When we were younger, Lissa and I had been two completely different souls. She loved glitz and glamour, playing dress up with her mothers expensive clothes and jewelry and me, well I preferred getting down and dirty in the mud, play fighting with guys who were a couple of years older than me. I'd always been one of the guys more than one of the girls that was until I hit thirteen and my body took on a life on its own, giving me the dangerous curves all Moroi girls envy. Guys became more reluctant to throw down and instead they started drawing lines in the sand because they didn't want to inure what they wanted. Their reluctance didn't last long though, apparently the Hathaway wit and verbal put downs were enough to get them back into action; who knew guys didn't like to be emasculated by a woman?
"Are we there yet?" Christian moaned into the back of my seat.
"You sound like a five year old," I countered turning my head to look back at him. Sure I had always been one of the 'guys' but right now I would happily take on the 80's inspired make up and wild, big hair that looked like a bird had nested in it.
"Try not to salvia up the leather seats, Ozera." Adrian walked by Christian's seat with a grin slapped to his face, a glass of brandy in his right hand and sat down next to me. "I don't think the package included disinfecting soiled seats."
"I don't think the package included cleaning up the ashes of a Royal ass." Christian threatened back without missing a beat.
"Really?" I turned and looked at Adrian and then back to Christian. "Do you guys really want to go there?" I sighed and shook my head at their constant bickering. Sure it had been fun in the beginning when it was shiny and new but it was getting old really fast. "How are either of you gonna exchange blows when your unconscious at twenty five thousand feet?" I raised my brow between the two of them and grinned, "And you know I would do it..and I promise it would hurt." I stood up, stepped around Adrian's legs but felt his free hand touch the back of my thigh as I stepped past.
Before I knew it his hand had reached up, wrapped around my elbow and pulled me down onto his lap. "If you wanted to give me a lap dance little dhamphir, all you had to do was ask." His green eyes sparkled with mischief as his hand stroked down my arm. He leaned down and whispered in my ear, the scent on the brandy washing over me. "Your boyfriend doesn't look impressed.." His eyes turned from me and looked ahead, towards the pilot deck.
I looked over my shoulder and there true enough was Dimitri, standing there looking all... pissed. A frown touched my lips as I turned back to Adrian, "Well then I guess we had better make this look authentic." Before Adrian could register my comment, before he could wipe the smirk from his face voluntarily, my hand impacted hard against his cheek and glided across his face. "That authentic enough for ya?" I grinned and pulled myself off of his lap.
Instead of frowning or sulking as he has been known to do in the past when things dont exactly go his way, he plastered the grin back onto his face and winked up at me. "Always known you like it rough."
Rolling my eyes at him, I turned on my heels and walked towards the front of the aircraft where Dimitri was now sat with Davies. "So what's the plan?" I asked, sitting down on the empty chair beside them.
"The plan was for me to get some sleep but apparently we're still babysitting." Davies sniped and threw a quick glance at Christian and Adrian. "It's like watching a teen soap opera with the flirting, love triangles and slapping."
"Love triangles?" I raised my brow and quickly glanced under my lashes at Dimitri who was too busy looking down at a set of blue prints.
"You, Ivashkov and fire boy over there."
Dimitri snapped his eyes up and looked at me, not because of the accusation that Davies had just made but because of the banshee style, high pitched laugh that just erupted from my mouth. I wanted to stop giggling like a little school girl but the thought of there being a love triangle between those two and me, well it was absurd.
"Right..." Davies raised an amused brow at me.
I cast a quick glance at Dimitri who was looking at me and blushed, thankfully Davies had gone back to studying the blue prints that were on the table in front of them.
"So why exactly do we need blue prints?" I asked, trying to break the topic away from love triangles and romance and things that would make me think of Dimitri and what would have happened before Lissa had been attacked. "Aren't we just gonna roll into the prison, ask our questions, get physical if needs be and then leave?"
"Get physical if needs be?" Davies looked up again and smirked. "You know, Hathaway, your my kind of novice."
"Its important always to know your surroundings," Dimitri broke through the slightly weird tension that was beginning to mount and proceeded to 'teach' me. "Victor Dashkov has many connections and undoubtedly has some of the guards on his payroll."
"You mean you badass Guardians are subject-able to insubordination?" I faked a shocked face and continued to twist the nail, into what would probably be my coffin. "You mean your not all so noble and righteous?"
"If Dashkov talks and knows something undoubtedly he'll want something in return." Dimitri continued trying to ignore my little digs at him.
"And what if he's in on it?" I asked, stating the obvious.
"Then we'll deal with it." Dimitri looked up and met my gaze. His eyes were firm, like his exterior. Ready for anything, ready to do whatever was necessary.
"Obviously at this stage we're just hoping he's gonna talk to us." Davies added trying to lighten the atmosphere.
"Well then you might not wanna send comrade here in to do the talking." I thought of their last meeting together - where Dimitri had staked Victor's daughter Natalie, right in front of him.
"Guardian Belikov is one of the most composed guardians I've encountered, it would take a heck of a lot to get this guy riled up."
Ha! If he only knew how little it took to get Dimitri riled up, I mean a little bit of nitpicking about how he didn't care about me and a gentle push and he was losing his usual easy going, cool demure quicker than a fox. "Well when you stake a guys daughter, I kinda figure you automatically get crossed off their christmas card list."
The pilot came over the radio and informed us that we would be landing in Missouri in less than twenty minutes. Davies excused himself and stood up, walking away. Dimitri on the other hand went back to studying the blue prints, the same prints he had been studying for the past forty minutes.
"You've probably got them mesmerized by now," I said, trying to make conversation.
"It's important to be ready," Dimitri looked up from under his brow and pulled me into his dark gaze. "I wouldn't want to make another mistake."
Whoa.
"I'm sorry..." I bit onto my bottom lip. Before we had left St. Vladmir's I had practically weighed this entire debacle on his shoulders, blaming him for not being there for Lissa when she had needed him, needed us. "I didn't mean what I said back at the academy. I was lashing out," I took in a deep breath and sighed, "I don't blame you, I never did. I was just angry at myself and ...the whole blood bond thing was probably kicking my hormones up from mild PMS to danger Will Robinson."
Dimitri broke away his gaze and looked down at the blueprints once again but instead of studying them as he did before, he was just staring at them in distraction. "I'm not mad about that.." Dimitri looked up, his dark eyes becoming clouded over with something that made the butterflies in my stomach go crazy. "It's.." He stopped, again, as always did.
"Why do you always do that?" I asked, once again easily irritated.
"Do what?" He asked, confused.
"When you're about to open up and break away from your usual Dimitri way...you run back to your little shell and make me do all of the hard work" Well it wasn't usually hard work, for me Dimitri was almost an open book. I could tell him that I didn't like Adrian, well I did...kinda, just not in that way. But I done being the one to show him the obvious. He didn't need to study a blueprint to my heart, it was on the table for him to see but as usual, he was too busy being Mr Noble to see what was right in front of him. "And you know what, I'm not a mind reader, I don't know everything that you're feeling. I mean, sometimes its pretty obvious to me, like right now it's pretty obvious what your problem is...but I'm not reassuring you, I'm not going to hold your hand and say what you want me to say because you haven't earned it."
I stood up from the chair and stomped my way back over to my chair, squeezed past Adrian who this time didn't touch any part of my body and sat down in my uncomfortable leather seat.
Adrian leaned over and whispered in my ear. "Trouble in paradise?"
Trouble? Always. Paradise? Never. Our relationship had never been blissful, as much as I loved our stolen moments and the 'almosts,' but it was never paradise. In my eyes we were star crossed lovers except instead of having a feuding family to keep us apart, it was his sense of duty and my ...almost sense of duty.
We landed in Missouri to be greeted by the underrated beauty that was Tasha Ozera. If she hadn't tried to steal Dimitri away into the night a couple of months ago like the bandit I know thought she was, we would have gotten on like a house on fire. She was beautiful despite the scars on her face, she was smart and had a fighters attitude, which I knew Dimitri admired about her. She was perfect for him... and that's why I couldn't stand her.
"Dimka." Tasha wrapped herself around his six foot seven lean frame and took a minute too long for my liking to pull away. She was dressed in a pair of black skinny jeans, black ankle boots with barely a heels and a well sculptured top to show off the little curves she had. This wasn't a fashion parade, she should have been dressed for comfort not to try and turn heads. Tasha turned to Christian and wrapped him in a warm embrace, stroking the back of his head. "Everything will be okay." She soothed him with a mother-like genuine, comforting tone.
"Are we done with the mothers meeting or can we actually get this show on the road, I've got a best friend I'd like to find and some Moroi asses I'd like to kick." All five heads turned to face me with a quick snap and identical raised brows. "What?"
Tasha took a step towards me and smiled gently, "We'll find her Rose." They had obviously mistaken my hostility towards her as annoyance at the situation, well not all of them had. Dimitri was giving me one of those 'watch your step' looks, the same one he used me with me when I pushed him about us when he wasn't ready.
"Thanks...I'm sorry it's ...nice to see you Tasha." I smiled trying to matching my luke warm greeting. "So now that we've done the whole meet and greets, lets go and torture a prisoner!" I said perking up at the aspect of watching Dimitri and Davies in action.
"You're not coming..." Dimitri was of course referring to the three students, well two students and whatever Adrian was.
"If you think your doing this without me, you're dead wrong." The harshness in my voice surprised even myself. "I'm the only one who will get him to open up..." It wasn't a stretch from the truth. For some strange reason Victor seemed to confide in me, thinking that somehow Lissa and I would join his little clan of disillusioned nut jobs.
"Not the only one." Dimitri turned and looked at Tasha. Of course. I sighed.
"Compulsion?"
"She's one of the best."
"Well I'm sure you guys will have fun playing house...while" I stopped as Tasha's expression changed. She wasn't looking at me with those big, pity filled eyes but they were now shadowed with curiosity over my choice of words. Opps. " We'll..." I stuttered trying to gain back my pace of anger, "We'll just be sitting here twiddling our thumbs and doing jack all."
I walked away from the group and headed back to the plane. Why the hell had they even let us out of the school if all we were going to do was wait around for information. I threw myself up the steps and walked back onto the private Jet that Adrian had commissioned for us. As angry as I was a part of me knew that they didn't want to take us to the prison because it would be dangerous. But the rational side wasn't going to win out right now, I was too pissed to let it.
Dimitri appeared in front of me less than five minutes later, he had obviously been the one designated to make sure that I was trashing the place in a bitch fit. "That was insensitive, Rose."
He didn't need to define what exactly was insensitive, I knew exactly what he meant. "Yeah, well Dimka, I just don't care." I lied. I cared too much. "Why did you even let me come if you didn't want me here?" I asked confused, "You could have turned around and told Kirova that it would be unsafe. Everyone respects your opinion and they usually follow your advice." Everyone but me, I thought to myself, at least when it was his opinion about us.
"You wanted to be here..." He said matter of factly, as though it was as easy as that.
"But you don't want me here." I looked up into his troubled brown eyes and sighed. "Because I'm a distraction."
"Right." There was no need to play mind games this time, he had said it often enough in the past that he didn't want us to be together because if push came to shove and he had to choose between saving Lissa and protecting me, he would because of his feelings for me, always choose me. "I don't want you to get hurt."
"Then I'm in the wrong profession." I joked.
"I'll call you after we've talked to Victor." Apparently that was the end of our heart to heart conversation.
"Send him my love," and the sarcastic bitch was back.
---
I opened my eyes but all I could see was the darkness around me. Pitch black. My heart was in overdrive, thumping away actively in my chest trying to break free. "What do you want from me?" My lips moved but it wasn't my voice that came out, it was Lissa's. After three days of trying to reach through to her and nothing, she was here.
Lissa. I sighed. She was still very much alive according to how hard her heart was beating against her chest. She couldn't see anything and from what I could tell hadn't seen anything since they had taken her from the academy. Stupid blindfolds. She was sat on a chair, a cold metal chair which coldness was seeping through her denim jeans. Her arms were pulled behind her back and her hands tied together with a rough material, most likely rope.
"You know I'm getting pretty sick and tired of talking to a brick wall." Lissa called out in frustration, sounding an awful lot like me. Maybe this whole blood bond thing wasn't just one way. I had taken on her anger in the past and as of recently a stab wound and now she was starting to sound like a rebellious teen ready to whip out a quick verbal wit at a moments notice. "I can hear you breathing you know." She let out an exasperated sigh. "You sound like Darth Vader, not exactly stealth there buddy." Buddy? Okay so she was definitely taking on some of my more colourful aspects.
The sound of footsteps became clearer and more prominent. Well at least she had gotten their attention. Within a second her blind fold was off and she was able for the first time to really see the Moroi who had taken her hostage or whatever it this was. "We were told you were pretty placid but your a pain in the ass."
I grinned in spite of myself and our situation, I was proud of her for standing up for herself. Sure acting like me would probably get her killed but she had a fighting spirit.
Lissa glanced around the the room she was trapped in. It was barely lit but with her vampiric senses she could see perfectly. They were in ..a wine room? No, she squinted into the darkness and stared at the racks of alcohol that was fitted around the room. "You know who I am..." She said turning back to her attackers. "And you hold me hostage in the basement of a bar?"
"You shouldn't have taken her blind fold off." The long haired slender blonde in the corner scolded the dark haired, muscle bound guy in front of Lissa.
"Please my best friend used to be a member of AA, I can smell vodka a mile away...." Lissa paused while I quietly resented her character assassination of my past behaviour. I had been a party girl sure but I was hardly drinking my way to rehab. "And the music, what is that discotec? Oh my god.." She frowned, "80's music?"
Again the proudness reared its beautiful head. She was giving me all of the information that I needed without even knowing it. Lissa was trapped in the basement of some cheap club that couldn't even afford a properly formed working bench, listening to 80's music.
With a jolt I was back in my own body, face to face with Adrian.
"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, his face barely an inch from mine.
"Making sure that you hadn't OD, we've been trying to wake you up for the past ten minutes." He carried a distraught glint in his eye which suggested that he was genuinely worried about me.
"Have they called yet?" I asked jumping up out of my seat and knocking Adrian back slightly. Adrian looked from me hesitantly to Christian and then back to me. "He's not in jail anymore is he?" I shook my head with disbelief. "What did they say exactly?"
"When they had arrived, there were paramedics on the scene. Apparently Dashkov had escaped twenty minutes before they arrived, five guardians dead, nine with life threatening injuries and three unaccounted for." The three unaccounted for were most like the ones on the 'payroll.' Christian continued, "They're on their way back now, they should be here by the end of the hour."
"Well we won't be." I walked to the back of the plane, opened one of the black duffel bags they had left behind and pulled out a pretty shiny silver stake. "We're going hunting."
A/N: Once again I hope you enjoyed this update, if not then I apologise for losing your interest. If so then hopefully a new installment will be up soon. Reviews are my friends, so be friendly :)