Chapter 1: Trial & Error

Rose's POV

It was always a blissful feeling waking up next to Dimitri. I could get hit by a truck and still be happy as long as I was next to him. Even clothed it was blissful. The fact that he was staring at me as I woke up wasn't even creepy. Well, maybe a little.

"What, Comrade?" I sighed.

"You're beautiful when you sleep." Dimitri always seemed to know the right thing to say.

"I don't know if I should take that as a compliment. You also said my hair was beautiful even after I looked like I'd been living in that alleyway for a week." I pointed out.

"It was beautiful." Dimitri smiled.

"You think everything is beautiful." I reminded him.

"And by comparison, you're the most beautiful." He smiled playfully.

I smirked. We could have played the beauty game forever, but we were interrupted by Lissa's other guardians and Hans bursting into my room.

"You know, there's this thing called knocking." I said. "And for all you knew, Belikov and I could've been naked."

"In that case, you would've been arrested naked." Hans shrugged.

"Arrested? For what?" I asked. "It's not like I killed a queen. Oh God, Lissa isn't..."

"Vasilissa isn't dead. But you're under arrest, and she's under suspicion." Hans pulled me up and handcuffed me.

"On what charges?" Dimitri practically growled.

"You're under arrest too, Belikov." Hans said as Lissa's royal guard handcuffed Dimitri.

He could've fought back, but we agreed that was a bad idea after what happened last time either of us was arrested. So Dimitri and I were hauled off to the court room, the room where I was pretty much convicted for murder until we found more evidence. We also found Lissa there. She wasn't in handcuffs, but she wasn't sitting in the seat the queen was supposed to sit in during courtroom situations. She was sitting in one of the seats that a criminal would sit in. With my father and Eddie.

"Rose!" Lissa immediately stood up when she saw me.

I walked closer and let her hug me, not able to hug back in my handcuffs. "What's going on, Old Man?"

"You have a fifty percent chance of going to prison for the rest of your life or being commended as a hero." Abe got straight to the point.

"But why? I haven't done anything! Lately..." I said.

"It's not recent. It's..." Lissa was cut off when our trial started.

Nathan Ivashkov was standing at the front of the courtroom, acting as the announcer. "Let the trial begin."

One of the older Moroi men looked over at Lissa, Dimitri, and I. "Do you have anything to say in your own defense?"

"Aren't we supposed to know what we did first before you ask for our defense?" I asked.

"Did no one tell them what they were charged with?!" The man shouted.

"Vasilissa and Castile have been informed, but we thought there would be time for their lawyer to inform Hathaway and Belikov before the trial started." Hans shrugged.

The man sighed. "Rosemarie Hathaway, Eddie Castile, and Vasilissa Dragomir have been charged with breaking Victor Dashkov out of Tarasov prison. And Rose Hathaway has also been charged with murdering Victor Dashkov as well as her and Dimitri Belikov being charged with aiding and abetting Victor Dashkov. Now, do you have anything to say in your own defense?"

Dimitri looked shocked and my mouth hung open. For once, I didn't know what to say. Not even a witty comeback.

"Sir, Rose would never murder anyone other than a Strigoi. Not even Victor Dashkov." Lissa sounded surprised at the murder part.

The murder was the one thing I hadn't admitted to her yet...

"I have a question." Abe piped up. "Assuming this were all true, why isn't Sonya Karp—er, Tanner, being investigated? She was with them at the time you say this crime happened."

"Mrs. Tanner is being investigated, but unlike the rest of the suspects, she wasn't at Court when we received this news. Someone is getting her now." The man explained.

I couldn't handle the idea of everyone getting in trouble for events that were mostly set up by me. "Look, I admit to all the charges against me. But it was all my idea. I forced Lissa and Eddie to help me get Victor out of prison because he was my last hope to save Dimitri. Victor's illegitimate brother Robert was the one who saved Sonya from being a Strigoi, and I wanted to save Dimitri, so I released Victor and convinced him to find Robert for me. They escaped us in Vegas when we ran into Dimitri, but we got the information we needed to save him..."

"Rose..." Dimitri tried to get me to stop talking.

"No, this is my fault. When we were on the run from all of you we found them again, and they helped us find and save Sonya. They escaped again after we found Jill and they kidnapped her. When we found them, Victor tried to kill me, so I fought back. But because of Spirit's dark qualities leaking from Lissa into me, I went into a blind rage and killed him. I was hysterical afterward, so Dimitri and Sonya hid the body, dropped Robert off somewhere, and gave me a healing charm. This is all my fault, so don't blame them." I ranted.

The people in the courtroom stared at me, wide eyed. It wasn't until then that I realized my mother was among them. Lissa looked shocked by my admission.

"Miss Hathaway... we already had all of this information." The man said.

It was my turn to be shocked again. "How?"

Everyone in our group looked pretty shocked at that.

"You don't know?" The man questioned.

"Know what?" I asked.

"Your life has been made into a series of books. From your point of view." The man stated.