Dimitri POV

"I still don't think this is a good idea." I argued with Kirova while I followed her into her office. "What was your motivation of sending her in blind? What if she gets in trouble?"

Kirova stopped walking when she reached her door, turned around and laughed.

"She won't. Come in, I'll show you."

She opened the door and ushered me in.

Three people, Stan, Alberta and a woman I hadn't met before were crowded around a laptop.

The woman looked to be another guardian, but I hadn't seen her before, so she couldn't be a school guardian.

"Rebecca, how is everything going?" Kirova asked.

Rebecca never looked up from the screen. "She is going great. They have some suspicions, but nothing serious."

"Great." She said, then turned to me. "We wouldn't send her in blind if we didn't have a purpose." She stated. "We need to see into the house…you know, to see what they are up to. So, my genius, Rebecca, implanted a camera in her brain, transmitting everything back see would have seen back here. Unfortunately, that means she can't see anything. We are her eyes."

"Camera?" I asked. That didn't seem possible.

"Eyes for the blind." Rebecca said, again not looking up from her screen.

"Wait, so…you're telling me she's a spy?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yep." Rebecca answered, finally looking up at me professionally. "She's like an obvious fly on the wall. If everything goes well, we will have a lot of information that may be critical."

"And if something goes wrong?" I asked. This was sounding worse by the minute.

Rebecca shrugged. "We collect the information we have and use it to the best of our abilities."

"But what about her?" I asked. "What happens to her if something goes wrong?"

Again, she shrugged. "Well, that will be unfortunate, but there will be only so much we could do. I wouldn't worry about that too much, though. It's only for a weekend. That's all we could afford."

This wasn't sounding very good. So much we could do? It sounded like they didn't care if Rose lived or not. Well, I did.

"Why are you so sure she will get out?" I asked, already knowing that wasn't their intentions.

Rebecca sighed and stood up. She was very short. Only came up to my shoulders, but full of power.

"She has kung fu skills that even I don't have. She doesn't know it, though, but if she needs to use it, it will kick in."

I relaxed a bit. Well, at least they didn't send her in defenseless.

"Now, why are you worrying?" she asked.

"Guardian Belikov was Echo's mentor. They were very close. Too close if you ask me." Kirova cut in and looked at me.

Rebecca finally seemed to get it, which was strange.

"Mr. Langthford?" she called and he walked through the door immediately.

"Yes?" he asked.

"You are being relieved of Echo." Rebecca stated and Mr. Langthford and I froze.

"What?" he asked.

"Mr. Belikov will be taking your position. He will be Echo's new handler after this assignment." She said before turning to me. "If you want to." She added.

I smiled slightly. "Of course."

Mr. Langthford looked upset, almost angry about this arrangement, but he obviously didn't have any control over his job. He sighed.

"Yes ma'am." He said in defeat.

"Excellent!" she crowed and sat down again. "Now, get to work. If we want to defeat these Strigoi, we need to concentrate. We are waiting for the right moment. Mr. Belikov, if you wouldn't mind…" she trailed off obviously.

"Yes, of course." I said and walked out.

So there I sat, once again in the gym, waiting for Rose to magically appear in the door in her gym clothes, ready to tease me about my western books.

I missed it.

Seeing Rose as a different person, was too much to wrap my head around. On one hand, seeing her body made my mind say it was her, and I wanted to be my Rose once again. But when I see how she walks, talks, thinks…my mind tells me to back off.

I didn't like my mind telling me that.

If there was only some way she could come back and be a guardian again. I would give anything.

"I miss you, Rose." I whimpered to myself in sadness. Just seeing her body wasn't enough, I knew that now. I needed to hold her in my arms as Rose, body and mind. Before that, nothing could fill that place in my heart.

"We all do." A voice echoed through the gym and I froze, ready to fight.

"Who's there?' I hissed.

Standing at the door, was Lissa.

"Relax, Dimitri. It's only me." She said calmly.

"You shouldn't do that." I stated.

"What?"

"Sneak up on me."

"That was hardly sneaking." She scoffed. "That was more, taken off guard."

"Whatever." I said. I didn't care anymore.

"We all miss her." She said suddenly. "Everything has been so dull lately. Seriously, I need something to happen. Anything. Serious flirting. A fight. Anything! And, well, she was my best friend."

"She's not dead." I said.

"May as well be!" she burst out. "She's a hat, until some genius jackass stuffs a rabbit in it!"

I looked at her. I had always thought Lissa had great charisma. I never knew she had an angry side.

"Oh, don't give me that look." She said. "You should know better than anyone else this is a bad idea. People shouldn't play with lives, especially those that had died once before."

I nodded in agreement. We needed to act professional about this situation, but it was harder than it sounded.

"I'm going to get her back." I murmured.

She looked at me. "How?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know." I admitted. "But…she knew me. She couldn't remember seeing me before, but she knew me. Maybe there's a chance they didn't erase anything. Maybe they covered it up."

"I hope so."

"Me too."