I left the room in a horrible mood, I knew this was going to be the end. Even if I found this mysterious sibling of Lissa's, I wouldn't be free. I would be executed. I'd been so close to death so many times. I'd even been dead once. This time was so much worse. I was going to die. Die a horrible death.

I walked back into my room, Dimitri was reading, and he put his book down as soon as I walked in. He jumped out of the chair and walked over to me when he noticed how much my mood had changed. "What's wrong?" He asked. "I'm going to die" I whispered. "I'm going to die!" I screamed. "You are not going to die, Rose." He whispered. Then I had a thought, one that would make everything better when I died. "When I die, I want you to do something for me" I asked. "You are not going to die!" He yelled. "Just listen!" I yelled. He didn't say anything, so I told him "I want you to be Lissa's guardian, I want you to be shadow-kissed" I whispered. "What? You want me to die?" He asked pleadingly. "Yes, Lissa will heal you" I forced smile. "No, I can't" He replied. "What? Why? You have to, when I die, Lissa needs someone to take away the darkness!" I yelled. "You are not going to die!" He pleaded. "I am, and you're going to take care of Lissa" I whispered. "What about the ghosts, and the darkness taking over me?" He asked. "I'll teach you how to get rid of the ghosts before I die, and Lissa will heal the darkness out of you" I answered. "No, you will not die" He said more to himself than me. He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me.

I forgot all about dying, and let his embrace take over me. I loved Dimitri; I needed to be with him. Forever, or, until I died. "Rose, I called my mother, she misses you, so does Viktoria" He whispered. I then remembered what I'd said to Viktoria before I left. I thought she hated me, and to hear that she missed me made me feel so much better. "I miss them too" I whispered. He held me, whispering soothing words in my ear.

I later got a message from Lissa through the bond, Come to my room. I looked up and Dimitri and said "I have to go, Lissa wants me. I love you" I left the room reluctantly, and knocked on Lissa's door. Christian answered and I saw Lissa sitting on the bed. I walked over to her and sat down beside her. "Rose, I visited Adrian when I found out that he'd left. You broke his heart, but I know you didn't mean to" She whispered. "I know, but, well..." She stopped me before I continued. "I know, but I didn't bring you in here to talk about that. The whole Royal Court is afraid, they sent the best guardian's after you. They know where we are, we need to get the info we came here for and leave" She warned.

I hopped off the bed, and Lissa and Christian followed. I opened the door to my room and told Dimitri what we needed to do. He told Abe and my mother what we needed to do and everyone met up in the lobby. Lissa handed Dimitri, Christian and I charmed rings. We were the ones the guardian's were looking for. We headed to the nearest bank and went inside. There was no one there, so it was safe for Lissa to use compulsion. I handed her the piece of paper with the bank account on it and when the lady behind the counter asked her if she needed anything, Lissa put on her sweet face and looked the woman in the eye. She was human, so it would be easy to use compulsion.

"I need you to tell me whose bank account this is" She asked and read out the numbers on the piece of paper. The woman's eyes glazed over and she got that goofy smile that all of Lissa's 'clients' got. She typed something into the computer and looked at Lissa. "This isn't a Las Vegas account, it's from somewhere in Siberia," she told Lissa. Dimitri flinched when the woman mentioned Siberia. "It's from a place named Baia" she continued. "There is no street address though" Lissa stopped using her compulsion and looked at me and Dimitri. It was then that my mouth had dropped open, the same with Dimitri's. "You know something that you aren't telling me" She stared at me. "Lissa, when I was looking for Dimitri, that's where I went. That's where I found the spirit user and her shadow-kissed husband. Mark and Oksana." I whispered.

We walked out in silence, until I saw them. The guardian's had found us. A few of them looked at me and had to take a second look to realise it was me. The ring mustn't have been strong enough because as soon as they noticed who it was, they came running at us. "Run!" I yelled. We ran as fast as we could, but the sunlight was taking a toll on Lissa and Christian. We ran down an alleyway and the guardian's followed. There was nobody in sight, except the guardian's chasing us. If they caught up, they would do anything to get us, if there were people around they wouldn't be able to get us without making a scene.

I could hear Lissa and Christian puffing, it was getting so much harder for them to keep going, but all the running laps when Dimitri had been my mentor had helped me to do things like this. All of a sudden, Christian stopped. The guardian's were getting closer and closer, until a wall of fire stopped them. It was huge, I didn't know Christian had so much power in him. Except, this wasn't Christian, it was someone else. A moroi, not one I'd ever met before. I then realised that Christian was doing some of it because he fell to the ground, and some of the fire disappeared.

Dimitri picked Christian up and started running again. I followed with Lissa, I held onto her hand tight to make sure she didn't stop. The moroi kept the wall of fire up without even breaking a sweat when we ran past him. He was probably my age, but it was hard to tell with their slim frames. We kept running until we got out of the alleyway. Amazingly, there was one taxi parked on the side of the street. We ran over to it and opened the doors. Lissa, Christian and I jumped in the back and put on our seatbelts. Dimitri hopped in the front and asked to go to the airport. The taxi driver started to argue that we should take Christian to the hospital, but stopped when Lissa looked at him. He put his foot on the gas and started driving.

We got to the airport about 15 minutes after leaving. Christian was feeling a bit better, but Dimitri still had to carry him. I lead us to a family change room, which I locked as soon as we got in. Dimitri placed Christian on the seat and Lissa walked over to him. She reached out to him and I felt the magic building up in her. It was a wonderful feeling, everything was happy for a few moments and Christian smiled. He looked better but I could tell Lissa was getting tired.

We headed over to the counter, where we got one way tickets to Siberia. Our plane was just about to leave by the time we reached the terminal. We had no luggage, so we got on the plane pretty quickly. The flight was going to take about a day, so once we were on; I bought some food and drinks while we were waiting. About four hours into the flight, I could tell that Lissa needed blood, she'd been using a lot of magic and it was taking a lot out of her. I stood up and told her to follow. I took her into one of the toilets, the flight attendant gave us some weird looks but I ignored her.

I locked the door and tilted my neck, it took her a few moments to process, but she understood. She reached over and sank her teeth in. I let out a quiet whimper and then let the endorphins take over. She pulled away after a few moments and wiped her mouth. She got some paper towel and cleaned up some of the blood. I let my hair down and covered up the bite. She held me up as we went back to our seats and sat me down. I sat next to Dimitri and Christian and Lissa sat across from me. Christian realised what we'd done and grinned. "Aren't you gonna share, Rose" He laughed. I gave him my best glare, but it didn't change the look on his face. I felt weak from the blood loss, and Lissa realised when she looked at me. She passed me one of the Mars Bars I'd bought and told me to eat it. I didn't feel much like eating but I did it for Lissa. After a few more hours, I fell asleep on Dimitri's shoulder.

I woke up just before we were about to land; realising Dimitri had put his duster over me. I had a sense of déjà vu from when I woke up the same way after a shopping trip with Victor, before he kidnapped Lissa. I noticed that Lissa and Christian were looking at Dimitri, I guessed they must have been having a conversation before I woke up, because once they saw me, they looked away. I realised they were talking about Baia, and why that's where I went to find Dimitri. I knew because Lissa wasn't great at keeping things hidden from me.

Once we'd landed, we left the airport and went shopping. I wasn't quite sure where we were but Dimitri seemed to know where everything was. I bought all of our new clothes with the credit card that Adrian had given me. I didn't want to waste his money; I just wanted him to know where I was. I bought myself a few tank tops and some different pairs of slacks. Lissa chose out some sweaters for me, so I bought them too. It wasn't freezing where we were, but it was a bit cold.

Once we'd done all our shopping, we hired a car and headed off on our road-trip to Baia. I couldn't stop thinking about the moroi that had helped us escape from the guardian's. Dimitri was driving, and he handed me his phone. "Ring them, we'll need somewhere to stay" He told me without taking his eyes off the road. I opened up the phone and went into the phonebook. The number was under the name 'Family'. I pressed call, and put the phone up to my ear. I didn't know what I was going to say, but when Viktoria answered, my heart sank.

"Hello, who's there? Hello?" She asked

"Viktoria, is that you?" I asked

"Yeah, is that you Rose?" She asked excitedly.

"Yes it is" I answered

"Oh. My. God!" she screamed.

"I need to talk to your mom" I told her.

"I'll put her on straight away. Are you nearby?" She asked

"Yup, closer than you think" I answered

"Okay! Here she is" she yelled

"Hello, Rose, is this really you? You left so unexpectedly" She started.

"Yeah, sorry about that, I need a favour" I asked

"Of course, anything for my son's love" She answered. When I'd visited, I told everyone about Dimitri being 'dead' and they'd all figured out that I'd loved Dimitri.

"I, uh, we need somewhere to stay. Not just Dimitri and I, Liss... Vasilisa Dragomir and Christian Ozera are with us" I asked.

"Rose, if you're being followed, I don't want to get involved, and yes, I know you're innocent but I can't let you stay unless, you know you're safe." Olena answered.

"Trust me, we lost the guardians a long time ago" I told her.

"Okay, I'll organise somewhere for you to stay. When will you get here?" She asked.

"In a few hours, I have to go though, we'll have no signal soon, I miss you" I said

"I miss you too Rose" And with that, I hung up.