Dimitri POV
I watched Roza as she padded across the small room and opened the door to the small bathroom. It had a toilet and a small sink, but I knew that that wasn't why she was going. We was going for the mirror that was above the sink. Part of me knew that I should stop her but I couldn't bring myself to do it. She deserved to see what had happened to her.
She dropped the hospital gown to floor and turned around so that her back was facing the mirror. She took a deep breath and then looked over her shoulder. She didn't make a sound, she just studied herself as if the shredded back she was looking at belonged to someone else. I was too busy looking at the rest of her body.
Her neck still hand multiple fang marks that had scabbed over. She had dark circles under her eyes and yellowing bruises on her face. Her arms were thin and I could almost count her ribs. She'd lost her curves and her thighs were bruised as well, perfect finger marks were all over them. It was amazing to think that she looked so different after only a week and a half.
I wanted to ask her questions but I knew that she wasn't ready to answer them and I didn't know if I was ready to hear her answers.
She finished looking at her back and then looked to me. Her eyes filled with pain for a moment and then she shut the bathroom door and shut me out. I couldn't stay there any longer.
I went in to the waiting room and everyone looked up at me.
"How is she?" Christian asked.
"I don't know." I said honestly. "The doctor gave her something for the pain and she went to sleep for a while. She's in the bathroom now."
"Can we see her?" He asked.
"I don't know if she's ready for any visitors." I said. "Where is Vasilisa?"
"She was here for a while but she got called away. Simon and Gavin are with her."
I nodded and then sat down beside him. "Is everything okay?"
"I don't know. Alberta wanted to speak to her alone. How're you holding up?"
"Compared to Roza, I'm fine."
"You're allowed to be not fine, you know." He said, his blue eyes meeting mine.
"Where are her parents?" I asked, hoping to change the subject.
"The bossy nurse came to speak to them. They've gone to the nurses' lounge."
"Would you mind sitting with Rose until they've finished? I need some air."
"Sure. Take your time." He said and went to Roza's room.
I stood up and left the hospital, heading straight to the church. I wasn't a particularly religious man but Mama had insisted that my sisters and I accompanied her to church every Sunday. I'd always gone with Ivan on the rare occasion that he went and I'd gone every Sunday at St Vladimir's. After I'd been restored, I'd spent most of my time in there; though that was more to prove that I was no longer strigoi than anything else. The church had been the place that I'd broken Roza's heart and I hadn't been back since we'd returned to Court unless it was as a guardian. Still, I went there looking for answers.
The church was empty, except for the priest who was putting bibles on the pews. He turned to me when the doors closed and welcomed me before going back to his task. I sat in the back, not wanting to disturb him, and thought of my Roza.
Rosemarie Hathaway had always been a force to be reckoned with. She'd been fierce when I'd first met her, defending Vasilisa like any guardian would do even though she was only a novice. An untrained novice at that. She'd been a quick study when I'd taken her back to the academy, learning more in our sessions than I thought possible and quickly caught up to the rest of the students. She made her first strigoi kills with a sword that hadn't been sharpened in more than a hundred years and she flew through her final exams and earned her promise mark. She was exceptional then and had continued to be through the rest of her career.
Seeing her now, she could have been a completely different person. She was quiet and withdrawn. She barely made eye contact with anyone and she flinched whenever someone got too close to her. She'd lost the fight that had always drawn me to her and I had no idea how to help her.
"Are you okay, Guardian Belikov?"
I looked up at the person who had intruded on my thoughts and saw that the priest had come to sit beside me. He was an elderly man, probably in his early sixties, with white hair and kind eyes.
"Yes, thank you Father."
"People who come here when there isn't a service are usually not okay. Would you like to talk about it?" He asked kindly.
"It's not for me to talk about." I said.
"Ah, so it's someone else that is not okay?" I nodded and he smiled. "You're here because you're worried about someone?"
"My... Rose."
"Rose Hathaway?" He asked and then nodded. "That makes sense. I heard that she'd left Court. I've missed her these last few Sundays."
"She's back now. She's in the hospital."
"Then why aren't you with her?" He asked.
"I don't know if I can help her."
"Surely just being there is help enough?"
"I don't think that it is. She's been through a lot since she left." I said, fighting the lump that formed in my throat. "I need to find a way to help her."
"I could try and help you, if you tell me what she's been through."
So, I did. I told him about Roza going missing after the party and then Adrian finding her. I told him about the DVD and everything that had happened since. He listened patiently, his face betraying nothing.
"My little sister was raped once. She was only fifteen at the time." He said quietly. "She'd been with someone that was supposed to be her friend. My mother took her out of the academy and home schooled her instead."
"How was she?"
"She was scared. She thought that he'd find her or that any man she allowed near her would hurt her. She wouldn't let my father or I anywhere near her. If we came in to a room, she would leave it. We tried to help her but nothing that we tried worked. She'd wake up in the night screaming. She took her life when she was seventeen and couldn't live with the dreams any more." He looked sad but then smiled at me. "She wasn't as strong as Rose though."
"I'm afraid that I'll lose her." I said.
"Unfortunately, this is Rose's path to walk down. She had to find her own way through this. You can be there for her but only Rose can deal with what she went through."
I nodded, knowing that he was right. "Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?"
"No. I may be a man of God but I don't believe that everything that happens in the world, happens for a reason. I believe that God loves each of us but ultimately, he can't have a plan for everyone in the world. There are over seven-billion humans out there, never mind our kind as well. I believe that God does his best."
"What about your sister?" I asked. "Did you blame God?"
"No. I blamed the so-called friend that raped her. For a while, I blamed my sister for not being strong enough, but I know now that that wasn't the case. She tried for two years to recover from her trauma but it was too much for her. She's in God's hands now and he'll take care of her."
"You don't think that she's in hell?" I asked and then regretted my question instantly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"
"Don't be sorry, Guardian Belikov. It's a valid question. As a man of God, of religion, do I believe that she's burning in hell for all of eternity because she took her own life? No, I don't. I don't believe that any one who takes their own life is destined for hell. People have their own reasons for doing the things that they do and I'm sure that God understands that."
"I hope so."
"What do you believe, Guardian Belikov?"
"Honestly, I don't know. I'm not a religious man, though my mother tried her best to raise me to be one. I find it hard to believe in a God would allow such horrible things to happen in this world, especially to good people."
"I like to think that God tries his best but like a mother with twelve children, it's hard to keep on top of them all at once." He said with a small smile. "With the right support, Rose will come out of this and she may even be stronger than before. Before I came to Court, I was at a small Academy in Romania. There was a girl there that had through something similar to Rose, though it was far less traumatic. She'd been to a party in one of her friend's dorm. She'd gone because her friend had asked her too but she'd made sure that she didn't drink any alcohol. She'd tried her best to be sensible but that didn't save her. Someone had put something in her drink and she was a victim any way. I worked with her for a while when her family found out. They thought that God could help her but in the end, all she needed was someone to listen to her and understand how she was feeling. She went on to get married and she has three children now. She send me a card every year at Christmas."
"That's nice."
"Yes and I'm glad to receive every one of them. It means that I helped her in a way that no one else could. You can do the same for Rose, Guardian Belikov, but I can't tell you how to do that." He said and rested his hand on my shoulder. "She may need you to talk or she may need you to give her some space. I can't tell you what it is that you should do."
He stood up and walked away from me, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
An hour or so later, Adrian came rushing in to the church. "She's gone. Rose is gone."
"Gone where?" I stood up and went to him.
"I don't know. Christian was with her but he got called to Liss and then Abe was with her. By the time the nurse went to check on her, she was gone. We've looked everywhere for her."