Adrian –

"What do you mean you don't have Hendrick's?"

"Sir, this is coach," said a small, redheaded flight attendant.

I grimaced before responding. "Ugh, don't remind me. Just bring me whatever you have then," I told her with a dismissive wave. I was too exhausted to be charming.

She nodded her head and scurried away as fast as her pencil skirt and heels would allow. A part of me felt bad for the way I had treated her. After all, it wasn't her fault that the only two remaining seats on our flight had been in the economy section.

"Adrian," hissed Lissa from the seat next to me. "Do you really think drinking is a good idea?"

I fought the urge to roll my eyes at her. "Gin is always a good idea." I had to fight to keep the irritation I felt welling within me out of my voice.

Healing Lissa had left me drained, and the numbness that I could find only at the bottom of a bottle beckoned to me. I clenched my fists, letting my fingernails dig into my palms. I relished the pain, I needed it. I also needed a cigarette. Whatever imbecile had decided to ban smoking on airplanes had obviously never had to deal with the symptoms of Spirit withdrawal.

I felt a hand clamp down over mine, squeezing reassuringly. My fist slackened, but my palms were now red and dotted with tiny crescent scars.

"Hey," said Lissa, her voice more soothing and less accusatory than before. "I'm sorry; I know how hard this is for you."

I snorted. "I'm sure you do."

I didn't mean to sound bitter; my newly formed bond with Lissa was a side effect of saving her life. I didn't regret what I had done, if I lived a hundred lifetimes, I would save her every time. But knowing that she was in my head was unnerving. It was bad enough that I had to deal with the twisted thoughts that occasionally surfaced in my mind, and now Lissa would too.

Lissa recoiled and sank a little further into her seat, the worn out leather squeaking beneath her as she did.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I'm sorry," I told her, mustering as much sincerity as I could. "That wasn't fair of me to say."

"I get it," she whispered. "You didn't ask for any of this."

"No," I admitted. "I didn't, but neither did you."

Lissa didn't ask for her best friend to run away. She didn't ask for Avery to compel her everyday – to lie and manipulate her – to slowly drive her insane. Lissa didn't ask to die.

"Don't you dare feel sorry for me," she said through tears and gritted teeth. "This is all my fault. How could I have been so blind? She was in love with him and I didn't see it!" She buried her face in the palms of her hands.

I thought about the first time I had ever seen Rose interact with her mentor, I thought about the way their auras had glowed and then reached out for each other. Even if I hadn't been gifted with the ability to view auras, I would have known the truth. Their feelings were written all over their faces, and in the way they had watched each other.

I forced the images from my mind, for my sake and for Lissa's.

"And then I let her leave," said Lissa, her words muffled by her hands. "I should have made her stay, compelled her!"

I shook my head. "Nothing you could have done would have kept Rose away from him," I told her bleakly.

"You don't know that," she snapped. "And now Rose is dead because of me!"

Fear coiled in the pit of my stomach. Lissa was still convinced that Rose was dead, and the thought made me want vomit and scream and punch something all at the same time. I refused to believe her though, not until I had exhausted every lead. I would go to the ends of the Earth if I had to.

Luckily the flight attendant returned with a plastic cup filled with ice just then. She set it down gingerly on the folding tray in front of me and then withdrew a novelty sized bottle from one of her pockets. She poured the contents of the bottle into the cup and offered me a forced smile, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"Thanks," I grumbled.

She turned on her heel and left, probably eager to get away before I could ask her for another drink. I downed the drink in one gulp, cringing at the taste. The liquid burned all the way down, and I knew it would bring no relief.

Lissa made a slight gagging sound. "God, what was that stuff? Battery acid?"

I couldn't help but chuckle. "Worse," I said, setting the cup down on the tray table. "Cheap gin."

Lissa smiled meekly and then turned to gaze out the tiny plane window. There was nothing but endless night sky waiting beyond the thick glass. Somewhere beneath us was the Pacific Ocean. We had driven to Portland from the academy and boarded a plane to Siberia from there. So far we had been pretty lucky in our travels and hadn't run into any problems that couldn't be solved using money and compulsion.

I had called the bank every day since we had escaped the academy, just in case Rose made any withdrawals from the account I set up in her name. She hadn't. Her last known location remained a grocery store in Siberia.

"Do you think they're looking for us?" asked Lissa, her voice sounding far away.

"Probably," I said, staring at the empty cup. "They're at least looking for you. The Academy is probably grateful to be rid of me."

We'd managed to make most of our purchases using cash, and hadn't remained in any one place longer than a few hours. It had meant sleeping in the cramped corvette most nights and compelling unsuspecting humans, but so far Lissa and I had managed to move undetected. That didn't mean we could run forever though. The guardians would eventually catch up with us, which meant we only had a limited amount of time to find Rose.

"Christian probably hates me now." Lissa's voice was a mixture of sadness and regret.

"We can explain everything to him when we come back with Rose. He'll understand," I said, trying to sound cheerful. Lissa didn't need a psychic connection to tell that I wasn't entirely convinced of the truth of my own words. There was a permanent hollowness to my voice these days.

Lissa tried to smile, but every mention of Rose sent her spiraling. She closed her eyes and turned her head away from me, but not before I watched as a few tears escaped her lids and slid down her pale cheeks.

...

I awoke to the sound of the pilot's voice crackling over the speakers, announcing that we had begun our decent into Omsk Tsentralny Airport. My entire body ached from sleeping in the cramped seat, but when I looked over at Lissa I saw that she was wide awake. Dark circles hung beneath her eyes and I knew I didn't need to ask how she had slept. Lissa didn't sleep most nights, and when she did, she would always wake up screaming.

I waited for my eyes to adjust to the golden light that streamed through the window and then brought Lissa's aura into focus. Before the accident, it would have shone like the sun – burning with life. Now it was streaked with black and surged like a storm cloud. Something was wrong, something I couldn't explain. I wasn't sure if the world had ever known a shadow-kissed Spirit user before, or if Lissa was the first of her kind.

She let out a gasp and then pressed her face to the glass. "Oh, Adrian, it's so beautiful," she breathed.

I leaned forward and did my best to peer around her. I caught flashes of green and blue and immediately drew back.

"I thought this place was supposed to be some kind of artic wasteland," I said, sounding confused. "Where are all the polar bears?"

Lissa twisted around to face me, her cheeks filled with color and her eyes bright. "I thought so too, but it's…" she turned back around to glance back out the window. "It's so full of life."

...

After a very heated argument in a language I only partially understood, Lissa and I managed to rent a car from a seedy agency with a booth in the airport. It only took minimal amounts of compulsion, and a wad of cash thrown across the counter. We wove our way through the crowd and into the parking lot with what little luggage we had brought and eventually found the dinged up vehicle that was to be our ride to Baia.

We took turns driving and navigating. I had grown tired of trying to fold and unfold the map each time and had elected to just leave it sprawled across the dashboard. After discovering that neither of us really cared for Russian music, the hours had passed by slowly and in silence, each of us growing more agitated with every passing mile.

We drove well into the night, and continued driving until we reached the outskirts of a small town on our third day of traveling. There was a sign posted on the highway, it was written in Cyrillic, but between Lissa and me, we were able to determine that this was the town Rose had stayed in for a few weeks before she had dropped off of the grid.

"Why do you think she came here?" asked Lissa from the passenger's seat. "Is this where he…Dimitri lived?"

My mouth was dry and my head was throbbing. "Your guess is as good as mine."

I didn't want to admit that that was exactly what I thought. Why else would Rose have come here of all places? Though I still wasn't sure what to expect, especially since the last time I had spoken to Rose in a Spirit dream, she had been dressed up like a blood whore and covered in bite marks.

We eventually parked our rental in front of the building that most resembled a grocery story. Lissa and I tried not to sprint as we made our way into the shop. It didn't take long for us to figure out that this was not a grocery story. The aisles were filled with pill bottles and other medicines.

"Adrian," whispered Lissa. "I think this is a pharmacy, maybe we should ask for directions?" She began walking toward a woman stocking one of the shelves before she had even finished speaking to me. "Excuse me," said Lissa in a polite voice. "Do you speak English?"

The woman turned around and my eyes flew immediately to her stomach; she was pregnant, very pregnant.

She smiled warmly at Lissa and then nodded. "How can I help?" she asked in a thick Russian accent.

"We're looking for the grocery store?" said Lissa, and she had somehow managed to phrase her words like a question.

The woman raised an eyebrow. "You drove all the way to Baia to buy groceries?"

There was something familiar about the woman. She had dark hair and even darker eyes, but I couldn't place her.

"We're looking for our friend, actually." I said, stepping up beside Lissa. "Brown hair, brown eyes, a tad violent but cute as a button."

Something like recognition flickered across the woman's face. "Do you mean Rose?" she asked almost hesitantly.

It took everything in me not to shake the woman by her shoulders. "Yes!" I shouted at the same time that Lissa said. "You know Rose?!"

She looked anxiously over her shoulder before saying, "I think you should maybe come with me."

Ahhhhh I have so many twists planned for this story! Do you guys have any predictions? Thank you all for sticking with this story, and as always, your reviews are greatly appreciated!