I saw (or rather 'sensed') him before he saw me, but my head-start was short lived, he spun around to face me and dropped Laura to the ground in the process.

He came at me with a force that even I did not expect, I had not trained in well over a month, and I had completely forgotten how super fast strigoi could really be. He knocked me to the ground but my guardian training enabled me to get up almost immediately.

I swiftly took my stake out and lunged for him, but he was too fast, he was obviously an older, more experienced strigoi because he anticipated my every move, he also kept his heart well protected and out of the way of my hand. It reminded me painfully of when Dimitri and I fought, but I pushed that thought out of my head and focused on the fight.

I tried to kick him but he grabbed my leg and used it to drag me towards him, twisting my ankle in the process, I gasped from the pain of it.

There was an opening at his heart and though it was difficult because he still had a hold on my leg, I lunged for it, but he realised what I was doing and shifted his body just before I got my target. Instead, I made a deep wound just below his rib cage. He screamed out in agony as the silver burned his skin.

I then noticed that Laura was still on the ground, frozen to the spot as she watched us fighting, she was in a state of shock.

"Go you idiot!" I yelled at Laura, she was a moroi and every fibre of my body was screaming at me that she was in danger… 'They come first' "LAURA!" I screamed, my voice becoming desperate. "LEAVE… NOW!" She stood up but made no move to leave.

I was still fighting with the strigoi as I was yelling at her and he took the opportunity to get in a few good hits, I knew they were going to hurt A LOT later, but like a real professional, I pushed through the pain and kept going. I would not focus on it now; I would focus on my instincts,

Duck, lunge, hit, kick, fight…

I ran at him and he simply put his leg out, much too fast for me to see, I started to fall to the ground at an angle that I knew would result in a few broken bones. However, before I could hit the ground, he reached out and grabbed me around my throat.

He lifted me up so that the tips of my toes were just touching the ground and I struggled to breathe. He did it for a few more seconds and I started to see stars burst before my eyes, I was feeling dizzy, and as though I would faint, he was trying to suffocate me.

My eyelids started to flutter and they closed for about 3 seconds, he figured I was just about done and tossed me to the ground, thinking that the blow would be the thing that finished me off. It merely fazed me because I was so set on protecting Laura. Instead of seeing what I had hoped to see, – Laura gone and the strigoi looking around for her - I saw him ever so slowly turn towards her.

That idiot was still there, I was going to go OFF when we got out of this… if we got out of this. And the chances of that were looking incredibly slim.

I gasped in ragged breaths of air now that my windpipe was no longer being crushed and watched as he slowly walked towards her. Laura was still standing and she looked as though she was trying to scream but nothing was coming out, she was just opening and closing her mouth. She stumbled back a few steps, but she was not watching where she was going and so she tripped over a tree root and fell to the ground. He kept coming towards her and she started to whimper as she frantically tried to scramble away from him from the ground.

I lay on the floor motionless the whole time my whole body screaming at me to save her, to do something… to do anything. However, I could not get my mind to connect to my body and tell myself to get up.

Then I thought of Dimitri. This time I wasn't thinking about us though – of our messed up relationship, I was thinking about the amount of pain the memory of the Zeklos lord he had been assigned to brought him. The lord had not died on his watch but he still blamed himself. I knew that if Laura DID die on my watch, I would never forgive myself and the guilt would be even greater than Dimitri's was. So I forced myself to get up.

My legs were shaky and I nearly fell over as I slowly stumbled towards him.

I made a tiny bit of noise, even though I tried to be quiet but it was irrelevant because the strigoi was lost in his moment of thirst. He was a hunter and Laura was his prey.

Laura looked up at him with eyes that showed that she was more terrified than she had ever been in her entire life.

I picked my stake up off the ground and with a vengeful smile, I summoned the last of my energy I had and charged him, he had no time to react, he was still partially lost to the hunt.

With a loud scream – more of a battle cry - I plunged my stake into his back and he screamed in agony. Because I got him in the back, I wasn't sure if I actually had his heart. I obviously hadn't, he turned around to see me and I could see the extreme agony he was in, but he wasn't going down without a fight. I made up my mind to finally finish this.

I quickly kicked him to the ground onto his back and before he had any time at all to react, I slammed my fist down on the stake so that there was no doubt that it had pierced his heart.

He may have screamed, I don't know, I was too dazed to notice. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion.

Slowly Laura's gaze shifted from his body falling to the ground and she walked over to me on very shaky legs. She half ran half stumbled over and when she reached me after what seemed like an eternity, she burst into tears as she practically tackled me with a hug and buried her head against my shoulder.

I was so weak I thought I was going to faint but I stayed strong. All this would be much worse for Laura, a moroi who had probably never seen a strigoi let alone seen one killed.

I bent down, yanked my stake out of his body, and sighed in relief. I wasn't sure if I had just paralysed him or killed him. It did not matter anymore though because in a second he would definitely be dead.

I then fumbled inside my pocket and got out a lighter and a small bottle of petrol, which was all I would need. I sprinkled the body with petrol, then I lit a scrap of material and threw it onto the body, it lit up in a burst of heat and light that momentarily blinded both Laura and I.

Then the fire disappeared and all that remained of the strigoi was a pile of ashes, a bad memory, and two much shaken girls.

Laura was still crying silently into my shirt and I gasped out the words "they… have… a room." I gave her a shaky smile, they come first I was trying to comfort her. Laura did one of those half laugh half sobs and I guided her towards the hotel.

My throat was still incredibly tender from the strigoi's near strangling so I did not attempt any more conversation.

I bent to pick up the room key where I had dropped it when I had seen the strigoi and we slowly made our way to the room which was –thank god – not on the second floor. I don't think either of us could have handled steps right now, especially me. I had a feeling I had sprained my ankle when the strigoi had yanked me towards him.

We stumbled our way into the room and we both collapsed in a heap onto the bed. We were both filthy, me more so because of all the fighting, my clothes were ripped, I had cuts and grazes, and I could see a few nasty bruises coming up already. There was dirt and blood all over Laura and me was all muddy too but we didn't care. We were too tired to care.

The motel was cheap and so the beds were not of the best quality but we could have been sleeping on an ironing board and it would have seemed like a bed of feathers.

Our heads hit the pillows and we both fell asleep at practically the same time. For the first time in a while, I fell into a deep sleep that was not interrupted once by dreams or being pulled into Lissa's head. It would have had to be an incredibly strong emotion she was feeling for me to be pulled into her head because I don't think I would have woken up if an atomic bomb had gone off.

So, status report so far… no leads on anything, one near death strigoi encounter already… and we're only half-way to Vegas.

Great!

My life is just too damn complicated.

So, what did you think? Please, please review, it means so much! (:

I tried to make this chapter a bit more exciting because I was doing a lot of boring fluff, but that was because I was getting to the end of my plot much too fast. So any ideas where you want it to go? I already know the result but if you have any ideas I would love to know them (:

Issie! x