DPOV.

I jerk the mouse and the black screen jumps awake to show the nightmare.

Ben's only reaction is to inhale deeply as the pictures assault his eyes, after the initial shock he'll start breaking them down and absorbing the facts. He'll move past the marble face that's screaming in agony as if seeing the hell that awaited it. He'll look closer at the mangled limbs, and charred faces to look for clues. Because that's what we did. We didn't have time to revel in the horror of it all.

"The nest was in an abandoned mine. Deep enough into the forest but close enough to the main road for easy prey. Thirty miles south of the school."

"The missing humanities teacher." Ben says, pointing to a corpse.

"All of the missing are there, either Strigoi or dead from their feedings, kept as livestock. Bar two…they could have gotten away before or during the attack."

"Or?" Ben prompts, expanding the image bigger to look at Zmey's signature emblazoned on the wall. It had been drawn in Strigoi blood but most likely with a rag or something alike, not freehand…he wouldn't leave fingerprints as clues. It was simple like a child could draw, a flattened out heart shape for the head, two dots for eyes, and a solid body of blood coiled beneath it. A circle of red to encompass it, a barrier, a symbol of his followers, a circle to protect the snake in the centre.

"Or…they were taken."

"Names?"

"Mikhail Tanner, Guardian posted at the school, and Bree Sanders, Moroi teacher. We don't know what their status is. There isn't any sign… not in the report anyway."

If they are Strigoi they'd have been taken to wrangle information out of, most likely, and then they'd experience what The Circle had shown to be what they considered penance for the undeads crimes. They'd turn up in a worse state than the pictures we are currently looking at. If they are human then it will be even harder to find traces of them.

"Tanner is well experienced and highly skilled and qualified. Sander's teaches Moroi culture and history."

"You think they've been initiated?"

"I think they'll have been given that choice if they're human."

Ben zooms out and the next image assaults the screen. An aerial shot of a corpse, a girl, lying like a broken doll on blackened rocks, her bare legs are powdered with soot where the flesh wasn't charred or blotched with red. Ivika, fourteen years old, deceased. Primary cause: a broken neck. Other injuries include a broken ankle and severe blood loss. I turn away from the screen to remind myself of my surroundings and not to get sucked into the rage that is spitting in my soul.

"Jesus Christ." Ben breathes, getting pulled into it, into emotions, into hell.

I clap his should and he jerks. I take the mouse from him and bring up the short written report. "Voda sent this. His contact reported it and thankfully he isn't petty enough not to send it on."

"We're the only ones that know about this right now? Besides Voda?" Ben asks, snapping back to formality.

"Supposedly." I mutter and step back to let Ben read what I have re-read five times.

"This contact…he just got tipped to go to this place?" Ben asks, scepticism dripping from his voice.

"Again, supposedly. They were sent coordinates and told there was a message to deliver."

"Well, if you want to send a message I suppose you need a messenger." Ben utters, scanning down the rest of the article. "They could know he would be reporting it through to us."

"Victor thinks so. A controlled leak. They aren't trying to go completely public yet… if they wanted to they could have contacted the school."

"So they're saying we know, you know, we're active?" Ben says, closing the files and going back to the images. Those I didn't need to go over again, they were burned into my mind. All the bodies, half-eaten by fire or dismembered.

Ben sits back. "It being a controlled leak, how do we know that our source isn't part of thee source?"

"I thought that. If they know we were inquiring, asking questions and scouting in the eastern regions for more signs of them why not contact us directly? They control what we find so we only know what they want us to know. And how likely is it that they ventured, alone, into an abandoned mine after an anonymous tip? "

Ben hums, his mind running elsewhere, sorting through theories and facts. I hit the keyboard so the file closes.

"This source contacts Voda saying he's been hearing whispers of The Circle, may have leads and suddenly is sent directions to discover this…" Ben weighs out, "They're a pawn or a part of it. What does Victor want to do?"

He straightens up to look at me demanding all of my attention and pulling back the part of my mind that was wandering away.

"We leave for Estonia soon. Victor wants to give Natalie time to pack and organise with Eric, he's going to hold Victor's place at the council meeting."

"Are the girls staying with Rhea?"

"Rhea's seeing Andre across the country to college. The girls will go to campus."

"Natalie is going to freak out."

I grin slightly. "Victor's already started rehearsing how to put it."

"God be with him. So, weapons?"

I nod, "We don't know what we're going to run into so we're not packing lightly."

Ben snatches up a black sports bag from underneath the desk and leads the way over to his other workstation and storage lockers.

"What are we expecting to run into?"

"Victor wants a meeting with the elusive source; we're waiting for a response. Otherwise, he wants to see the site for himself."

He had been unlocking the metal cabinet that hosted our supply of stakes but the key doesn't complete the turn in the lock. Openly distress sits on his features and frame. He isn't as reinforced as Spiridon or I, he was made of material that could yield under emotion. Knowing I could be seeing the images on the screen in life, no longer confined and raw to my senses, in less than seventy-two hours made bile boil in my stomach. But I could control it, shut it down, push it back and become stone. As could Spiridon. But Ben would feel it. Maybe he could wait outside, surveillance, or…

I pull out drawer housing blades and scan them. "We couldn't bring Rose with us for that. Out of the question."

"Rose?" Ben repeats surprised.

"Yes. We can't leave her here and she can't go to the school." I pick up a dirk and it winks at me under the light. Ben opens the locker beside me. "She's coming with us."

Ben passes me a stake. "Out of the frying pan, into the fire and on to an inferno. It's not fair on her at all."

I sheath the dirk and attach it to my belt. "What do you think she knows of life being fair? And she'll hardly find that here."

"I wonder," Ben says as he stocks the bag with wire, rope, stakes and blades. All things we had hidden in our cars. "If she'll break at some point. All that trauma needs an outlet."

I resist the urge to look up at the ceiling as if I'll somehow be able to see through it. "You said it yourself, she was born into fire. It will take a lot more to break her."

And I would be willing to bet he would crack before she did.

I throw up a wall at that train of thought. I didn't want to think of Ben as weaker than the skinny orphan upstairs and I didn't want to think about what would have to lead her to be made of stronger stuff. Knowing all the things Ben has seen, what we have seen and heard and experienced together, I didn't want to think about what Rose has seen.

"Going to the site isn't a good idea."

"I agree." It was a stupid idea. To go poking around a nest not knowing if it was still home to Strigoi that hadn't been fortunate enough to have been put out of their misery by The Circle. We should just call it in anonymously to the Guardian director in the area and let them start investigating, let them put those souls to rest. To think they were still lying there surrounded by rotting Strigoi…it's wrong. I couldn't completely understand why Victor wants to witness it for himself.

"But" Ben sighs. "If there is some magic residue left over we'll hopefully be able to tell how many Moroi they had."

"True." I utter, interest pulling me away from the numbness surrounding the thoughts of the dead. "Fire was obviously used."

"And air. The nest will have been deep down so to keep the fire burning they would have needed the oxygen."

"That amount of control…the precision…" The awe in his train of thought mirrors my own. Tasha had been working for some time on controlling her own element and while she was good there was no way in hell she was close to a field test.

"How do you see this playing out?" Ben suddenly asks after minutes of silence. "Us, The Coalition, a magic-wielding vigilante group and a Strigoi army practically being built across the water."

I check the battery life on the UV stunner, a cheeky little invention of Ben's that could temporally blind an enemy. Enough time to strike or run. I put it into the small compartment of the bag.

"Us? We take it day by day. We'll help Victor organise some sort of order. The magic-wielding vigilante group as you put it could go on scrapping with Strigoi and get wiped out or put a good enough dent in for us to take care of the rest… and the Strigoi. The Strigoi we'll need to move against soon before they take us out in a wave. Unless Nathan's strength is greatly exaggerated which we can all hope for."

"I pray for it." Ben murmurs. "I can finish packing. You should get your head down."

I'm about to argue when I recognise the pulsing behind my eyes. "Are you sure?"

"Positive."

I nod. "Check in with Victor when you're done?"

"Will do."

I pass the slumbering cars, touching the patent black surface of the jag as my mind pulls up another case of business and naturally it has nothing to do with me.

I turn and call back to Ben, "Don't forget. You had a personal day planned."

I hear him sigh from across the garage space and I head for the stairs.

The dining room lights are low embers, creating shadows around the rest of the ground floor. Disorientating to think that beyond the wall of dark glass the world is waking up. Lightly I take the stairs three at a time until I reach the landing. I pause outside her door hearing only the chatter of TV characters. Quietly I turn the hand and poke my head into the room.

They are all asleep. Candy wrappers and empty packets are strewn at the foot of the bed. Lissa and Rose slept facing each other, Rose in the middle and for some reason she's holding what looks like marshmallows to her chest. Natalie is pressed up against Rose's back, one arm flung around her waist and her legs tucked up. I pad into the room and shut off the TV.

I tread back to the doorway and catch Rose watching me under heavy lids. I recall what she'd said earlier about how loud I was. I was going to have up my game. I shut the door with a quiet click and find a smile tugging at my lips as I walk the rest of the hall to Victor's office.

Off to the far left natural light is starting to creep into the hall.

I tap the door with my knuckle before stepping inside. Victor is reclined behind his desk with his cell phone pressed against his ear. Despite the shadows under his eyes, they retain focus as he intently listens to whoever it is on the other end. Spiridon on the other hand is sprawled across his two-seater couch in the corner, not bothering to even pretend like he's reading the file in his hand.

He raises a finger toward me and without looking away from the wall he says, "Before you get all judgy… just don't."

I shouldn't respond but it's very late and he's very irritating. "I wasn't."

"My eyes are on fire." He mutters, "I can literally see this page printed on the wall."

"You've had a long day. Go to bed."

He gestures to Victor with a wave of his hand by way of response. Victor's gaze breaks from the tabletop at the movement but returns to his open notebook. In his free hand, he turns a pen idly over the page hosting a list of names. "I'm hanging tight encase we hit gold."

I lean against the wall and a lazy grin spreads across his face. Over the couch's arm, his boot twitch and I know he's expecting me to ask him to move. I wouldn't dream of giving him the satisfaction, no matter how petty.

No matter how hard she tried, Galina hadn't been able to hammer out the mutual dislike we shared for one and other.

"Thank you, Hans and I apologise again for asking at this hour." Victor says, demanding both our attention. "Whatever you can find out from her. I appreciate it. I know how…tedious she can be."

Spiridon's head had lolled to the side to watch him. "Moira still a complete joy then?"

"She is a drunk." Victor replies, amending Spiridon's tone with the appropriate insult. "We won't get anything comprehensible out of her tonight, morning…and Lucas isn't answering. Understandably. What time is it?"

"It's just gone eight." I answer.

"I think we best we call it quits." Victor says, rising from his chair and craning his neck to the right.

"Instead of asking Madam Chardonnay about names wouldn't it be more effective to show her faces?" Spiridon suggests, remaining horizontal. "Faces make more of an impression."

It takes me a moment to understand what faces he's referring to. Victor's list of names is known Strigoi linked to Nathan. Strigoi who had gained rank in Russia by turning small groups and placing them in different areas but in the past year his groups were spreading out and becoming bigger which is equally unnerving and worrying. Donovan is a name on that list, the name connected to Moira and Lucas Ozera.

Strigoi did not fare well in groups, they are known as nomads or at best they moved in couples because of their volatile nature and predator instincts having them constantly battle for dominance. But mere weeks ago a school, a well-guarded and protected school, had been raided by a pack where they snatched more than they killed. Which meant they weren't simply there for a food source or to show a display of power and supremacy. They were recruiting...until The Circle got there.

Spiridon's proposal to show Moira the images I had just shown to Ben to see if she recognised any of the Strigoi faces. It's possible she might as she and Lucas had spent time in the Eastern regions and we knew they had been looking to make contact with Nathan. But it seemed ridiculous to think they would have come into contact with multiple Strigoi and have been able to walk away from it. Then again, it's equally ridiculous to know they had invited one to their home to meet with their son.

I suppress a shudder.

"I wouldn't want to give her actual reasons to turn to the bottle." Victor sighs, closing his journal and pocketing his phone. Now his head isn't bowed the lights above show that the shadows under his eyes are more prominent than I had realised. Tomorrow I would have to call Alice.

"She's going to make her way through them regardless by the sounds of things." Spiridon says, heaving himself upright. "Faces she'll recognise faster or show them to Lucas. Might be a safer bet."

"I'll think it over in the morning." Victors says, holding up a fist to stifle his yawn.

"This jet setter lifestyle is wearing on me." Spiridon says standing. "Next time I stay at home with the children and playhouse. All cookies and Netflix. Eh?"

Expressionlessly I match his grin. "Goodnight Spiridon." He claps me on the shoulder as he leaves, shutting the door behind him.

"He sees it as challenge." Victor says, sliding his suit jacket back on. Even though he was only going up to his suite he would always remain proper. "Trying to needle a reaction out of you."

"I find needles only mildly uncomfortable."

"I guess you would have to." He says, moving around the desk and nodding toward my neck. "Or you wouldn't be the best at your job."

"You flatter me."

"Dimitri you and I both know I don't flatter unless I have an agenda. I'm just simply stating the obvious."

I'm not really sure how to argue or if it's worth it. He is technically stating the obvious. I am highly ranked and I paid a high price to get there. I threw myself into every challenge and exam in my final year, everything became about training and I went weeks without seeing my family. I closed out the guilt about that, the guilt my mother put on me, the guilt I put on myself after talking to my sister and most importantly, I learned to close out my father's voice goading and attacking me. I learned how to shackle and ward off that ancient thing made of broken and agonised rage.

Then I went to the zones to prove to myself that what was on paper was true.

I could endure and I would not fail.

Victor smiles and I'm knocked out of my thoughts. "Goodnight."

"Sir-" I begin and his hand pauses on the door. Ivika's face looms in my mind, paralysed in fear and agony. I push it away to look him in the eye. "Is going to the site completely necessary? Especially with the time gap, what could we learn? The magic residue will be all but gone and what if some of the nest weren't exterminated and they come back. I think we should call it in. Anonymously of course."

Victor steps away from the door and regards me in such a way that it makes me feel like I'm in school again and Galina is about to point out something fairly obvious.

Obvious if I could have seen past my temper, attitude and Spiridons blue hair.

"Magic becomes less potent yes." Victor tells me, his voice quiet and smooth. "But like calls to like. I will at least be able to tell how many users and what their element is. You boys will look at with strategic eyes and above all, we need to see if anything was left behind."

"Left behind? They wouldn't be that careless."

"Maybe." He returns without an ounce of doubt. "But even the most skilled can make mistakes. Yourself or Spiridon would admit you couldn't parry out of every situation unscathed or without leaving something behind…"

It clicks. "You think they might have left blood. Their own."

He shrugs. "Perhaps or dropped something, left something else. Their activity has remained inside Russia or a little bit further. They occupy Nathan's most heavily populated areas which made us assume they were just vigilantes. They've taken out small groups here and there, sabotaged raids and attacks on towns and of course we know they passed through the Szelsky's home that night." Melancholy coats the room like a blanket being thrown over a light and I lock myself down. Victor's face turns mournful. "I believe they were there to save them but they were just too late."

The Zeklos' were the smallest but the closest of all the royal families. They believed in keeping close ties and actually being family as opposed to just saying so. The night they were slaughtered all sixty-five of them were gathered to celebrate a wedding anniversary. Sixty-five Moroi lost and seventeen of their Guardians, fifteen more unaccounted for. A severe loss for us, a permanent scar in history and sadly that's what it took for people to start organising themselves, to start listening to politicians again.

But no one else recognised The Circle's involvement that night. The dead were discovered with crossed arms and their eyes closed, as close to peace as they could be. There had been candles burned down to stubs, overlooked because it had been a festive evening, nothing out of the ordinary about candles. But in the recovered photographs from forgotten cameras, there were no candles as decoration. In Prince Zeklos recovered possessions no one thought it odd he had a gold coin with the engraving of a serpent.

My throat suddenly feels like there's a vice around it but i force the words out, "You think they may have left something at the site deliberately?"

"Or not deliberately." He shrugs. "Like I said, close quarters, darkness…" And we had been lead toward it by them, it wasn't implausible.

"And I'm also interested in the whys." Victor murmurs. "Why surge so far west? There have been other raids much closer to home, why did Estonia matter?"

I chew it over. "It was a big hit. They hit back to prove a point. They have something to match up to Strigoi power and-"

"And we take them seriously?" Victor smiles and it awakens his tired face. "Yes, perhaps."

He reaches out and opens his study door and I pull at the thread I feel he's just put down. "Or?"

Victor stops in the doorway and he's grinning now like I've amused him. "Or the nest had something important, something they needed."

"Like what?"

Victor flicks the switch on the wall so the lights in the study go out. "I don't know. Maybe they just felt morally obligated. Maybe a member of the nest was a higher up and they took an opportunity to exterminate. Maybe they had an interest in those the Strigoi took." I follow him out into the dim landing and my eyes are drawn naturally to the golden patches of sunlight that are spreading on the carpet outside Ben's bedroom door. "It's going to be hard to stomach but I have to see it for myself."

I thought when I opened the topic I may have been able to dissuade him but now that I know his motivations I know it won't be possible. Not unless we're faced with something that greatly outweighs Victor's suspected advantages and I have a feeling if we are faced with it then it will be too late to backtrack.

I wish Victor goodnight and go down to let Ben know we were all retiring but his voice stops me at the top of the basement steps. His voice is hushed but the tone is clear to pick up on, he's frustrated and he was trying to reason which calculates to an argument. I could only imagine with whom. He'd been gone three weeks which overlapped into two of his personal days and now we were leaving again. It was bound to put added strain onto any relationship and I couldn't but wonder when they'd finally cut the cord.

Love is not always enough.

I grab a bottle of water and head up to my room. On the landing, I briefly think about peeking in on Rose again to see if she'd detect me but the thoughts gone as quickly as it comes.

Inside my room I lock the door, pull off my shirt and toss it in the hamper and more or less collapse onto the seat at the window. I dial my mother's new number and feel nothing at all when it goes to voicemail. I do it three more times before I toss the phone onto the desk. Ben could see it on my call records, everything was recorded on his systems. He'd wonder who I was repeatedly trying to call when the line is blocked. Maybe tomorrow it wouldn't be. Maybe next year.

Maybe.

Dawn is backlighting the mountain peaks in the distance. My favourite time to run, the world is wakening up, everything refreshed and somehow new. In the winter the air is crisp and burned your lungs like a furnace to wake up the body and in the summer it was lazy, dewdrops spotted on every passing leaf, bouncing up from the ground when you pounded along the grass, challenging you when you went uphill as it made the grass slick.

Running cleared my head, and made everything fall away but I couldn't run now. Physically I'm exhausted and it was just a waiting game for my mind to follow suit.

I drop my hand to the floor and blindly search until I come into contact with the smooth cover. I snatch up the book and immediately toss it back to the floor. Across the room, one of the colourful books I own catches my eye and I grin. A Harry Potter book that Viktoria had snuck into my luggage when I first left home. I wasn't sure which of the series it was but maybe Natalie had the others and maybe Rose would like them. Something more creative to sink her jaws into instead of the encyclopaedias and history books.

She did like history. When she wasn't watching that programme about the big family or the other sitcom she had the History Channel on. Or maybe she hadn't branched out yet. I should ask.

I rest my head back and watch the sun break over the mountain peaks, washing light over the treetops. I plan on watching it reach the Oak in the private garden and Natalie's sunflower but my mind eclipses.

I stir and light pierces through my eyelids. Immediately I turn away from the brightness and doing that I become very aware of how stiff my neck had become like it had rusted in a few hours.

I try to knead it, rolling my shoulders and thinking about how Rose had skilfully undone knots with her small hands, strong despite their thinness.

I yank the curtains closed and the dark is a welcome relief. Quiet footsteps pass my door and then distantly an even smaller noise of a door shutting. Ben going to bed.

I check my phone and I'm not surprised to find no missed calls or messages. My mind begins to wander down dark paths so I fall into bed and bury my face into the pillow trying to ward them off. I must be truly exhausted because I tip right over into nothingness.

Carefree laughter presses at the edges of my dreams. Am I dreaming? Viktoria is throwing snowballs but she's much shorter. A warm hand takes my forearm. I look down at babushka and find her smiling up at me and suddenly I can breathe properly again. Strange, I hadn't been aware of the constriction until now, now that I could feel my lungs expanding.

Sonja darts out from behind the treeline and fires a ball in the perfect ark. It explodes over Viktoria's shoulders in white dust.

"Dimka." A voice calls, one I can't place, like a quote I can't quite remember. My mother is standing on the porch holding a plate with a slice of sharlotka cake on its floral surface. I hated those plates. They were a gift from him. I look into my mother's face and she's smiling at me too. I step out of my grandmother's touch and the cold erases her warm prints.

Yes, I am most certainly dreaming.

Viktoria's laughter becomes louder and she spins, sending a snowball toward me at lightning speed.

I jerk up and blearily take in my bedclothes. After a few seconds, my head drops like a rock into my pillow.

The laughter trickles into the room again and I turn my head toward the door.

The girls are awake which meant I should be too. Another peel of laughter and I'm off the bed, kicking off the jeans I slept in and pulling on black jogging bottoms. I pull a navy tee from the drawer, acting more alert than I possibly felt but it's nothing coffee wouldn't fix.

I stride to the door wondering what could be making Rose laugh so much.

Updated: 15/04/2022