"B-Belikov?"

Everything in my mind was spinning. Could this guy be related to….Dimitri? I mean they do have some similarities, but I mean what are the chances of ever even meeting someone related to him. My mind kept swimming in circles going over the possibilities.

"umm…yeah" he seemed a bit confused.

"are you uh…related to..." It was hard enough to even think his name but saying it, I've tried to not think or say anything about him but it seems to never work that well.

"Related to who?"

"D-Dimitri?"

His face immediately turned to a mix of sadness and anger. "yes, he was my cousin, we grew up together as kids and through part of our teens, how did you know him."

"He was my mentor at St. Vladimir's."

"hmm... trained by Dimitri himself, you must be quite the fighter then."

My face blushed slightly, something that doesn't normally happen, at least not in a long time.

He looked towards the dead bodies now laying on the bus, "well we better get rid of these bodies; care to help me with them?"

I gave a slight nod and we both took a body and dragged them into the woods to be burned. After that was done we both got back on the bus and started back towards my original destination.

"So...why are you a bus driver instead of protecting Morio?"

"well actually the family I was protecting forced me on vacation, said I was working too hard or something, but I'm not really into the whole taking time of thing so I decided to look into some local murders that had been occurring on bus routes. I had a hunch it was strigoi and I was right it just took a while to finally get to them. "

"hmm... pretty good hunch."

"yeah I guess, so what about you? You seem a little young to be out on your own fighting strigoi"

That pissed me off quite a bit, "well I'm 18, but anyway I dropped out of school right before graduation, there are some things that I have to take care of before I can become a guardian."

"care to share what that is exactly."

I paused for a moment, should I tell him that the reason I dropped out was to come and hunt down his cousin, his very close cousin at that?"

"well?"

"It's sort of complicated?"

"well this is a pretty long ride still."

I gave a deep sigh, alright I mean after this I won't see him again so it really doesn't matter if he knows the truth or not. "ok well starting from the beginning as I said Dimitri was my mentor, anyway a while back we had this conversation on what we would like if by chance we were turned into strigoi, we both had decided that if this had occurred we would want to be killed, that death was better than living a life as a murderous monster…"

"so it's true then, he was turned." His voice was so cold; I swear it felt like daggers hitting my ears.

"yes, he was, the day of the attack we killed to many of them, but there were even more…and they attacked him…"

"were you there when it happened"

"I….umm...yeah I was." I didn't know if I should go on or not, but he was silent, I suppose if he didn't want to here anymore he would say so, of course do I really want to talk more.

My mouth made the decision for me, as I began talking once more. "anyway we couldn't go back to help him, even if I wanted to they wouldn't let me, I had to leave, part of me figured no one could hurt him, he was a god as so many at St. Vlad's said"

That part let a slight laugh escape my lips. Laughter was really rare with me anymore it sort of felt good.

"haha I god eh, I suppose they would say that he was I guess in some ways. So ok from what I'm getting here is that you are trying to hunt him down correct?"

"umm...yeah it's what he wanted and I..."

"why would you leave school though? Do you really think that he would have wanted you to drop out, give up graduation, from what I figure you were probably best in your class. Is it really worth loosing that just to TRY and kill him?"

I was completely silent, this never occurred to me, but how could it, I loved him I couldn't do my job correctly unless I did this. "you really don't understand, I HAVE to do this, I wouldn't be able to do half as good a job at being a guardian unless this is done, I…"

"you loved him didn't you?"

I was completely frozen now, how could he have guessed that, was he some kind of freaky mind reader or something I mean really! "I...I…."

"is that a yes?"

I took a deep sigh, what's the point in trying to hide it, it really doesn't even matter anymore.

"yes I did, we were going to try to make our relationship work after I graduated, I would have been 18 so no one could do anything about it. "

"now it all makes sense as to why you would give up so much just for him"

"I'm not giving it up, once this is done I'm going right back to lissa to be her guardian."

"well I suppose to make your job go faster I could help you find him."

"wait what?"

"yup,"

"uh listen thanks but.."

"ok listen you are going to his and my hometown, being as it is also mine I know it a lot better than you do where everything's at etc etc, I am assuming you were going to stop there and search anyway correct?"

"well yeah, but look I need to do this on my own and I mean I appreciate this but."

"nope, you are not dropping me, now that you've found me your stuck at least until we find him, look I understand that you feel you need to do this alone and fine if we find out where he's at you can go by yourself and……….kill him, but trust me it will go a lot faster if I help and this way you can get back to your lissa a lot sooner."

Ugh, I don't think I will be able to get out of this damnit!! On the other hand he did have a point I didn't know the area he did he could help out a lot, plus he probably knew a lot more about Dimitri than I did, " alright, but if we do find him, I will be doing this alone, it's just.."

"say no more I understand completely"

The rest of the ride was quiet just a few words here or there, mostly I tried to rest a little bit, soon enough I fell into a deep sleep well sort of.

Everything was bright; there was a fresh salty smell that could clearly be coming from the nearby ocean. Waves were crashing hard down on the sand beach.

I stood in the middle of that beach wearing a red bikini. Damnit!

"Adrian!!! Where are you!!?"

Soft laugher approached up behind me.