Baia after this," she said.

"Maybe," Dimitri said slowly, sparing Janine a brief, worried glance.

"What?" Rose asked, sensing something was going unsaid.

"The Queen wants you to come home," Janine said. She stepped forward, slowly easing herself onto the bed by Rose's feet so as not to jostle her. "With everyone off school property and safely home, the extra guardians called in have all been released back to normal duty. Well, except for those like you who got seriously hurt."

And I can see it in you, too — you crave free will, and you know, deep down, that you'll never get it if you stay by Vasilisa's side for the rest of your life.

Dimitri was watching her carefully.

"I'm staying," Rose said and she nearly smiled from the shock on both their faces. (And was that a little bit of hope on Dimitri's?)

"Rose, I don't think—"

"Mom, there hasn't been a Strigoi attack on Baia in decades. Honestly, I'm safer there than I was at St. Basil's. Strigoi don't mess around with dhampir towns like that." She swallowed, still desperately wishing for water. "Besides, Lissa gave me a task, one I intend on seeing out to completion. I've got another, what, seven months? And the days are getting longer, so I've got daylight on my side, too."

Janine, still frowning, nodded. Her eyes flicked to Dimitri, who was staring at Rose curiously. "I'll call Hans and let him know." She stood and was about to leave when she turned suddenly. "Oh, by the way . . . I, um, would like to accompany you on the drive back."

Rose noticed even Dimitri was taken aback by the uncharacteristic pause. "Guardian Hathaway, you don't have to—"

"Not with your ankle, I don't think so," Janine replied with a hard look that made Rose realize just exactly where she'd gotten it from. She flashed the pair a tight smile. "I'll see you in the morning, Rose."

When it was just the two of them, Dimitri turned to Rose. "I thought you might've jumped on the first chance to go back home."

"What?" Her confusion was palpable. "Why would I do that?"

"I thought I might have pushed you away with what I said earlier," he replied. "Plus, you seemed so at ease with your friends the past two weeks that I—"

"Dimitri," Rose interrupted, reaching for his hand. "They'll still be in the States when I get back. I think . . . I think I have an opportunity to make a decision for myself and what I want and it's right here, right now, right in front of me. I want to take it. I mean, it's great and all that I can silence a room with just my presence, but I don't know who I am fully. Yeah, I'm a guardian, and yeah, I'm Lissa's guardian, but you keep talking about this world where I can be something more than that, where I can be my own person." Still looking at him, she tilted her head, trying to find a more comfortable position. "I want you to show me that world."

Never before had Rose seen someone look so ecstatic — not even the look on her own face in the dozens of post-graduation photos Lissa insisted on taking years ago compared to the elation on Dimitri's face.

"I will," Dimitri promised, grinning wide. "We can talk more when we're home, after your mother leaves. I can see you're tired." He paused, looking hopeful. "Can I kiss you?"

Rose snorted, ignoring the throb in her head as a result. "If you don't, I'm gonna scream bloody murder, and that'll be hard to explain."

Grinning in response, Dimitri bent over and gave her the kind of kiss that, even lying in a hospital bed, made her knees weak.

To Be Continued