Rose POV
When I came out of the bathroom, Christian had been sitting in the chair waiting for me. Dimitri was nowhere to be seen but I hadn't been surprised. The look on his face when he'd seen my body had one of horror.
"Is it your turn to babysit me?" I asked Christian.
"I'm not here to babysit you, Rose. I just wanted to see how you're doing." He said with a smile. It was strange to talk to Christian without him saying something sarcastic.
"I'm doing great." I said. "Where's Liss?"
"She was here for a while, waiting to see you, but then Alberta needed her for something. She'll be back later."
I nodded and then sat on the edge of bed facing him. We sat in silence for a moment until I spoke. "So, I hear that you and Adrian really saved the day. Thanks."
"You're welcome, Rose. I'm just sorry that we didn't get there sooner." He said. His blue eyes were filled with sadness and I searched for something to say that would cheer him up but I couldn't find anything.
"Don't worry about it. It's not your fault." I said.
I couldn't help but feel like they all needed my reassurance that I didn't blame. I didn't blame any of them. I didn't even blame Abe. Sure, he was the reason that I'd left the party and been on my own when I was taken and the reason that Nathan had wanted me in the first place... but I didn't blame him. I didn't blame Dimitri.
I blamed myself. If I hadn't been so upset, I would have noticed that someone was there. If I'd have fought harder, Nathan wouldn't have been able to do the things that he'd done to me. If I'd have been stronger, he wouldn't have been able to feed off me or starve me or keep me locked in a room for a week and a half.
If it was anyone's fault, it was mine. My life had spiralled out of control ever since Tasha had framed me for Tatiana's murder and I was desperate to get some control back. Of course, I had no idea how I was going to do that.
"Do you need anything?" Christian asked.
"I'm fine." I smiled at him, though it was forced.
"Liss was really worried about you when you were gone. She couldn't sleep and barely ate anything."
"Oh."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to... I didn't say that to make you feel guilty. I just wanted you to know that she loves you, no matter what. We all do." He said.
"I know."
There was a light knock on the door and a guardian poked his head inside. It was Gavin, one of the other guardians that were on Lissa's service. He was on the opposite shift to me, so I'd never had much to do with him but he seemed decent enough. Dimitri trusted him and that was enough for me. He had sandy blonde hair that had been shaved really short on the sides and was longer on top, which he usually tied up in to a sort mini bun when he was on duty.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you, Lord Ozera but the Queen requests your presence." He said.
"Is she all right?" I asked.
"She's fine, Guardian Hathaway." He said without even looking at me.
"I'll be there in a minute." Christian said. He obviously had more to say to me but I didn't want to hear it.
"It's fine, Christian. Go to Liss. I'll see you guys later. I'm tired any way."
"Are you sure?"
I nodded and gave him a small smile. "It's fine. Liss needs you more than I do right now."
"We'll come back later." He promised and then followed Gavin out of the room.
I laid back on the bed and closed my eyes when I heard the door shut. "I will kick you out of this room if you don't go to her." I said without openening my eyes.
"Go to whom?"
I opened my eyes at the sound of Abe's voice. "I thought you were Christian."
"No, he's following a blonde person with a ridiculous bun on his head."
"That's Gavin. And you're not one to talk on fashion choices." I said. Abe usually wore obscenely bright colour ties and pocket squares with his black suits and shirts. Today was different though. He wore black trousers and a black suit but there was no tie or pocket square. "Are you all right, old man?"
"May I?" He asked, holding his hand out to the chair. I nodded and he sat down. "How're you doing, Kiz?"
"Better. How're you doing? You look awful."
"I feel awful." He reached out for my hand but seemed to think better of it. "I'm sorry, Rose. I didn't mean what I said to you the night of the party."
"I know."
"I was angry. I didn't mean what I said." He said as if he hadn't heard me.
"Abe, Dad. It's okay." I said.
"No, it isn't." He said quietly.
He looked truly awful and I wondered if that was all he'd thought about whilst I'd been gone. Those last words playing in his mind over and over again. I tried to find something to say to him, something that would ease his guilt but I couldn't. I knew that saying 'don't worry about it' wouldn't quite cover it with him. There was nothing that I could say, so I didn't say anything. After a while, he stood up and left my room without saying goodbye. I wanted to go after him but i knew that it wouldn't do either of us any good. He needed time to forgive himself. Instead, I closed my eyes again, desperate for some sleep.
I groaned when someone else knocked on the door. What would it take to get some peace around here.
"Rose? Are you awake?"
I opened one eye and saw Sydney Sage standing in the doorway with a small bunch of flowers in her hand. "No." I mumbled and closed my eyes again.
"I'd ask if you were all right but I know that you're not." She said quietly. There was something in her tone, something that said she actually did know. I opened my eyes again and stared at her. She sat down in the chair and handed the flowers to me. "Not me. My sister. They're peonies. I didn't know what kind of flowers you liked and peonies are my favourite so I bought those."
"Thanks. No one else got me flowers." I said and inhaled their scent.
"I didn't know if I should or not but my mother always said that grapes were boring." She said with a small shrug.
"I don't like grapes, too healthy."
"I debated bringing you a burger but I wasn't sure whether you'd be allowed food or not."
"I haven't actually had anything yet, so I'm guessing not."
"It's just as well I didn't bring one then." She said and took the flowers back. She went to the bathroom sink and filled a jug with water, putting the pink peonies in it before setting it down on my night stand. "How're you feeling, Rose?"
"I've been better." I said, surprised that it was so easy to tell Sydney the truth.
"Abe told me happened between the two of you on the night that you were taken. He didn't mean what he said."
"I know."
"He feels awful about it."
"I know. I don't understand why he said it, but I know that he didn't mean it."
"He was protecting me." She said.
Abe protecting someone other than himself or his family seemed like an impossibilty, but I could see in her eyes that it was true. "Why?"
"Because I did something terrible. Well, actually, I got him to do something terrible for me."
"Something terrible enough to make you run away with two dhampir fugitives and save his daughter's life?"
"Yes. I asked him to arrange a strigoi attack on the man that raped my sister." She said without a hint of regret. "He staged a strigoi attack and Keith lost an eye. They weren't actual strigoi, but he didn't know that. He still doesn't."
"Why would you do that?" I asked.
"Because she's my sister. He told her whilst he was doing it that it was her fault because he'd never been able to take his eyes off of her. I figured that losing an eye might help him keep it off of other women." She said with a small smile. "Abe was protecting me by not telling you because if the Alchemists found out, they'd do worse to me."
"She didn't tell them?"
"No. She told me and made me swear not to tell anyone. I had to tell Abe so that he'd do as I'd asked and now I'm telling you. Otherwise, I haven't told a soul." She said. "Plus, she isn't an Alchemist. Our mom managed to keep her out of it. I was the first of the Sage girls to be enlisted."
"What did she do? After?"
"She ran away." Sydney said sadly. "She couldn't stand to be around anything that had been associated with Keith, which included the alchemists. She changed the way she looked. She got a nose ring and cut her hair off, though it does suit her. She's looks like a punk rock pixie."
I smiled, more at Sydney's affectionate tone than the image of an older Sydney with short hair, a nose ring and dark eyeliner. "You still love her."
"Of course. Why wouldn't I?" Sydney asked and then understanding dawned in her warm brown eyes. "Oh, Rose."
I sniffed and blinked the tears that threatened to fall away. "I'm sorry. I'm just, I'm just tired. And hungry. And I hate being cooped up." I said.
"Then let's go out for a while. Some fresh will probably do you good."
"I've got no clothes here."
"I'll find you something. I'll be back in a minute." She said and left my room.
I went to the bathroom and when I came back out Sydney was standing by them bed. She held out a pile of blue fabric to me and smiled.
"I don't suppose you ever wanted to be a doctor, did you?" She asked when I took them.
"Not particularly." I unfolded the clothes and shook my head. "You got me scrubs?"
"It's the best that I could do." She said with a small shrug. "Do you want to get out of here or not?"
I nodded and put them back down on the bed, attempting to reach behind me so that I could undo the tie at the back of the hospital gown. Of course, I couldn't reach it. Sydney stepped forward with her hands out.
"Here, let me help you." She said and undid the tie for me.
"Thanks." I picked up the sky blue top and tried to get it on, but it hurt to lift my arms over my head. Again, Sydney stepped forward and helped me get it on and then bent down in front of me. I put one leg and then the other in the trousers and she pulled them up for me, tightening the draw-string so that they didn't fall down. She fished around in her bag and pulled out a hair tie and then braided my hair down my back for me.
"Doctors don't leave their hair down. If you're going to blend, you might as well do it properly." She said with a smile and then took my arm, leading me out of the room. We managed to walk straight out of the hospital without anyone noticing us, which was amazing because it was relatively empty. There were a few guardians with training injuries and a couple of moroi kids that looked sick but otherwise it was empty. We walked for a while, stretching my legs out, before we ended up outside the gym.
We went inside and Sydney helped me to get upstairs to the balcony. It was where the guardians watched others train. Seeing as I couldn't be down there with them, I'd have to settle for watching. Thankfully, the gym was relatively quiet and no one paid that much attention to me as we went inside. A few nodded as we passed but that was all, which meant that none of them would tell Dimitri that I was there.
"In ancient Rome, if a man was found guilty of rape then he'd have his testicles crushed between two stones." Sydney said.
"It's a shame that they don't still do that."
"It's thought of as inhumane now. I'd love to know what they think rape is. I looked in to the statistics after my sister. They aren't really accurate because so many rapes go unreported to the proper authorities and they're really only the human statistics. It's impossible to know how many men and women are affected by sexual violence worldwide. It's a lot though."
"What do people do? Afterwards I mean."
"I don't know. When it was Carly, she went straight in the shower and scrubbed herself raw. Then she left. Others report it and go to trial in an attempt to get their attacker sentenced but that rarely happens. Others pretend that nothing happened."
"It's kind of hard to do that when everyone's seen it happen."
"Rose, I know that I don't know you well enough to really have any right to say this, but that wouldn't work for you."
"Why not?"
"Because you're you. You face a problem head on, you don't stop until you get the outcome that you want. You're Rose Hathaway. And Rose Hathaway doesn't live in a pretend world where everything is made up rainbows and unicorns."
"Honestly, I'd rather take the rainbows and unicorns." I said.
"Maybe you could talk to someone about what happened to you."
"Like a therapist?"
"It doesn't have to be a therapist, just someone that you trust."
"The people that I trust don't need to hear it. Liss isn't strong enough. Dimitri..." I shook my head. I couldn't find the right words to explain why I couldn't talk to Dimitri about it. I loved him but it was bad enough that he'd seen it, never mind hearing the rest of it.
"You could talk to me, if you wanted." Sydney said. "You don't have to, but if there's no one else then I'm here."
"Thanks."
"Any time." She said and then turned to watch the guardians train.
We sat in a comfortable silence for a while before I found the courage to speak.
"I'm exhausted but I don't want to sleep."
"Why?"
"I had a dream. It was more of a nightmare. Nathan, the one that... He was there. He'd pulled me in to a spirit dream but I don't know if it was real or not. If it wasn't then I'm going crazy and if it was then I'm still not safe. Things are so real in a spirit dream. Adrian used to visit me a lot when we were together and it was so..." It was hard to explain a spirit dream to someone that hadn't been in one. Everything was so real, as if it were actually happening.
"So what are you going to do? You have to sleep, Rose."
"I don't know. Get some of those drugs that stop you sleeping like they had in Elm Street."
"What?"
"You know the film? Freddy Krueger kills people in their dreams so they give the kids a drug that stops them from dreaming. That way they're safe."
"I've never seen it."
"It's good, if you like that kind of thing." I said. "I used to. I don't know that I'd be able to watch it now."
"Why not?"
"It's too real now. The dreams, the blood, the monsters. It's different when you've experienced something similar."
"I suppose it would be. A little like dogs."
"Dogs?"
"You know, when someone has been bitten by a dog and then they have a fear of all dogs. Even the tiny ones. You've been bitten by one dog and then you're scared that all dogs will bite you."
"Is it stupid to be afraid of the dog though?"
"Yes and no. It's stupid to be scared of all dogs but it's not stupid to be cautious around them."
The doors to the gym burst open and Dimitri was standing there in all of his godliness. "Rose?" He called my name, his eyes scanning every face in the gym frantically. "Roza?"
All of the guardians stopped what they were doing to look at him and I just wanted to hide somewhere.
"She's on the balcony." One of them said and Dimitri looked up at me.
I saw him relax slightly before he sprinted up the stairs to me. He grabbed my face between his hands and rested his forehead against mine. "I thought I'd lost you again." He whispered fiercely.
"I'm right here, Dimitri." I said, placing my hands over his.
"You were gone. You left without a word to anyone."
"I didn't leave alone. I've been with Sydney."
"You should be in the hospital, Roza. You need to heal."
I took Dimitri's hands from my face and stepped back from him, trying not to notice the hurt in his eyes. "I can't stay cooped up in there, it's driving me crazy. I didn't train, we just sat up here and talked."
"It's my fault." Sydney said, coming to stand at the side of us. "I hate hospitals. The smell. We should probably get you back though."
I nodded and followed her downstairs, Dimitri following behind me. Of course, thanks to the spectacle that Dimitri caused when he came in, every guardian in the place was looking at me and they were whispering to each other. I tried to ignore them but I coudln't. I wanted to know what they were saying about me but when I tried to turn around, Dimitri put his hand on my shoulder and kept me moving forward.
Three days later, they released me from the hospital. I wasn't put on bed rest this time but I was told that I had to take it easy until my back was completely healed. I went home with Dimitri and let him fuss over me for a while. Liss and Christian came over for dinner and Liss showed me all of the things that she'd bought me.
She'd replaced everything that had been taken from the apartment when I'd been taken, even down to the toiletries. She'd organised everything in to bags so that it would be easier for me to put away. Dimitri took them in to the bedroom and laid them on the bed, telling me to leave them until later because my friends were here to welcome me home and I should enjoy it.
Liss had come to visit me in the hospital, crying and shaking and apologising over and over again as if it were somehow her fault. Christian had had to carry her out in the end because she was adamant that she wasn't leaving me alone. It was sweet of her but all I'd wanted to do was sleep or eat my body weight in anything that wasn't lukewarm hospital food, which was why they'd come over with pizza that night.
When we'd finished eating, Christian and Dimitri excused themselves in to the kitchen to talk about something that I probably wasn't supposed to know about, leaving Liss and I alone. She started to tell me about her plan for the wedding and I tried my best to be excited for her.
"You're going to be my maid of honour and Dimitri is going to be the best man. Sonya and Jill are going to be my bridesmaids and I was thinking having you all in different shades of pink. Or maybe purple. Or turquoise. I haven't quite decided yet. I've seen some really lovely dresses online that you'd all look great in. The flowers are going to be white roses and there's going to be fairy lights everywhere."
"It sounds great." I said, forcing a smile.
"You're going to have to give a speech."
"What?"
"You're my maid of honour. You have to give a speech about us. You and me that is."
"I don't know that I'm the right person for that, Liss." I said, trying to find a way to explain that I wasn't comfortable with that many people looking at me.
"But you're my best friend."
"I know but-"
"And it's my wedding."
"I know, Liss, but things are-"
"I'd do it for you."
"I know you would but it's not that simple."
"It is that simple. You said that you'd be my maid of honour at the party."
"A lot happened that night, Liss. I don't want to stand up in a room full of people and give a speech." I snapped and regretted it instantly. "I'm sorry."
Liss looked at me as if she didn't know who I was. Her eyes were wide and glittered as they filled with tears. "Don't you want me to marry him?"
"Of course I do. I wouldn't have helped him pick the ring if I didn't want you to marry him. I'm happy for you, Liss."
"Just not happy enough to be my maid of honour." She said and stood up, her blonde hair fanning out behind as she spun around. She stalked in to the kitchen angrily and came out a moment later with Christian.
"Bye, Rose." Christian called as Liss dragged him out of the apartment.
"See you later." I gave him a small wave and then retreated to the bedroom.
Note-
Guest: You reviewed on chapter 10, which I appreciate. All I can say if you've made it this far then you know that it got way darker than it was. Any way, you brought up some good points and I feel like I should address them. You're right, I hadn't rated the story as an 'M' when I started it because I hadn't intended on it going in this direction. I did write a warning as you suggested at the start of chapter 11, though to be fair that might have been a little late. I have every intention of going back and changing the rating but honestly, it seems to escape my mind between the cries for more updates and my busy life. Before I posted this chapter, I changed the rating to M.
I completely agree that the themes in this story could be traumatising to readers but I assure you that's far more traumatising to experience even a fraction of what Rose is going through. I apologise if I've offended/traumatised you in any way and I will take your review in to consideration when I continue to update.
Alexlc: I find them comforting too, which I suppose is why my crazy brain took me there. I'd originally intended for there to be a few attempts on Rose's life to get to Abe but I suddenly found in her current situation. I'm glad that it's brought you some comfort and if nothing else, you know that you're not alone. If you ever need someone to talk to, I'm only a PM away. Sometimes talking to a total stranger helps a little.
Buffy86: I'm sorry! I can't help myself. I love a good cliffhanger. Rose has just told Sydney about the spirit dream and it will lead places, I promise. Thank you for all of your reviews, you're the reason that I keep writing.
FanOfTheWrittenArt: I'm truly honoured that you chose my story to review. Please keep them coming.
For everyone else, I appreciate you reading this and all of the reviews that I get. If there's anything that you don't like or don't agree with, please let me know. I honestly not trying to offend or traumatise anyone but I think that I need to stick with this story and let it play out. I don't actually know how it's going to end yet. If there's anything that you think I'm missing or that you'd like to happen, apart from the obvious of Nathan dying, either drop me a PM or a review and I'll do my best to include it.