Every time I plunged my stake into a heart of a Strigoi, it brought me back to why I was here in the first place. Rose. She was my light, she made life meaningful and worthwhile. She made me feel as I have never felt before and how I've never felt since.
A week after her service, I went and spoke to Lissa. I told her I was leaving. She just nodded with a faraway look on her face. Christian stepped forward as if to shake my hand, or to say something to me but I ignored him and left. He was with her when she fell, and for that I have never been able to look at him since for fear of what I might do to him. It wasn't fair, me blaming him for her death but I just couldn't help it. If he had been quicker, I would have her in my arms instead of this now dead body of a monster. I shoved the corpse off of me, dusted myself off, and walked to the place I've been calling home these days. "Home" was a Motel 6 just off of the main road here in…wait where was I? I looked at my phone, November 6, 2009 it read. That can't be right, if that was right then I would have only been here a week. I should call Lissa soon; I wouldn't want her to worry. She says she likes me to call because she gets lonely and likes talking to me but I know that's it's really because she's checking to make sure that I'm alive. I heard she's doing better, Christian snapped her out of her spiraling depression. I like to check up on the kids. Rose would've wanted someone to look after them. I hear Christian wants to propose but doesn't think it's an appropriate time, everyone is still healing. Janine is back after her leave, she doesn't fight with everyone as much as she used to. Ivashkov was admitted and he's doing better. After all of his attempted suicides, the queen stepped in, one of the few decent things she's done. I couldn't help but feeling sorry for the kid, because that's all he was, a kid. When Rose was first brought in, she was in bad shape, really bad shape. I knew Lissa could heal her if I could find her, but I couldn't and time was running out. When I spotted Adrian, I grabbed him without second thought, I towed him to Rose's room and told him to heal her. He couldn't though, he was too drunk. The next few moments were a blur, I slammed him against a wall and roared profanities at him, I kept hitting him and hitting him until I was snapped out of it by the sound I was dreading. A flat beep of the machine Rose was hooked up to. I stopped and let him sink to the floor and he was quickly hauled out by doctors. (I heard I gave him a concussion and he doesn't remember any of what happened in those few minutes, which I'm grateful for. He shouldn't have that guilt on his conscience.) In a frenzied rush, they tried to get Rose's heart to start up again but they couldn't. She was really gone. Then I did something I remember telling Rose to do many times, I ran. Since then, I never stopped running, going from town to town hunting every Strigoi I could and killing them. Sometimes they got away, but often times I found myself staring down at a lifeless body, much like I did about eight months ago. 243 days ago, but who's counting? Maybe someday I would find peace, but I knew that day wasn't any time soon so I would keep this routine up. I would keep ridding the world of the creatures that ruined the lives of everyone around me by taking the life of one young girl.