Dimitri POV

Roza had left the apartment at some point between Vasilisa leaving and when I'd finished the dishes. I'd gone in to the living room but she wasn't there. The bathroom was empty and so was the bedroom. She hadn't left me a note either. I was stuck between being angry and worrying about her. I was trying my best to help her, to support her and to be there when she needed me and yet she'd done nothing but push me away. I tried to understand but I couldn't shake the feeling that she was scared of me. I pulled out my phone to call Janene and ask if she knew where Roza was, when I noticed a message from Adrian.
Rose is with me. She's drinking but I'll keep an eye on her and make sure that she eats. I'll call you if she needs you. Don't worry she's safe with me. A
I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd been worried about Roza ever since we'd brought her back to Court. She wouldn't talk to me or Vasilisa or her mother about her experience. She seemed to be isolating herself from everyone but I couldn't work out why. She'd been through something traumatic but we were just trying to help her. And now she'd started drinking. Plus, there was the fall out with the royal moroi because Vasilisa had taken their guardians from them on the night that we rescued Roza, essentially leaving them unprotected. They were furious, even though they'd been safe enough behind Court's wards – especially since Vasilisa had modified them to not only contain the four elements but spirit as well. No human would be able to take down the wards unless they had a stake that was infused with spirit. Still, the royal moroi believed that their lives were more important than that of a guardian and were angry with Vasilisa for potentially compromising their safety. They'd made threats against Jill Mastrano, Vasilisa's half-sister, knowing that without a living family member she would lose her throne.
We hadn't told Roza about it because we knew that she needed to distance herself from everyone else's problems for a while so that she could focus on herself. She needed to heal, both physically and emotionally. We also hadn't told Vasilisa the full extent of Roza's trauma, believing that it would be better coming from Roza herself. We didn't want to upset Vasilisa unnecessarily, especially with the darkness no longer being absorbed through the bond. Plus, Roza had to tell her when she was ready. We knew what had happened because we'd seen it both on the DVD and when we'd rescued her from the hotel.
I typed a message to Adrian and hit send before sitting on the edge of our bed. The things that Vasilisa had brought for Roza were still in paper bags on the bed, so I started to put them away for her. I knew where everything lived seeing as I was the one that usually put things away. Roza had never been one for cleaning but since we'd moved in to the apartment, she'd been in no shape to do any. She'd gone from being shot to being on bed rest and then she got poisoned. She'd started to get better again and resume her training when she'd been taken. I wondered if her life would ever resemble that of an ordinary person; peaceful and quiet. Knowing my Roza, the answer was a definite no.
My phone chimed as another text message came through.
She's fine. I've switched her to soda. She needed someone to talk to. I'll bring her home soon. A.
I didn't know whether or not I should be relieved. I was glad that she was talking to someone but I was also a little offended that it wasn't me. I'd always been there for Roza, always waiting for her to come to me when she was ready but this time, she'd gone to Adrian. Perhaps it was because deep down she blamed me for what had happened, just like I blamed myself. She would have been safe if I'd been with her, if I'd taken her home like I'd planned to.
When Eddie Castile had found out what had happened to Roza, he'd been furious. He was angry with me for not taking him with me when we went to the hotel, and even angrier for taking Adrian and Christian. He'd wanted to go to Roza, but she wasn't ready.
Roza and Eddie had formed an incredibly close friendship after their time in Spokane. Their friend, Mason, had died and they both felt guilty in their own ways. The strigoi that had held them had used Eddie as a feeder, keeping him docile and making sure that he wasn't a threat whilst Roza had been the strong one. She'd made sure that they made it out of there alive and they all would have, if Mason hadn't have gone back. However, if he hadn't, I wasn't sure that Roza would have lived.
Ever since then, they'd looked after each other with no questions asked. Roza wanted ready to see anyone after we'd brought her back to Court, so instead I'd asked Eddie to something for me. Roza had needed me to be with her, or at least, I thought she did. So, Eddie was out there doing what I should have been doing. He was finding Nathan. He was under strict instruction not to engage with him but to call me when he'd found him. That had been five days ago and I hadn't heard from him since he'd left.
I pulled out my phone and dialled his number but it just rang until it went to voicemail. I left him a message asking him to call me and then hung up. I hadn't even put my phone down before I rang again. Adrian's name lit the screen up and I answered it quickly.
"Belikov." I said.
"Sydney left me her number before she left, just in case I wanted to talk to her. She sort of understands." It was Roza's voice that I could hear. Her words were slurred and I knew that she wasn't talking to me. Adrian had called me so that I could listen in on their conversation and I knew that Roza would be furious if she knew. Still, I couldn't help but listen.
"She does?" Adrian asked.
"Not personally but her sister, Carly, went through something similar."
"Will you talk to her?"
"I don't know. I like her but I don't know her well enough to talk to about this. And the people that I do know well enough," She sighed. "I don't want them to know."
"You have to talk to someone."
"I know. I told her about the dream though."
"What dream?"
"The spirit dream." Roza said, her voice tight. "I had a dream when I was in the hospital. Nathan had found a spirit user that brought him to me in a dream. I didn't see anyone else there though, so I'm not sure if it was real or not. It felt real though, like when you do it."
"It's possible that it was real. Someone could have hidden themselves from you. It depends who had control of the dream." Adrian said, sounding worried.
I knew what it meant if Nathan had found a spirit user. Humans worked with strigoi because they wanted to be immortal or young and beautiful forever. Moroi turned themselves voluntarily, with more spirit users doing so than anyone else. It was because of the madness and the things that it made them do. Sonya Karp had done it and it wouldn't be hard to find someone that would want to do the same. If Nathan had found someone, it meant that Roza wasn't safe even whilst she slept.
"Do you really think it could have been real?" She asked.
"I think that you went through something unimaginable and that you're scared. It makes sense that you'd dream about him." Adrian said. "Have you had any more since that one?"
"No."
I breathed a sigh of relief. If it was just the one dream then it was likely that it was just a dream and not a spirit dream.
"Then I think that you're probably okay. I can visit you though, if you'd like. You can't pull someone in to a spirit dream if they're already in one."
"Thanks."
"Are you going to tell Belikov?"
"Would it kill you to call him Dimitri?"
"Possibly, so I'd better not risk it."
"Why don't you like him?"
"It's not that I don't like him. He's fine. He's a good guardian and I know that he'd never let anything happen to you if he had a choice. I mean, if the guy had been quicker, it would have been him that got shot instead of you. Everyone thinks that he dived in to save Liss, but we both know that he was diving to save you. He loves you, but he also hurt you. I was there when he was strigoi and was tracking you through Las Vegas. I was there when he was restored and he pushed you away. He hurt you and if I thought that I stood a chance against him, I'd kick his ass for you because you didn't deserve it. And if he ever hurts you again, I'd give it everything I've got. But he loves you. Every time that you get hurt, he hurts. He was falling apart when you were shot and when you were poisoned. When you were missing, he was a mess. He didn't sleep, he didn't shave... And then we got the message. I've never seen that man cry, Rose, but he cried over you."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No, it's supposed to tell you that he loves you. He was willing to sacrifice every guardian that was at that hotel to get to you and he would have sacrificed Christian and I too. There's nothing that you could say to him that would make him love you any less."
"Really? So if I told him everything that happened to me while I was there, he would still love me? If I told him that I prayed for him to find me, that I begged and pleaded in the darkness for him to be there? If I told him that Nathan did this to me because of him as well as Abe? Because Nathan was Galena's second in command until Dimitri turned up and ruined everything that he'd worked so hard for. Because he'd beaten him to a pulp when he'd offered to break my spirit for him so that I'd beg him to awaken me." Roza was almost shouting now and my heart broke for her. "Nathan said something to me that I know that he should know, but I can't bring myself to tell him. The guilt will eat him alive and he doesn't deserve that. He said that Dimitri thought that he was incapable of love when he'd been a strigoi but he still loved me. He'd wanted me to choose him, to choose to be strigoi because he still loved me. He protected me from Nathan even when he was strigoi. He loved me the whole time and then when I saved him, he pushed me away because he couldn't forgive himself for what he'd done. If I told him that now, do you think that would help him? Do you think that he'd feel any better?"
"I don't know."
"Yes you do. You know him. You know that he'll feel guilty for wasting all of that time and he'll feel guilty for everything that he did when he was one of them. He'll hate himself all over again."
"You're saving him the pain." Adrian said simply. Of course she was. That was who she was, the kind of person that did anything that she could to save the people that she loved. She'd suffer alone if she had to, just to make sure that everyone else was all right. Whilst I loved her for it, I knew that it wasn't good for her.
"As much of it as I can. He'll blame himself for everything that happened since then and I can't let that happen."
"Maybe it will help both of you if he knows the truth."
"How?"
"I don't know but-"
"It won't help anyone, Adrian. He doesn't need to know."
It was then that I hung up the phone. She was talking to Adrian about things that she didn't want me to know and I couldn't listen to it any more. I couldn't even begin to understand the true extent of what she'd been through but I hoped that she'd come to me when she was ready.
The call had given me plenty to think about though.