"We can't leave," I told Dimitri, despite his arguments. "We're not done here, and we can't move on anywhere else. This is the whole-"
"I would agree with you, if your father wasn't on our case. Of course, if I knew what we had to do here with that Amelia Carter girl… and why we would find her at a strip joint I don't wanna know." Dimitri hinted.
"That's right, you don't wanna know. But it's important and I can only do it here." I told them both. "Please."
Denis and Dimitri had already finished packing, a ten minute job with their fast guardian skills.
"I'm sorry, Roza," Dimitri apologized. "But I need to take control of this situation."
"What's the worst he can do? Send me somewhere? What's the point of that risk if I'm not where I want to be to begin with?" I checked over it in my head to make sure it made sense. "Yeah."
"Rose…" he warned.
"Please. I need to do this, and if you trust me, you'll let me."
He thought about it. "And if you get so caught up with your father's business that you can't do what we came here for?"
I shrugged. "I'll worry about that later."
He sighed. "I don't like this, Rose."
"You can just go, if you want. But I'm staying."
Denis walked into the bathroom, make a heck of a noise in there that turned both of our heads, then walked back out.
"I'm staying." He said.
I shook my head in disbelief. "What did you do in there? Set off a chainsaw?"
He rolled his eyes. "I took out my toiletries. I'm staying."
I smiled at him. "You're so random." I looked to Dimitri, wiping the smile partway off my face. "Please?"
He sighed. "I swear, Rose, you are the only one I'd do this for."
I grinned. What the heck. I pulled him in for a hug, something that I had been craving for ages. But I pulled away after a short time, acting as though I was friendly enough with him.
Denis cleared his throat and opened his arms out for me. I laughed and he pulled me in for a hug. After I pulled away, a little longer than Dimitri, I saw him and his annoyed expression.
Jealous Dimitri. The only thing better than the bad ass Dimitri. Well, maybe it was a tie.
"So we're staying." I concluded. "Great. Excuse me."
I walked out into the hall, closing the door quickly, and then ran down the hall. I caught the elevator just as it was closing, slipping in between the doors that were sliding shut.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Now for plan B while there was still a brink of light.
I found the nearest phone booth, pretending to make a phone call. I looked through the phone book for an Amelia Carter.
Cater, J
Cator, K
Calter, L
Carter, A
Cater, M
Whoa. Carter A? Amelia?
I wrote down the phone number on a small piece of paper, shocked that there had actually been one. Could it possibly be? Amelia Carter?
I didn't know why I was getting so excited. A stranger in the park had told me her name. Was she Eric Dragomir's mistress? Prostitute?
"Rose?"
I twirled around, stuffing the number in my pocket to face Dimitri.
"Hey," I said unevenly. I cleared my throat.
"I've given up," he said with sigh. Of course, it sent a scared shock wave through me. The last time I had heard those words…
I've given up on you. Love fades…mine has.
"I can't figure this out. You go looking for some girl who may not even exist? Look through their files? You come back from a walk a little shaken up and you suddenly have a name that you're looking for? And Las Vegas! Of all places…Just tell me, Rose. I'm scared for you."
I swallowed. "You really have been thinking about this quite a bit, haven't you?"
He nodded. "Every time a new clue comes up as to what the hell you're doing…it leads nowhere! Do you know how frustrating that is!"
I sighed. "I'm sorry-"
"No. Don't be sorry," he cut in. "Tell me. Just…please."
"You won't believe me." I told him.
He took my hand and led me down to one of the benches near the phone box, where I had left the page open to Amelia Carter. Shoot!
"Try me."
I gulped. "Fine, but I warned you." I told him. He nodded, accepting the consequences. I breathed deeply then stared at my hands. "Lissa isn't an only child. Eric Dragomir had an affair and now his child is wandering somewhere around the world when his rightful place is in the court, voting against the decree.
"The queen left me a note telling not to tell many people about this, but she trusted me to find the second last Dragomir child so Lissa could vote."
I had said it so quickly that I wasn't sure that he heard it all correctly, but there was no way in hell that I was repeating it again.
"Serious." He made sure that I wasn't joking.
"Would I joke about something like that?"
He let out air that he had been holding in. "And now I see why you have to stay here." He said. "But where did you get the name from?"
"This dude in the park," he gave me a look, and I sensed that he would try to tell me not to believe some random rumor, but I cut in. "He knew what he was talking about. He sent a hobo after me to give me the message."
He did a double take. "A hobo? Really?"
"Missing the point."
"And to trust this hobo?"
"I trust that this leads somewhere. I just need to call her and meet up with her. Maybe she still lives with him or something."
He thought for a moment. "You really think this will lead us somewhere?"
I raised an eyebrow. "Us?"
He smiled. "Of course."
I honestly liked the sound of that.
I nodded. "I think it will."
He took that in. "Fine," he decided. "But use the payphone and make it quick. I don't want anyone trying to catch us."
I smiled, taking his hand then leading him over with me near the pay phone, dropping his hand to dig in my pocket for some change. Satisfied that I had enough money, I popped it into the slot and rung the number
It rang seven times. I was almost about to just hang up, but when someone picked up, I placed a dollar more in the phone.
"Hello?"
I swallowed. "Hi. It's...um...Anistasia."
It was a lady. A very unfriendly lady. "Who?"
"I know this is going to sound a little...strange, but do you mind if I ask you a quick question?"
There was a pause. "Sure. Knock yourself out."
"Do you have a son or daughter?"
There was no hesiation. "No."
All my hope flooded from me.
"Really? Are you sure?"
"I don't know. He's probably dead by now."
I paused. "So you did give birth?"
"Hmmhm." she confirmed.
I looked at Dimitri. "Do you think you could meet up with me and my...friend tommorrow?"
There was a short laugh. "Yeah. May as well. Got nothing better to do nowadays. Come by the coffee club tomorrow at nine. I'm always there anyway."
I breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. "Great. Thank you so much."
"I'm not doing you a favour," she growled.
"Okay."
She hung up the phone but I kept the phone to my ear for a moment longer before hanging it up myself.
"Well that was...interesting."
Dimitri waited. "So? What's going on?"
I looked at him and half smiled. "She was...interesting."
*NEW SCENE* (In case it doesn't come up)
"Uhh...Denis? What are you doing?" I asked as I walked cautiously into the room with Dimitri behind me.
He grinned. "Nothing."
"Is that my..." I trailed off, seeing it was my hair brush, and yes, he had shoved it down the back of his t-shirt to scatch his back with. "Oh, eww!"
He offered it too me.
I picked it up with two fingers by the handle that, hopefully, hadn't touched his back hairs. It dangled in the air before I threw it on my bed.
"What was wrong with your hair brush?" Dimitri asked, throwing his coat on his bed then walking over to mine and picking up the brush.
Denis shrugged.
Dimitri walked into the bathroom with the brush and ran some hot water.
"I can't believe you used my brush to scratch ya back!"
He shrugged. "It was itchy!"
"It'd better been the ichiest back in the history of the world." I warned.
"I got bit by a misquito. Nasty scab on there now thanks to that brush, but such a good scratcher."
I gagged a little. "Scab?" I squeaked.
He turned around and lifted his shirt to reveal a 'scab' that was bleeding freely. It had already started to peak through his shirt.
"Misquito bite?" I asked unbelievingly. "Really?"
"Hate scabs."
I sighed, walking into the bathroom with Dimitri, taking two cups of his hot water in a bucket, then walked into the kitchen and filled it with a cup of cool water. I got a cloth and dipped it in the water.
"Sit on the bed." I told him. "And take your shirt off."
He did as he was told, facing the bathroom where Dimitri came back in. He leaned against the wall, watching me clean off Denis' back, his arms crossed over his chest.
Denis stiffened whenever I touched him, but something like that had to be cleaned. When i was finished, I went over to the sink, picked up another cloth, dampened it in some clean water, then held it to his wound. Denis reached around to hold it to his back as best he could before deciding it was better to lie down.
"Tell me how you did that." I told him when I went to work tipping out the blood water and rinsing out the cloth.
"I told you. A misquito."
I sighed. "One big mother of a misquito if you ask me."
Denis frowned. "Huh. Maybe it was one of my scabs from combat classes."
Wrong again, but I didn't know that until Dimitri stepped in.
"Combat classes don't resolve in that kind of injury."
"Yeah. If anyone was gonna get hurt that way, it'd be me to Dimitri." I told him, but the joke was only subtle.
Denis smirked. "You kicked his butt? That's a first for anybody."
"She did not!" Dimitri argued.
"Did to. Pop quiz, remember? I wasn't even prepared."
He rolled his eyes at my childish behaviour, but I knew he knew it was just a joke.
"Now tell us how you got that," Dimitri got to the point.
Denis didn't know. He didn't say anything. We weren't trying to judge him, we were concerned.
I changed the subject. "Denis, how would you feel if Dimitri and I..." I looked to Dimitri, looking for a word, but found it before he knew what I was talking about. "Went on a date tomorrow?"
Denis frowned. "A date? I thought you were dating Ivashkov."
I shrugged. "I wouldn't call it a date, exactly...more like a friends getting coffee?"
Denis shrugged. "I guess. Sure."
I smiled. "Excellent."
*NEW SCENE*
The next morning, Dimitri and I were ready to go quicker than necessary, but we made sure we were ready for anything, which included getting all different types of weapons. And even though it was daytime, we still carried our 'pointy things'.
We walked down the street, looking around for the Coffee Club. We found it on a street which wasn't as fancy as the name.
We arrived at five minutes to nine.
We walked through the door on full alert, though I was pretty sure with no nausea that we were safe from Strigoi. Though, there were other things to worry about, but they couldn't be worse.
I scouted the room for the match of her voice to her body while Dimitri walked up to the counter and asked for Amelia Carter.
In the back of the room, though, I saw what I had imagined her to be. A forty year old women that dressed like she was thirteen.
I walked up to her slowly, clutching my knife.
"Amelia?" I asked.
She looked at me, giving me a death stare.
"Oh. You're that sunshine girl."
I raised my eyebrows. "Sunshine girl? Who the-"
"Amelia Carter. Hello." Dimitri cut in, placing a hand on my back to direct me to sit in front of her.
"What do you want?" she growled.
"I want to know what happened to your son." I told her.
She chugged down half of her cold coffee. "Theres nothing to tell."
"Tell me anything you can?"
She sighed, slamming her cup down. "I hooked up with this old man about twenty years ago." she said impatiently. "It was too late to get an abortion."
"So where is he now?" I asked as politely as I could.
She shrugged. "I don't know. I left him on the side of the road. Saw him get picked up by this short stubby guy. Never thought about him since."
"You just him there?" my temper was rising.
Dimitri held me down. "Do you know what he's called now?" he asked calmly.
"I don't know anything about him at all."
