Chapter 13 - The Discovery

Present day - March

Dimitri POV

Something was off. None of this made any sense. "Can you hand me the aerial images again?" I asked Spiridon.

"Here. We cleared that area, there weren't any buildings there. Those images are old or something."

My brows furrowed in concentration. The tracker was still showing the location we were certain that we had cleared on our first week. The aerial images had shown that there was a set of buildings in one of the openings. When we had investigated the area we had spent almost an entire day there making sure we didn't miss anything, and we hadn't found anything.

We were now a few miles away from the area, sitting in the parked car. I was increasingly worried that they had gotten rid of the tracker somehow, or that something else was wrong. We had already reported back to Arthur and were waiting for the rest of the Division to arrive. We had approximately 4 hours before Arthur and the team would arrive. Meanwhile, our plan was to go to the location the tracker was showing. The sun had already set, providing us cover in the darkness, and we had already changed into our black guardian uniforms. I looked at my watch, it was already after eight in the evening.

"Come on, let's get moving." Spiridon said as he opened the car door to get out. We both checked our hand guns and made sure our stakes were in place. We also checked our tranquilizing guns, since we wanted to avoid lethal force whenever it was possible. They were also silent, allowing us to take down the enemy stealthily. I tied my hair back with a leather tie before we started heading towards the direction of the tracker.

"Do you feel it?" I whispered to Spiridon. We were getting closer now, and it had become increasingly difficult to fight an urge to turn around.

"Yes. I don't remember our exact movements in this area the last time we were here. Right now something is pulling me back, something is telling me there's nothing here and nothing's out of the ordinary." he replied quietly.

Compulsion.

We looked at each other and silently moved forward, focused on the tracker. It was keeping us grounded as the pull to turn around became stronger and stronger. Without the tracker I was sure we would have turned around already, but now we had something to focus on. We continued to silently walk until I noticed something on the ground.

"We've reached the ward line now. Proceed with caution," I whispered. As we stepped behind the wards, the pull was suddenly gone. It felt like my mind was clear of the haze again. The ward line must've been infused with compulsion. A part of me was disappointed that we had missed it on our first time here, wasting so much valuable time. I didn't dwell on it though, now was not the time to be distracted.

We kept moving forward silently, listening to the sounds of the night. The forest was still thick, although I could see that it started to clear out ahead of us. I turned to Spiridon and nodded to my right. We started moving towards a slope that would give us a better view of the area ahead of us. I no longer felt anything other than focused, Spiridon my shadow.

When we reached the slope we took cover behind some bushes. For a while we just hid there, observing the area below us, not seeing any movement outside.

We saw an opening in the forest with several buildings on it. The main building was large, larger than the two other Institutions we had found. It was three stories and made of gray stone. From the looks of it, it was originally a mansion of some sort, probably built around the 1950s. From our position we could see the backside of the house. At least I was almost certain of that since there wasn't a driveway on this side.

I focused in on the windows. The lights were still lit making it easy to see inside the building.

On the ground floor to the right I could see into an empty classroom. Through the windows in the middle of the building I could see leather couches, perhaps a living room of some sort that had two glass doors to the stone terrace. The room next to that was an office. Both the living room and the office seemed to be empty. Through the windows to the far left of the building I could see the guardian quarters. I only saw them through three windows, perhaps three rooms, but based on the plain metal beds and contrast to the rest of the interior it was clear what they were. One quick glance towards Spiridon and I knew he had seen the same. That area would be our main target. We needed to incapacitate the guardians before retrieving the children.

I moved my focus up to the second floor, which was smaller than the ground floor. Through the windows to the far left I could see two small boys in a room with bunk beds. Boys dormitory. In the middle, above the living room, it looked like one or two bedrooms of some sort. I saw an older Moroi woman changing into her pajamas in one of them. I quickly scanned to the far right, seeing several girls in a room with pink walls. The girls dormitory. The second floor had a large balcony with two doors on either side of the bedrooms I had spotted the Moroi in.

I wasn't entirely sure what was on the third floor since the lights were off, but it only had two windows and the entire floor was a lot smaller than the second floor, the roof covering most of it.

Around the main building there were several smaller buildings. I glanced at my watch, it was now after nine in the evening. Hopefully they would all be gathered in the main building preparing for the night. I spotted a guardian that came from behind the left side of the building. Was there an entrance there? It would make sense that the guardian quarters had an entrance, but we didn't want to move from our position yet to confirm if it was true. As he seemed to make sure all the smaller buildings were locked, I hoped my earlier assumption would be correct and most of them would be sleeping soon.

I felt my adrenaline flow and I was ready to start the mission, but I knew that we still had at least a couple of hours before the rest of the Division would arrive. We had parted for a moment, and Spiridon had called Arthur earlier explaining about the compulsion and that the coordinates we had sent were correct. So now we were just waiting.

To my surprise a girl and a man emerged through the doors connected to the living room, and he dragged her with quick steps across the terrace and down to the lawn. It looked like the girl and that older man from town, but I wasn't entirely sure. Despite the light that the moon gave us, it was dark outside and their features weren't entirely visible from our hiding spot. We were quite far away but my dhampir hearing could still recognize the sound of painful whimpering. My heart plummeted, what if she was being punished for what we had done?

The bastard threw the girl on the ground and kicked her in her stomach.

"You never do as you're told. I swear to God there's only trouble when it comes to you. I think it's time we finally do something about that" the fucker said as the girl was lying on the ground, curling up in a defensive position.

I recognized that voice immediately. It was him. I was sure that he was the same man who took away Rose from me ten years ago. I was absolutely livid. Before I knew it I silently drew my gun out and was about to aim when Spiridon put a hand on my arm, containing me. After taking a deep breath, I lowered my gun and holstered it, regaining my clarity. We couldn't risk our position. We had to wait for the backup.

For ten years I had waited for this moment. It has haunted my dreams countless times. Ten years of bottled up rage would within a few moments time finally be unleashed. Tonight, he would finally pay.