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Chapter 7

Rose didn't say much more about her idea. She'd said she'd explain it when Sydney was with us.

We reached the edge of the forest near the motel and I pulled Rose back behind the trees when I saw the flashing red and blue lights surrounding the place.

"The whole town turned out," she said quietly.

"You just had to say something to the desk clerk, didn't you?" I asked her, sighing in exasperation.

She made our way around the outskirts of the forest and decided to hide in the shadow of an old, run-down building.

"I thought it would slow you down." She said and shrugged her shoulders.

"It's going to slow us down now," I retorted, inspecting the scene nearby us. There was no way we'd be able to stay here now.

I noticed the grey Honda was nowhere to be scene.

"Sydney's car is gone. That's something, at least." I commented. At least Sydney had gotten out in time, meaning that it would be easier to get out of here now that I knew she wasn't trapped in questioning about any "suspicious behaviour" she may have seen.

"Is it? We just lost our ride!" Rose said, louder than before.

I signalled to her to keep her voice down before answering.

"She wouldn't leave us, but she was smart enough to get out before the police came knocking on her door." I decided it were best if we moved away from the scene, that way Sydney wouldn't have to return to the scene to come get us.

"Come on. She has to be close, and there's a good chance the police might actually start searching around if they thought some defenceless girl was being chased down," I said, emphasising the 'defenseless', both of us knowing that she was anything but.

I decided it would be best if we walked along the road that led us into town. If Sydney was to come looking for us, she'd find us so much easier.

Rose walked beside me with a new determination. It made me wonder what she had meant when she had said 'I am going to do something for Lissa – and you and Sydney are going to help me'.

She had me curious. What had sparked this new determination and had made her agree with me back in the woods?

We both spotted Sydney's car pulled off on the road's shoulder at the same time. We made our way over and Rose walked to the driver's window and knocked. I followed her and got there in time to see Sydney's incredulous face looking out.

"What did you do? Never mind. Don't bother. Just get in."

Rose climbed into the back of the car like a dog with his tail between his legs. I was feeling a little sheepish at being scolded as well as I climbed into the passenger seat.

I pushed it away though; it was ridiculous to feel like this when I was the eldest here. I was looking after them.

I didn't really believe that though. I knew Rose was more than capable of looking after herself, and I had a feeling that I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Sydney.

Sydney pulled out and drove in the direction we'd come in. She drove for a few miles before reaching the small highway leading to the interstate. Before we reached it, however, she pulled over and turned to face Rose.

"You ran, didn't you?" She demanded.

"Yeah, but I got this–" Sydney cut her off by holding her hand up to her face.

"No, don't. Not yet. I wish you could have pulled off your daring escape without attracting the authorities." She said.

I was very much in agreement with her.

"Me too," I said, joining the conversation.

Rose glared at both of us.

"Hey, I came back, didn't I?"

I just looked at her in amusement.

Yeah, she came back alright…

"And now I know what we have to do to help Lissa." She continued.

"What we have to do is find a safe place to stay." Sydney said.

I knew she was right, but I was also intrigued by what Rose had to say.

"Just go back to civilisation and pick a hotel. One with room service. We can make that our base of operation while we work on the next plan." Rose tried to argue.

"We researched that town specifically! We can't go to some random place – at least not nearby. I doubt they took down my plates, but they could put out a call to look for this kind of car. If they've got that and our descriptions, and its gets to the state police, it'll get to the Alchemists and then it'll-" she was getting worked up.

"Calm down," I told her and placed a reassuring hand on her arm. She was getting carried away. "We don't know that any of that's going to happen. Why don't you just call Abe?" I suggested.

"Yeah. That's exactly what I want. To tell him I messed up the plan in less than twenty-four hours." She replied.

"Well," Rose said, piping in. "if it makes you feel better, the plan's about to change anyway-" I almost rolled my eyes.

"Be quiet." She snapped at her. "Both of you. I need to think."

I looked back at Rose as she looked at me. Neither of us said anything.

I had wanted her to tell us what her plan was because, despite most of them being crazy…some were actually pretty genius.

It was not a good time to tell us though with Sydney being in a bad mood, so I'd have to push my curiosity down for the time being.

Before driving off, she pulled out a map and studied it.

She punched Altswood into the GPS system.

"What's in Altswood?" Rose asked her curiously, managing to sound slightly disappointed at the same time.

"Nothing," Sydney replied. "But it's the closest place to where we're going that the GPS can find."

I felt my curiosity pick up as I wondered where we were now going. Preferring to keep my head attached to my body though, I decided against asking Sydney anymore questions until she cooled down.

I gave up on that curiosity, but returned to my earlier one. I turned to Rose.

"So what's going on with Lissa? What's this great plan of yours?" I looked to Sydney. "Rose says there's something important we have to do."

"So I gathered," was all she answered. I figured that was as good as we could probably get. I looked back to Rose to continue.

Rose took a deep breath and looked apprehensive. "So, it, um, turns out Lissa has a brother or sister. And I think we should find them."

That was the last thing I had been expecting. I heard Sydney gasp in shock from beside me but I kept my eyes on Rose.

Rose spoke calmly, but I heard the pain in her voice at admitting this out loud.

After processing the news about another Dragomir, the rest of her words settled in. Find the other Dragomir? How did she even know there was another one?

Rose saw I was about to ask her for proof and started shuffling. She produced a crumbled up piece of paper and read it out loud.

I was still a little apprehensive about this. I could see Sydney was as well. I read over the note for myself before speaking again.

"You have no proof Tatiana wrote this note," I told her, trying to look at all aspects. Someone could have forged her handwriting and made sure this note found its way to Rose.

"The Alchemist's have no records of another Dragomir," Sydney said.

"I don't really see why Tatiana's spirit would want to deceive me," Rose argued. "And the Alchemist's aren't all-knowing. The note says this is a pretty heavily guarded secret from Moroi – it makes sense it would be secret from the Alchemists too." She had a point. If it was true, a lot of effort would have been made to cover it up. But Rose had also told me before, when she had first started seeing her friend Mason's ghost, that sometimes it wasn't clear what he was trying to say.

"You've said before that it's not always clear what the ghosts are trying to say," I reminded her. "Maybe you misread her."

"I don't know…" Rose replied, not looking convinced at my suggestion. "I think she did write this note. My gut says she did."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "You know it's been right before. Can you trust me on this?"

We stared at each other for a minute. I thought to all of the times when Rose had saved herself, or Lissa, or someone else by acting on her gut feeling.

If her gut was telling her that this note was authentic…then I believed her.

I nodded slowly at her. I knew I was making a big gamble, but even after everything, I trusted Rose.

"But if we decided to search for this alleged sibling, we'd be going against Lissa's instructions to stay put." I was torn.

"You believe that note?" Sydney exclaimed, looking at me from the driver's seat. "You're considering listening to it?"

Both Rose and I ignored her for the time being. When I looked back at Rose, I saw the anger in her eyes.

She took a deep breath, trying to control it and spoke.

"Technically, yes. But if we could actually prove she wasn't that last in her family, it would help her a lot. We can't ignore the chance, and if you manage to keep me out of trouble while we do it" – she grimaced ever so slightly – "then there shouldn't be a problem."

I tried my best to open my mind to what she was saying.

Lissa had an unknown sibling. If we found this sibling and brought him/her back to Court, Lissa would have another family member, meaning she would be entitled to her vote. If she got her vote, the Council could reconsidered the new Age law and Lissa would vote against it, meaning that it would be retracted.

I thought of my nephew Paul.

It hurt to think of my family, but for the time being, I had to push away that pain and hurt. Paul was ten years old. If this Age Law wasn't abolished, he would be sent off to fight in less than six years. I couldn't let that happen to him, or to any other kid. Because that's exactly what they were – kids.

I made my decision.

"Okay. But where do we start? You have no other clues, aside from a mysterious note." I spoke to her.

"Obviously, this is a secret. A big one. One people have apparently wanted to cover up – enough that they'd try to steal records about it and keep the Dragomirs out of power."

She told us about how someone had stolen papers from an Alchemist paper which indicated that Eric Dragomir had been funding some woman. Rose pointed out that this woman was more than likely the mother of the child.

It was a very likely theory.

"You could look into that case some more." Rose directed towards Sydney.

"Whoa, hey. How was I not even part of this decision process?" Sydney spoke, looking far from pleased. "Maybe breaking Lissa's orders is no big deal for you two, but I'd be going against Abe. He might not be so lenient."

"I'll pull in a daughterly favour," Rose said. "Besides, the old man loves secrets. He'd be into this, believe me." It was extraordinary to suddenly notice how much she is like her father.

"And you've already found the biggest clue of all. I mean, if Eric was giving money to some anonymous woman, then why wouldn't it be for his secret and child?"

"Anonymous is the key word. If you're theory's right – and it's kind of a leap – we still have no idea who this mistress is. The stolen documents didn't say."

Sydney had a point. I had no idea where to go from here.

"Are there other records that tie into the stolen ones? Or could you investigate the bank he was sending money to?" If only it were that easy.

"You really have no idea how 'researching records' works, do you? It's not that easy. It could take a while."

"Well… I guess that's why it's good we're going somewhere, um, secure, right?" Rose said, not sounding too sure of herself for once.

"Secure…" Sydney repeated and shook her head. "Well, we'll see. I hope I'm not doing something stupid."

The car fell silent as we drove towards our still-concealed destination. According to the GPS we still had an hour to drive.

I had an urge to turn around and looked at Rose to make she was alright. It had been a long day, and finding out that her best friend's deceased father had another secret child couldn't have been easy finding out.

I kept looking straight ahead though, keeping an eye out danger instead. We couldn't forget that we were still being searched for.

After more than forty minutes, Sydney stopped the car and pulled out her laptop. I turned to look at Rose in the back. She had been very quiet the whole journey.

When I turned around to see her face though, I saw that strange but familiar blank look on her face.

"Rose." I spoke softly to her, not wanting to startle her.

"Everything okay back there?" I asked her, knowing that she'd been in Lissa's head.

She just nodded at me, looking deep in thought.

"Where are we?" She asked me, looking out one of the windows.

"Altswood," I answered her.

"Makes our last town look like New York." She commented.

Sydney closed the laptop and handed it back to Rose, who lay it down gently on the seat beside her.

Sydney started the engine again and drove deep into the trees. She drove at five miles per hour until she reached a small gravel path that was heavily obscured. Her anxiety spiked and filled the atmosphere in the car.

Finally, we reached a clearing in the trees, where several other strange vehicles sat parked.

Sydney pulled up into a space, a little way away from the others and shut off the engine.

I was expecting her to drive us to another dingy motel, not into the middle of a forest.

"Are we at a campground" Rose asked her.

She ignored Rose's question and turned to me.

"Are you as good as they say you are?" she asked me.

"What?" I replied, completely lost.

"Fighting. Everyone keeps talking about how dangerous you are. Is it true? Are you that good?" She asked me.

I knew I was better than most guardians when it came to combat, but saying that out loud seemed so arrogant to me.

"Pretty good." I answered her.

Rose scoffed from the back seat.

"Very good," she corrected.

"I hope it's enough," Sydney said and reached for the door's handle.

Now I was a little apprehensive about walking into this place…whatever it was. Why would I need to fight?

"Aren't you going to ask about me?" Rose asked her, unhappy at being unaccounted for.

"I already know you're dangerous, I've seen it." Sydney answered.

"Why'd we stop?" Rose asked her as we walked out across the rural parking lot.

"Because we have to go on foot now." She shone a flashlight and moved it around until it landed on a small gravel footpath heading farther into the trees.

"There." She said and the three of us moved toward it.

I was feeling bad about this.

The plan had been to avoid danger, and Sydney had just suggested that we were now walking into it voluntarily.

"Wait," I spoke and moved so that I was in front of them both. Scouting the area, I saw that Rose had moved to cover the back of our party. I had always known she'd make a great guardian, despite her impulsive and reckless ways.

I tightened my grip on the stake I held in my hand as we moved farther and farther into the woods. The only sounds were our breathing and our light footsteps moving through the grass and weeds.

"Where are we going?" Rose asked Sydney from behind.

"To people I guarantee won't turn you in," she answered. They were reassuring words but the tone she spoke in was not.

Suddenly, light shown directly in our direction, blinding me for a few seconds. My hand gripped my stake even tighter and my other senses enhanced, expecting some form of an attack.

It didn't come however.

As my eyes quickly adjusted to the sudden light, the first thing I saw was vampire faces all around us.

Anybody read Foretold yet? I'm still waiting for mine in the post so if you have, no spoilers please! :P God how I love Rose & Dimitri :D