The Flight

"You come up with anything yet?" Lissa asked Christian while holding his hand for comfort.

"Not really," Christian whispered. "But I guess I could tell her how I feel about what she did. Maybe she'll feel bad noticing that it really affected me so bad."

"If not, I could make her feel bad," I chimed in from across them.

"You're not going to do anything."

"Hey, she's the one that shot me, remember?" I said gruffly, remembering the pain in my chest and how I almost died. How Dimitri had stayed with me until he knew for sure that I was okay. And thinking how I would love to get revenge on Tasha.

"Let him handle it Roza," Dimitri chuckled as he grabbed my hand, knowing what I would, and could, do to Tasha if I had the chance. He always seemed to know what I was thinking, something I always loved about him.

"Yeah Little Dhampir," I heard behind me. Smiling, I turned around to look at Adrian, but he'd already moved further back in the plane with a bottle in his hand. Ever since I broke his heart, he's hardly ever said a word to me.

Dimitri then squeezed my hand, and as I looked at him, I noticed that he had a hopeful look in his gorgeous brown eyes. He knows that I feel bad for hurting Adrian like I did and that I still want to be friends, but don't know how to make it up to him. And I get the feeling, like I always do when I look in his eyes, of how much he understands and knows me that I can't help but love him even more and more. "Okay, we're almost to Seattle," one of the other guardians said, making Dimitri look up. "And from there we'll get on another flight to Alaska and make our way to the prison. But we're going to have to hurry because it's starting to get dark."

I notice Lissa stiffen in her seat across from me. I don't need the bond to tell me that she's thinking that we should of planned this better. That we can't risk being in the dark with Strigoi running around. But it's too late, we're already almost there.

"Umm, we may have a little problem," another guardian said, making me want to punch him square in the face. "I just called in at the airport to check if our flight will be ready for when we land so we don't have to wait. But they said they're running behind. So it's going to be about an hour before we can take off again once we land. Sorry." I try to stand, wanting so bad to hit him for the bad news, even if it wasn't his fault, but Dimitri's grip on my hand gets harder, once again reading my mind, telling me not to do what he knows that I'm thinking.

So I sit back down, trying to stay calm, now noticing that Lissa is shaking with fear. Christian's trying to calm her, but failing. "It's going to be okay Lissa," he said, knowing why she's shaking without even having to ask. "I won't let anything happen to you. And Rose definitely won't. Will you Rose?" He looks at me for help, seeing as Lissa isn't really listening to him.

"Yeah Liss," I say calmly. "It'll be fine. We're all going to stay together." But even as I say it, I see Lissa still shaking more and more as she looks me in the eyes sadly.

As we land, I reach out for Lissa, trying to comfort her. But as we get off the plane, I realize that there's hardly any light out other than the street lamps. Which makes Lissa shake more as she realizes the same thing.

When everyone's off the plane with attendances helping with the luggage, we all start going inside the airport. But as we walk a little bit, I start feeling sick.

All of a sudden Dimitri and I both stop at the same time and stare near the doors where a street lamp is blown.

"We need to get Lissa, Christian, and Adrian to safety," Dimitri said coldly, "NOW!" As half the guardians try to make Lissa and Christian get back on the plane, the other guardians and Dimitri and I all get our stakes out. As we walk forward I feel more and more sick, and then it dawns on me that it's the nausea telling me that Strigoi are near instead of the pregnancy that I thought it was. Then I think that the nausea should be gone with the bond, but glad that it's not. But I also realize that the nausea is really bad, so there are more than just a few Strigoi. I grip my stake harder as one Strigoi steps around the corner of the building.

As I start telling Dimitri about my feeling, two more Strigoi step out from behind the first one. And then four more step out to our left, and two to our right.

"It's an ambush," a guardian said, stating the obvious.

"Yeah, I think we can all see that," I say angrily. "They had to have known that we would be coming here soon, so they waited." I look at Dimitri right as he looks at me. We lock eyes, apparently thinking the same thing as we gripped our stakes harder, and charged.

ATTACK! LOL